Heading west

Holland Inn and Suites, Morro Bay, California

Tuesday morning

The air had the certain spicy quality it only has close to the ocean when I opened the window a little while ago, a quality that is noticeable even when the smell of the sea itself isn't yet. We spent the night in Morro Bay, a small town along Highway 1, and will follow the coast highway all the way to San Francisco today. The desert is only a distant memory right now, overtaken by the strong presence of this beautiful part of the world. Yet I will return there and try to catch up in my blog writing.

We said goodbye to our friends in Mesa Friday evening in time to deliver our car to the rental agency at the Sky Harbor airport at nine, which was perfect timing: our German friends were due to arrive a little after ten. They were travel weary after a long day and a half of traversing ocean and continent, but happy to have made it without difficulty. It seemed to take forever until we finally had sorted out things at the Hertz rental agency, but at 11:30 we could take possession of our Nissan Quest minivan which would hopefully take us through parts of Arizona and California for the next two weeks. We had taken a long time to decide which vehicle to rent for our group of six. It had to be reasonably comfortable and have enough room for our luggage, but if possible shouldn't use too much gas. After some consideration we decided on a Dodge Grand Caravan – only to find out that this had been replaced by this brand new, beautiful Nissan. We are still very happy with it after three days of travel; it has all we need and drives very well.

By the time we reached our Super 8 hotel on Black Canyon Freeway it was just after midnight. The reception was still busy: Spring Break time sees an incredible influx of people in Phoenix. We were too wound up to sleep, of course, the way it is when old friends meet after a period of time, ready to embark on an adventure together.

Saturday morning began like so many other spring mornings in the Arizona desert: sunny and bright, and already warm. We joined the stream of travellers heading west on busy I10. Our German crew marvelled at the amount of pickups, campers and big SUVs on the road – doesn't anybody drive a small car in north America? 'Everything's bigger here', has been a frequent commentary. It's true – including the scale of the landscape features, from plains to hills to mountains. We left the Interstate and headed northwestward on a smaller highway. The biggest dairy farm I have ever seen stretches for mile after mile along this highway, one open barn with black and white cows after the next. Irrigation makes it possible to produce the feed for this enormous herd. We had taken this road on the way back to Phoenix last year and thought this would impress our German friends as well, as it did, of course.

In Parker we stocked up on cheese and bread, wine and beer, and headed for a park we had noticed on the way in to stretch our legs and have lunch. Shade was sparse, and the midday sun hot. We also filled up on gas, reasoning that it would be cheaper here in Arizona than it would be in California which we would enter just a few miles ahead.

At the state border we were asked if we had any fruit or vegetables with us and could deny this with a good conscience: we had shared the bounty of oranges and grapefruit we had brought from Aaron and Evelyn's at our lunch break. No more self picked oranges from now on – but they are delicious here even if bought in a store, we have since found out.

Traffic had slowed down to a trickle now, and we could stop along the road for a closer inspection of the wildflowers along the side of the highway. Prominent here were the beautiful white dune evening primrose with its yellow stamens and the pink sand verbena. A brief rain shower, surely a rarity in this area, had washed off the dust and freshened the air. In front of us stretched miles and miles of desert, rising towards a chain of mountains in the distance. The sky had started to clear. Our holiday had truly begun.