Anniversary Trip Day 3

July 26, 2014

Driving & Boxing around Joshua Tree, CA

(Read about day one here)

(Read about day two here)

We woke up with the sun this morning and enjoyed a beautiful sunrise. It's always fun to see the sun set one night and rise the next morning…okay, maybe not always, but we were on vacation and we're all about relishing every moment of our adventures! We stopped at a brand new McDonalds to plan out our route and pick some letterboxes to get on the way. Oh, and to load up on caffeine…because we REALLY needed caffeine. 

We continued West to Apple Valley, hoping to get a box, but once we got there we realized it was going to take more effort than we planned to find it. After giving it a good try anyway, we had to move on. At least we got some great views of Victorville and Apple Valley from this isolated spot!

Curtis always has more dedication to finding a box than I do. After a while, I just need to sit down and enjoy my surroundings. Sometimes his extra effort really pays off and we find a well-hidden box, but unfortunately today that wasn't the case.

Sometimes while Curtis is looking for a box, I try to pretend I'm like a good photographer or something. :) 

It was about 8-9 now, and we still had at least an hour until Desert Hot Springs. Our goal was to make it as early as possible to avoid any similar situations to Thursday. We drove down some very quiet and deserted roads, West to Yucca Valley, and then South to Desert Hot Springs. It was already starting to warm up, so we didn't try for any more boxes along this route.

We did have to make one stop on the way though - we had to return the letterbox that we had forgotten to hide after our little "break down" on Thursday! I must admit I was nervous when we pulled over around the same spot as before, but thank God, there were no issues this time. Above is where we were stranded just 2 days before! (I didn't take a picture that day because we were a little stressed and I wasn't sure I wanted to remember that. Now that everything's fine, we're okay with this story. Lessons learned!) :)

Facing South as Curtis hid the box - those mountains were amazing.

We made it!! We got to see our Giant up close after all! And it was so worth it. Above, you can see how big he is compared to my little 6'3" husband. ;)

Whispering Giant #27. Our 7th find in a year. Here's to many more vacations centered around seeing them all. :)

He was in excellent condition, considering he is around 40 years old!

Someday, we hope to have one of these statues in our front yard, if we ever decide to "settle down". I don't think moving it would be very easy which makes me hesitant to commit to one now. ;)

What a beast.

After this, we drove South to I-10 in search of "cheaper" gas, and upon being successful we headed back up North to Yucca Valley.

So many of these fans! There was like a huge forest of them on either side of the interstate! They will always freak me out.

After arriving in Yucca Valley, we stopped at a visitor's center in search of ideas of things to do and a place where we could enjoy air conditioning. The main reasons we were here was to visit Joshua Tree National Park, and go to another park that is the home of several letterbox series. While today didn't feel as hot as Thursday did, it still didn't feel comfortable enough to spend long amounts of time outside. We tried going after a box, but with the heat and clues that didn't line up to the trail we were on, we gave up rather quickly. We had lunch in Yucca Valley, and after discussing our plans for the evening and the next day, we changed our plans yet again. It was just too hot to enjoy being outside right now, so we went and checked in at our hotel so that we could relax in the air conditioning. (seriously, it's really a special thing when you drive so much without it!) We decided that we would wake up with the sun again tomorrow and try to do all our boxing and touring Joshua Tree in the morning.

Now, I usually just choose something that's cheap with relatively good ratings on Expedia when I look for hotels. Somehow, we ended up at this beautiful place with really nice rooms, AND a sushi/Japanese steakhouse right next door! What's even better than that, is that people staying in the hotel get a discount on their meal. All this made our day so much better! We recommend the Travel Lodge for anyone who's traveling through or staying in the area. :)

We rested for a while until the heat of the afternoon started to fade away, and we drove North to Pioneertown to do a little boxing before dinner.

An awesome Main-street historic village where several movies were filmed. Every Saturday afternoon they have a shoot out or reenactment, but we passed on that today simply because of the heat!

After boxing here and enjoying the sites, we headed back to our hotel. The drive went through a canyon and was just lovely as the sun was starting to set.

Next up, it's time for ANNIVERSARY SUSHI!!

Beautiful and delicious - this restaurant was awesome! It's called the Kimi Grill and we also recommend this for getting your sushi fix in Yucca Valley! :)

Hotel room just feet away from the restaurant? Okay, I think drinking is okay. We tried hot sake for the first time. It was an experience, but I preferred my plum wine!

Oh, and after years of dreaming of getting "the Love Boat" at a Japanese restaurant, we finally did it!! It wasn't filled with sushi, but it still counts ;) Tempura crab & veggies, teriyaki chicken, beef, and vegetables, and salad with miso ginger. The miso ginger was our favorite part - we hadn't been to a sushi restaurant that used that on a vegetable salad rather than yum-yum sauce or ginger dressing. It was surprisingly delicious! (yes, we are huge fans of sushi restaurants and Japanese steakhouses. After working at one, frequenting it for over 4 years, and writing reports about them in high school and college, I know some things about how they work and what they serve, and it makes me feel qualified to "judge them". Being a sushi critic is one of my many dream jobs.) :) Anyway, this was the perfect way to wrap up today!

End Day 2: drove 156 miles, walked about a mile, found 3 letterboxes

Read about day 4 in Joshua Tree here

Anniversary Trip Day 1

July 24, 2014

Destination: Palmdale, CA

We were up bright and early this morning, excited because the vacation we had been planning for so long was finally here! We knew for a long time that we wanted to celebrate our first anniversary "big", and while our plans had changed many times over the past months, we had finally decided on a trip to Santa Barbara, CA and Joshua Tree National Park. What were the deciding factors? Letterboxes. Anyone who's been on Atlas Quest this summer has probably heard about the Summer of Eevil. My husband has been hard at work deciphering clues, and since there aren't any Eevil boxes in Arizona, we needed a chance to go somewhere where we could find a few. We also had heard about an event that took place near Joshua Tree, and knew there were many quality carves and series out there. There also happened to be a Whispering Giant statue on the way, which we HAD to see. We had already been to San Diego and definitely wanted to avoid Los Angeles, and so Santa Barbara seemed like the best option.

We left home around 8:30 that morning. It was already starting to warm up in Tucson, and we were really looking forward to those mid-70 temps on the beach. Of course, we wouldn't be there until the next day, but we'd at least be at higher elevation in California and closer to the sea…that should make it cooler, we hoped.

And so our trip West began. We took the Phoenix bypass route, which is God's greatest gift to mankind, though when we saw signs for "West - Los Angeles, East - Phoenix" we realized that Phoenix is actually the lesser of 2 evils. No offense to anyone in those cities, we just dislike big cities!

Curtis had a good amount of letterboxes to grab on our way. Unfortunately, the rest area for the first was closed. Our first stop was in Quartzsite, AZ. It was around noon when we arrived, and we set out looking for our first box. It was supposed to be easy, but we had trouble finding all the landmarks referenced…not to mention, it was noon and extremely hot with no shade! We gave up after trying longer than we should have. We decided to go try for one more though, and thankfully it was a success.

Stopped here for a box!

After boxing here, we continued driving West. We started to smell something that smelled like rotten eggs or something, and made some jokes on Quartzsite for that. We fueled up the tank before crossing the border, knowing that gas prices could only go up from here!

Crossing the Colorado river!

Check points going into California, but not for those headed into Arizona...

Welcome to California! 

Let's be real here. Everyone says California is sooo great, Arizona's just a hot desert, but may I point out that the majority of Southern California is just like AZ, but with higher taxes and gas prices? It's not all LA and ocean. Still fun to visit the Pacific, and someday we'd love to go to the parks in Northern California, but it might be pretty low on our list of places we want to be stationed with the Navy.

Our first stop in California was Desert Hot Springs to visit Whispering Giant #27. We saw our first Giant statue on our honeymoon, and it seemed appropriate to see another while celebrating our anniversary! As we drove into town, we started noticing the same rotten egg smell as earlier, and wondered if the entire sewage system for all of LA was out here somewhere.

BIGGEST disappointment of the day: The Giant is in a museum (the only attraction in Desert Hot Springs), and the museum is only open 9-1 Wednesdays-Saturdays from May-October! We parked on the side of the road to look and take pictures. But it just wasn't enough. We started scheming then how we could rearrange our travel plans so that we could come back and see it up close.

Heartbreaking "closed" sign!! After this, we went and got back in the car. We realized that while we were outside, it smelled fine, but as soon as we got back into the Yeti the egg smell was back. We realized it was probably something in the engine. It was around 3 in the afternoon, but it felt like it was hotter now than it was in Quartzite at noon.

Now, a little more concerned than before, we headed out for a second box, on a road West of Desert Hot Springs, to middle of nowhere. It required pulling over on the side of the road, and Curtis ran out to  retrieve it, came back, and we logged in. The box had been further than where he thought, so he wanted to drive closer to put it away, but when he tried to start the truck, it didn't turn on! After trying several more times, he went to check out the engine and called his dad. They diagnosed the issue as the water in the battery had evaporated, leaving just the sulfuric acid which was making the egg smell. We called his insurance to get a tow truck. Thanks to letterboxing, we were pretty clear with giving directions, however they didn't understand and even with exact GPS coordinates, they didn't get it. 

But fear not, there are still wonderful people in this world! While we were on hold, a great man pulled over and came out with two large bottles of cold water, and asked what he could do to help. He told us it was 113 degrees and we should NOT be out here! Curtis asked if he could help try to jump start the car to see if it would start, and it did! We thanked him, then headed back to Desert Hot Springs. We debated whether we should go there or head even farther South to Palm Springs since it was a bigger town and we had more chances of finding an Autozone or somewhere to buy a battery. Palm Springs won, and it took just 20 minutes to get into town. 

We drove around for a while, hoping and praying we would come across a place, but finally pulled into a Starbucks to use the internet to help. (Neither of us have smartphones so we were relying on a tablet. We're realizing smartphones have their advantages…and our phones are so dumb, both decided to run out of battery too. Awesome!) I typed in "auto repair" into Google maps and we again started driving around, hoping one could help us out. I now realize I should have searched for "Auto parts" instead, because now it was around 5 and most repair places were closing. Not only was the battery fried, our engine was also overheating at this point. We finally came to an open repair shop, and the owner was kind enough to direct us to an Autozone. Thank God they had what we needed, and Curtis is great with working with his truck, so our battery was replaced in less than a half hour. Whew!

Our concern now was that what if there was something else wrong with the car that caused the water in the battery to drain? Only time would tell if we gave a good organ to a dying car that no one could save. We also wondered if we could have fixed it by pouring water into the old battery…but in heat like this and on a weekend trip, we really didn't want to risk anything else. For now, we were happy that the car started and no longer smelled bad. Another way to look at this is that all this happened around the rush hour, which means we didn't have to drive around LA during what could be the worst possible time…we really don't know what we missed out on, but we were happy to not have to find out! It was busy enough even after 7 for us.

I got Curtis a Coke to help make it the rest of the way. Except they didn't have a "Curtis". Understandable…but how on earth did they not have "Jessica"?!? We had to settle for Alex. :)

We were hoping to get glimpses of the ocean, but LA is just too big. We were still 80 miles away from the Pacific. At least we saw a pretty sunset over mountains.

You might think we're crazy, but even after what we'd been through, boxers gotta box! Pulled over at another "middle-of-nowhere" to get our third box of the day.

Then we jumped back on the interstate, hoping to complete the last leg of the journey to Palmdale, but we missed the exit and had to go another 8 miles before turning around. No big deal…but they were 8 miles uphill, through a construction zone, stop and go traffic, engine started to overheat, couldn't use air conditioning… We were definitely ready to be done with driving for the day!

But God is good, we made it to Palmdale and even got one more box. We had much to be thankful for at the end of the day, but also had to trust that God would keep us safe through the rest of the trip. Yeti is a nice truck and still gets us to where we need to go, we just have to put up with little things…like no air conditioning. No big deal. ;)

End Day 1: About 530 miles driven; found 4 boxes

Read about day 2 in Santa Barbara

Read about day 3 in Yucca Valley

Read about day 4 in Joshua Tree