3rd June 2012

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Homeward leg of our travels in the USA. An early breakfast this morning, 6-30am, to leave our cabins in Tropic at 7.am for Bakersfield some 500 miles away.

The cabins seem to be on a farm as there are animals the other side of reception to us, just before the off this morning I stood a while watching two small kittens playing in the early morning cool. It was about 56F but Tropic is at altitude of 6,309ft above sea level.

We have now realised that whilst doing all these Canyons we have rarely been below 5,000ft.

A long journey some 8 hours of driving mostly across desert on roads that always seemed to stretch to the horizon.

Unlike England the drivers here rarely exceed the speed limit by more than a few miles an hour and we were lucky to find any section twhere you could do 70mph.

It was mainly 65mph limits.

Our route took us across the desert and strainght through Las Vegas. This would normally have been OK but part of the Interstate 15 in Las Vegas was closed so we had to follow the diversion signs. It was now about 11am in the morning and the temperature was 102F in the shade.

It was fun to see the tops of the huge hotels again and know just what they were like inside and the masses of people who were inside gambling their dollars away.

We passed Edwards Air Force Base (where the American Space Shutttle used to land) on the way and saw convoys of military vehicles. We also spotted the famous Mojave desert parking lot for disused civilian planes and tried to get a photograph of them as we passed, but it was not possible from the moving car.

We had a couple of stops at gas stations in the middle of nowwhere to refuel, get coffee, and some food, still managed to complete the journey to our Hotel Rosedale in about 10 hours. lWe had gained an hour leaving Utah as there is a time change between Utah and Nevada, so we arrived in Bakersfield, California at 4pm local time. Bakersfield is only 408ft above sea level the lowest we have been for a couple of weeks.

Arriving at the very comfortable Rosedale Hotel there was a courtyard swimming pool and as it was still very hot we all went to the pool for a swim.

All we have to do now is find a restaurant for our evening meal!!

Found it the Black Angus Steak House at the end of the road 200yds from the Hotel.

Vern and Annette had steaks, Bob had ribs and Dinah had king salmon, we all had excellent meals and drinks, if a little filling. So that should have broken the back of the journey back to San Francisco.

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