Odyssey Continued

When last I left you, I was writing from Los Angeles (or thereabouts); however, I never related the story of getting there from Amarillo. And believe me, there is some story to be had!

Amarillo to Winslow

On Tuesday the 17th, we woke early and were on the road for what was a short day (thankfully, after the marathon of the day before). We soon hit the New Mexico state line, and stopped at the New Mexico Welcome Center. Over the years, I’ve become an expert on rest areas, and state welcome centers are generally among the best in a given state (I must say, though, that Missouri sure seems to have some of the best rest areas in the country, along I-70). New Mexico’s I-40 welcome center, just west of the Texas state line, rates an A+ for comfort, design, information and friendliness of staff. My wife practically had to drag me out of there!

So we continued on toward Winslow, Arizona, our stop for the evening, as I mentioned earlier. The trip was uneventful, and for the most part, the scenery is pretty wonderful (as long as you like deserts; however, the Painted Desert is definitely a pretty one!).

We arrived in Winslow by mid-afternoon, and were able to check into our room at La Posada Hotel right away. La Posada was everything we expected, and more. The rooms were quaint, and each is named for a famous former guest. We had the Jimmy Doolittle room, which was great, as this airpower pioneer is a hero I’ve long admired. The grounds are extremely lovely, and inside is a veritable museum (although some of the artwork is a bit…different).

Since we had some time before dinner, we thought we’d take a stroll down to the kitschy, Route 66 part of Winslow.¹ We even took each other’s pictures on that street corner made famous by The Eagles:

Well, I’m standin’ on a corner
In Winslow, Arizona
And such a fine sight to see
It’s a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford
Slowin’ down to take a look at me.
Come on, baby,
don’t say maybe
I gotta know if your sweet love
is gonna save me.

We resisted the temptation to buy any of the souvenirs at either of two corner shops (in the picture, I’m facing one; the other is across the street to my right), figuring our pictures would suffice.

Dinner: The Turquoise Room at La Posada

That evening, we enjoyed one of the five best meals I’ve ever had, at La Posada’s Turquoise Room restaurant (and please don’t ask me to list the other four!). In the photo below, our table would be the one in the lower left corner (you can see the tops of two chairs, but not the table).

To follow along, check out the dinner menu. We started with an appetizer, Piki Bread with Hopi Hummus.² (I was also enjoying an absolutely fantastic draft lager from a local microbrewery; unfortunately, the name escapes me. From now on, I shall be taking copious notes on food and drink for this blog!)³

For her entrée, Mrs. K selected a sampler (not shown on the linked menu), which included a range-raised quail and a chili of bison, elk, lamb (and probably armadillo as well, according to her brother!), and tamale in a cactus flower, while I thoroughly enjoyed the Locally Raised Churro Lamb Sampler Platter, with a glass of MonteVina Syra. One thing we decided even before we arrived was that we would be saving room for dessert! From the menu:

Yeah, it was that good! Can’t think of a better way for us to have celebrated our thirty-fifth wedding anniversary (even if it was a few days early).

Winslow to Los Angeles

Wednesday, we woke early, decided to pass on breakfast at La Posada (next time, though!), and got on the road by about 7 AM. We had hopes of pulling into my brother-in-law’s driveway about 3:30 PM. Alas, the best-laid plans…

The previous day, we’d encountered a fairly strong crosswind while driving across New Mexico and the eastern half of Arizona. As we approached Flagstaff, it seemed to me that somehow our front-end alignment had gotten out of whack, and I mentioned to my wife that in addition to an oil change (which our Toyota service hadn’t provided when we asked them to make the ‘92 Previa “road-trip-worthy”), I would have the alignment checked in L.A.⁴

Flagstaff is a beautiful city, and is the gateway to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. It’s also home to Northern Arizona University. It was drizzly as we climbed the mountain toward Flagstaff, and we actually had some rain in and around the city. As we headed down the western side of the mountain, however, the drizzle tapered off and we had one of those gorgeous days you get in the desert, with the bluest of skies, peppered with big, white, fluffy clouds.

As we continued on toward Kingman, I noted again how much the van seemed to be pulling to the left. Suddenly, I heard (and felt!) a loud “THWAP-WHACK-WHACK”. Of course, I was in the left lane, having just passed a semi. I immediately took my foot off the gas, checked behind me to be sure I could safely cross to the right, and hit the button for the emergency flashers. I pulled over as quickly and safely as possible, stopped, and we got out to survey the damage.

Surprisingly, all four tires were fully inflated. Even more surprisingly, and somewhat frighteningly, the tread from the left-front tire was wrapped around the axle and CV boot! It had completely separated from the tire at 75 mph. No, the tire was not a retread. It was, however, about 6 years old, and for the past 3 years has gotten little use, except for sitting out in South Dakota’s fickle, and extreme, weather. More on the implications of that in a bit. My first concern was that none of the cables (brake, power steering) going to the wheel were damaged; fortunately, everything appeared to be just fine.

Now, I was praying the (full-size) spare was inflated; it was! We had the tire changed in 30 minutes, which wasn’t too bad considering we’d never had to change a tire on the Previa before. On pins and needles, we drove the last 20 miles into Kingman.

Our trusty Garmin GPS had located a Goodyear tire dealer right off the first Kingman exit, so we went there. The manager took one look at the tires and noted they had considerable sidewall rot from exposure to weather over the years. He also noted that tires should generally be replaced about every 5 years, to preclude just the sort of thing that happened to us.

When I’d taken the van in a couple weeks before our trip, to ensure everything was in good shape, I’d made a point of asking the service manager to (a) check the tires to be sure they were up to a 5,000 mile trip; (b) replace the wiper blades. They didn’t do (b), and as for (a): He assured me we had “plenty of tread.” Well, duh! The tread went all the way to Lincoln’s chin!⁵ 

I had been fully prepared to replace the tires, had Toyota indicated it might be advisable. So it was with no hesitation that we had the Goodyear folks put on four new tires, while we walked over to a nearby Denny’s for a belated breakfast. In the meantime, my wife phoned our sister-in-law to let her know our arrival would probably be closer to 4:30 that afternoon.

An hour after arriving in Kingman, we were on our way again, and I was feeling a lot better than I had the last 20 miles, believe me! Soon, we hit the California state line near Needles. As beautiful as the Painted Desert is, the desert between Needles and Barstow is some of the most Godforsaken land in the US. And I’ve seen a LOT of the US!

About an hour past Needles, we stopped at a rest area (California, you get a C-minus on I-40, and I’m being generous). As I pulled into the space, I heard and felt my tire hit something; sounded like it was under the left-front tire. Oh great! I got out and pulled out a large, black plastic piece of automobile, but no way to tell if it was from the Previa, or had possibly been there and I hadn’t seen it. It had a gash in one side, which may have been caused by me hitting it; it was also hollow, and had some dust or dirt inside. So who knows how long it had lain there? I took a quick look under the van, but couldn’t see any immediate indication that it came from the Previa. The absence of fluid on the ground (other than AC condensation) was encouraging at least.

I went to the restroom and came back to the van. I asked Mrs. K to watch under the vehicle as I started it and backed out, to see if there was any evidence that we had a problem. As I turned on the engine…a dash light came on and didn’t go out. Now what? “Check engine oil.” Well, first I checked the owner’s manual: This indicator, if it comes on and stays on, indicates oil level may be low; check and add oil if needed. Okay, fine, we may be a quart low. Not a problem; I can get a quart at the next service station. Still, it was unsettling. As for the mysterious plastic piece: We tossed it in the back, and decided to see what happened if we drove on.

After about a minute, the oil light went off, and nothing else untoward happened as we continued our trek. At the next opportunity, we pulled off at a convenience store, and I added a quart of oil. The oil light didn’t re-illuminate, so I was completely confident we were fine there.

Eventually (about 4 PM.) we approached L.A. Throughout the entire trip to this point, I’d driven within a couple miles of the posted speed limits (generally, 70 or 75 mph on the Interstate). As we got closer to Los Angeles, the speed limit dropped to 65, then 60, and finally down to 55. I tried to follow suit…and was passed by everyone! Understand, I basically learned to drive on the freeways of Los Angeles, and I still feel comfortable there, but things have changed—a lot!—over the past 30 years or so since I’ve driven there regularly.

We saw a diamond lane (carpool lane, 2 or more people per vehicle) and since we had quite a ways to go on that particular freeway, I hopped into it. Soon, I was doing 70, then 75, and cars were still exiting the lane, passing me, then reentering. Sorry, I was NOT going to do 80 there.

As we moved from one interchange to another, the gas gauge started dropping (the last quarter tank in the Previa seemingly disappears in 15 minutes of driving). My wife was concerned that we might not have enough to reach Bill’s house. However, gas stations are not as ubiquitous at every off-ramp as you might think.

Eventually, we got off the freeway—at 5 PM., the height of rush-hour—in Bell. Yeah, right where I wanted to be, in the barrios. Not. It is an unfortunate fact of life in East Los Angeles that anglos aren’t completely welcome in all parts of that area of L.A. However, we drove around, finally using the GPS to locate a gas station, got $10 worth, and pressed on.

We were perhaps 15 minutes from my brother-in-law’s at the time; I think we could have made it, but hated to chance running out of gas on the freeway. We pulled up at Bill and Cookie’s driveway at 6:00 PM. on the dot. The first thing Mrs. K said to her brother was, “Steve needs a beer.” (He brews his own, and it’s excellent!)

Tomorrow: Odyssey Concluded