At most today we only had a 4 hour drive had we taken the most direct route and there was no traffic to contend with. Neither of those things panned out. We ate breakfast at the famous 5th Street Bistro. Well, maybe not that famous. The 5th Street Bistro is the restaurant in the Holiday Inn in Palmdale, where we stayed the night before. We got two complimentary breakfasts upon checkin last night. Not bad for a free night! We were probably ready to hit the road by 9:30 after eating breakfast but our pictures for yesterday’s blog took forever to upload and we didn’t get moving until after 10.
Last night we read someplace that 98.1 was the radio station to listen to while in the Palmdale/Barstow area because that station lets you know all of the happenings in the desert area. We like listening to these local stations, besides playing music, they also tell you about everything going on in the area. They often even have a portion of the hour set aside for lost and found pets announcements! While we were listening to the radio we heard them saying that their yellow prize van was set up someplace in the area and they were giving away two free tickets to one of the Vegas buffets to anyone who stopped by the van, while supplies lasted. The station was not completely clear so all we heard was yellow van, buffet tickets and Field Rd between something and something else. We had no idea where Field Rd. was so we put it into our GPS. A few hits came up and we went toward the one in Barstow, where the station was broadcasting from. After taking us about 10 minutes off of the interstate to basically a farm, we knew we were in the wrong place. We then put Field Rd. into the GPS again and found one right off the interstate halfway between Barstow, CA and Baker, CA. This made more sense as it was just off the interstate and it was on the way to Vegas. So we headed in that direction. When we were about 10 miles away traffic got really bad then just about stopped. Just the day before we had been talking about some of Chris’s shortcuts or alternative ways around jams and how they are often not shortcuts at all and they usually end up costing us more time. We knew there was an accident ahead of us because we saw it on waze (app for phone). What we didn’t know was how bad it was. We were feet from an exit, luckily in the right lane when several police cars and ambulances (yes, several) passed by on the left shoulder. We knew this was probably not a minor accident so we eased our way into the line of traffic that was exiting and we did the same. We took note of a double long Fed Ex tractor trailer on the highway so that we would know if our “shortcut” would be better or not. Once you get away from the East coast most interstates have service roads as they call them, or roads that parallel the interstate on both sides, usually only feet away. When we got off we immediately got onto the service road and passed about a mile of stopped traffic. We could see the accident scene as we went by; it was bad involving several cars off the road, at least one of them crushed almost beyond recognition. We got back on the interstate the next exit up and continued on our way. We arrived at the Field Rd. exit about 10 minutes later. You couldn’t miss the prize van. The exit was in the middle of nowhere and really we could see no reason to even put an exit here other than if someone wanted to make a U-turn on the interstate. We approached the van only to learn he had no more buffet tickets but instead he had tickets to see Andrew Dice Clay that very night in Vegas or tickets to see Myth Busters on Saturday or Sunday night. We took the Dice Clay tickets. We later found out that our tickets were valued at $50 each! We also got a bag with other radio station type stuff, stickers, Vegas coupons, etc. About the same time we heard on the radio that the interstate was now closed and would be for at least an hour and an airship was called. We were VERY glad we exited when we did. Had the ambulance not gone by when it did we would probably be sitting in traffic with everyone else. While we were sitting in the middle of nowhere at the Field Rd. exit, we turned on our geocaching app to see what might be around. We were surprised to see there was one hidden at this exit so we went for it. The clue said “stand on your tire”. We thought this meant the geocache was hidden in a discarded tire on the side of the road. Instead it meant literally, stand on your tire of your car, to retrieve this cache. It was attached to a string inside of a sign post. The sign post was close to 10 feet high. As we were getting ready to leave we thought, hey, let’s see what else they will give us. When we first arrived at the prize van we parked in such a way that the guy there would not see our car. So we pulled up again, once again parking so he couldn’t see us, and this time Jackie walked up to the van. She got tickets to see MythBusters. Unfortunately we could not use them but Chris remembered that a co-worker was supposed to arrive on Saturday so he called her. As it turned out she was not in Vegas, she could not get cheap tickets, but her friend was there with her husband. She gave us her friend’s hotel information and cell phone number so we could get the tickets to her. At least they would not go to waste!
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| If you look closely you can see people standing around |
After getting our free tickets we headed back to Barstow because we had wanted to see a couple of sights that we had seen on roadsideamerica.com. We started driving back and since we had just driven past the accident site only about a half hour before we knew the southbound lanes were backed up in addition to the northbound lanes being closed. We got off two exits before the accident and drove down the access road past all of the stopped traffic. When we got to the accident scene, the road was still closed and now an hour after we got off to avoid the exit, we saw our Fed Ex truck still sitting pretty much where we left it. We could also see lots of people outside of their cars just standing around on the interstate. When we got back to Barstow we visited three roadsideamerica sites. The first was called “Killer Cars”. Apparently some guy welded guns and spikes and all kinds of things to cars to look like something out of Mad Max. The guy died several years ago and most of the cars are now gone from the property but a few remained which we took pictures of. The second stop was a McDonald’s at Barstow Station in Barstow. Barstow has long been a railroading town and the McDonalds actually occupied several old passenger cars. The golden arches out front were even on an old water tower. The third stop was the least impressive. Outside of the firehouse was supposedly the world’s largest fire helmet. We took a picture but we didn’t think it was all that impressive.
After leaving Barstow (I-15 was now open) we headed east on I-40 to avoid I-15. I-15 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas on a Friday is like the Garden State Parkway on a Friday. Avoid it. Throw in a fatal accident and you are in for a long trip. We took I-40 east because it would be more scenic. We would get off about 80 miles east of Barstow and head northeast through the desert where we would pick up I-15 only 40 or so miles from Vegas. There was very little traffic on the interstate and when we exited there was even less. We exited at another road where you could easily drive 100 without anyone caring. We only drove around 80 because the road conditions would not allow much more. We didn’t pass a single car for the first 20 or so miles. We made a stop at something called Kelso Depot, which is really in the middle of nowhere. We saw maybe 6 other cars there so that place was very busy. We then headed east along another back road. Jackie did not like this road at all because instead of bridges over the stream beds the road just went up and down like a rollercoaster. At 80 mph you almost catch air. We started coming into a bunch of Joshua Trees which made the ride more tolerable. We stopped and took some pictures of the trees before heading off again. After that we did not stop again until Vegas.
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| The view from I-40 |
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| Hard to drive 55 |
Since we did not actually have tickets for the Dice Man, but instead we had a voucher for tickets, we decided to head to the Riviera Casino and Hotel before going to our hotel. This way we could trade in our voucher for tickets. We parked in the 20 minute check-in only spaces and Chris ran in to find the box office. He found it easily but it took 30 minutes to walk to and from the box office from the car. They make you walk through the entire casino to get to the box office. This is how Vegas makes money. We then made one more stop, at the Mirage, where Chris’s co-workers’ friend was staying. We “parked” in the valet line while Jackie ran in and dropped off the tickets with the bell desk. Jackie returned to the car just as the valets were making Chris move the car so things worked out pretty well. Finally we made our way to our hotel. We stayed at the Candlewood Suites instead of on the strip because weekend rates on the Strip are very expensive. The same room we paid $48 for last week was $200 on a Friday. We checked into the hotel, showered, packed our stuff for the flight on Saturday, then got ready to go see Dice Clay.
Our show did not start until 10:30. Seating was supposed to start at 10. We arrived at the Starlight Theater, got a couple of beers and got in line. We also got popcorn which was a mistake because popcorn makes you thirsty and nothing refreshes your thirst more than beer. So we had another beer while waiting in line. Finally, a little before 11, they let us in. The show started right away, there was an opening act, then Dice Clay’s children, who are now grown, got on stage with their band for a song or two, then Dice Clay got on stage. To say it was a raunchy show would be an understatement. We knew there would be rough language. The sign even warned us: Notice, this show contains crude and confrontational language. Confrontational language? Never heard that term before but it sounds like fun! It was a good show. If you ever go see him DO NOT, we repeat, DO NOT sit in the front row. He even said it himself during the show that the people in the front often end up leaving feeling very bad for themselves.
After seeing the show we headed up to Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas to see the Fremont Street Experience. Fremont Street is a huge city block where a giant light show is projected on the ceiling every night hourly. Tonight they had Kiss playing with videos projecting overhead. The light show was pretty cool and there were a lot of interesting people around. After the Kiss show finished we called it a night. We got back to our hotel a little after 1:30 and went to bed.
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