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A Ghost Town, Route 66 And Rock ‘n’ Roll: Yosemite-Barstow-Arizona
It’s not hard to work out why we chose the town of Barstow, and the Route 66 Motel, as our overnight stay on our longest drive of this trip. A Route 66 town? Route 66 Motel? Classic cars preserved in the motel grounds…why wouldn’t you?? The route from Yosemite to Barstow is ridiculously diverse: first the mountains of Yosemite, then the richly verdant fruit farm regions, then the flatlands as the world becomes more and more spartan. Once past Bakersfield, Spanish language signs reappear, something we didn’t see to the same extent in Northern California but are commonplace down here. Over the mountains we go, dropping next into the Mojave…
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From City To Wine Country And On To The Hills
With the delights of San Francisco behind us, we drive into the town of Napa just before lunchtime on that most significant of American days, the fourth of July. Stars and stripes are very much in evidence, bunting and banners adorn the streets and there is a sense of anticipation in the air. The River Napa which flows swiftly through the town and runs directly into San Francisco Bay, once supported heavy industry here, until alternative forms of transport took away its water borne advantages and Napa and its neighbours suffered a downturn. What followed later wasn’t quite the Gold Rush of 1849 but you could conceivably call it the…
