Drive South
Yucca Valley 2019
Vancouver can be a beautiful city in the summer, but in the winter it can be a very wet and gloomy place. So we came up with the brilliant idea of avoiding winter for a while, pack the dog up, and drive down to Palm springs for a month, and enjoy some sunshine through the holidays for a change... at least that was the idea.
While searching the VRBO and booking sites for somewhere nice to stay in Palm Springs that we could bring the dog to, we came upon this photo of a house in Yucca Valley. It's just North of Palm Springs in the Yucca Valley hills, close to Joshua Tree National park, has a pool, a dog door, and a fenced yard, they were more than happy for us to do an extended stay there.
I found a roof carrier for a hundred bucks on Facebook Marketplace, and we loaded up the Pathfinder for our long trek to Southern California's desert. We called this plan "Operation Escape Winter"
December 15
Aside from some required rest stops along the way, our first night was in Portland, Oregon. A good 5-6 hours driving, and we ended up at a "nice" dog friendly hotel... that had a tent city at the back of the parking lot. Well the Shilo Inn was convenient off the highway, was happy to have Silva there, even if their free breakfast was kind of lacking. A good nights sleep and we would be back on the road.
December 16
As we drove further South, we would keep switching stations as we lost signals... every hour or so we were switching to a new Christmas Music Station. Although we were trying to escape winter, we weren't escaping Christmas. I was carefully monitoring the weather, as the Oregon passes can get nasty during the winter, but it was ok, and we were only seeing roadside snow at Siskiyou summit (4310 ft), the highest point on the I5. We had seen some rain coming through Washington State, but Oregon and California were mostly clear skies.
We cleared the pass and drove South with Mt Shasta in our view most of the way towards Redding, California.
You know you're in California when...
Our second nights stop was at a nice Sure Stay Inn in Redding, no tent village, and a much nicer breakfast.
December 17
As we make our way closer and closer to our destination we are moving Walmart to Walmart for basic supplies, and although Silva appreciated the breaks, she didn't appreciate the driving portion as much.
We saw some cool sights along the way, classic cars, farmer fields, and every variation of American chain restaurants.
We did our own road trip taste test of most of the major chains we don't have at home... Popeye's, Carl's Jr, Del Taco, and of course California's infamous In-N-Out burger. (disclaimer: we have some at home, but don't eat there)
One last night before our destination, a nice dog friendly hotel in Fresno, California called La Quinta. The free breakfast wasn't quite as good as the night before, but it was more than the first morning of cereal and dry toast.
December 18
Our last stretch and we transition from Freeways to Desert highways. As the roadside becomes sand and cactuses the song "A horse with no name" by America comes on the radio... that's a little creepy.
We are almost at our final destination...