Road Trip: Monterey to Virginia Beach
Day One started at noon - don’t ask - in Monterey, California and ended 488 miles later in a tacky Nevada casino town.
Greetings from Winnemucca, Nevada, where I am peering out of a window in a sub-par motel - rhymes Boliday Pinn Suppress - keeping an eye on my daughter’s car, which is in the parking lot, stuffed with her belongings.
No more room
Winnemucca is a city of 7,396 with 7 casinos and where - according to Wikipedia - a visitor has a 1 in 37 chance of becoming a victim of violent or property crime.
In other words, we’ll be lucky to leave in one piece.
The first hotel we stopped at in this isolated town had no vacancies. As I turned to leave, the desk clerk warned that we should skip most of the other joints with the crackheads and destitute gamblers loitering outside.
So we’re staying in a name-brand motel that costs as much as an oceanfront room in Virginia Beach.
We were especially impressed by the bags of garbage that serve as air fresheners in the hallways. Nice touch!
Not all name-brand motels are clean,.
I have a sinking feeling that this is the future of Norfolk and Portsmouth once casinos gain a toehold. I hope I’m wrong.
Let’s back up.
When my daughter and 5-year-old granddaughter and I left Monterey at lunchtime Monday the temperature was a chilly 59 degrees and we were wearing sweatshirts. Forty-five minutes later we stopped in Gilroy - America’s Garlic Capital, where they sell garlic ice cream - and it was 102.
That’s where we peeled off our outerwear, skipped the frozen delicacies and blew 70 bucks on a tank of gas.
For most of the day the Sierra Nevada Mountains were more like the Smokies, as ashy plumes from forest fires encircled the peaks.
Didn’t something happen here?
Where there’s smoke…
Even with the haze and the overpriced gas, eight hours on the road took us from the blue waters of Monterey Bay through the mountains to the high desert of Nevada where the air cleared long enough to give us some stunning glimpses of LakeTahoe.
Lake Tahoe
America the beautiful! It’s true, you know. I love our country!
The only thing that could mar a cross country road trip is listening to a presidential address on the car radio and hearing Joe Biden blame everyone but himself for the bloody catastrophe unfolding in Afghanistan.
While every sane American wants our troops out of that ungovernable country, Biden’s decision to hastily flee and leave our friends to bloodthirsty barbarians is sickening.
A well-planned exit might have turned the country over to the Taliban but not before we got our people, and Afghans who helped us, out safely.
The trouble with Biden is that he is both unintelligent and pigheaded. A dangerous combination. It was nice that he interrupted his summer vacay to address the nation, but the president’s belligerent stupidity and finger-pointing is tedious.
You know what? I think I’ll ignore current events tomorrow as we leave Winnemucca - hopefully with all our belongings - for Yellowstone National Park, 688 miles away.
