THE ARTHUR QUEST BEGINS – August 17, 2020

 

 It’s hard to believe that in just a few weeks our grandson, Arthur will be one year old! Most of our interactions with him during this first year have been of the electronic kind, via FaceTime. We’re very grateful for Andrew’s and Alison’s diligence in making Arthur available to us on an almost daily basis.

 

Even so, there’s nothing like seeing someone in person. Since we haven’t seen Stephanie, Stephan, Alison, Andrew and Arthur in a long time, we had to figure out a way to get it done. Given all the pandemic protocols, we think we’ve worked out a good low-risk way to get across the country in time for Arthur’s first birthday.

 

We’ll do it by automobile and motels until we get to Virginia. Then, we’ll quarantine at Uncle John’s house in Arlington. The details are a little more complicated than that, but this is the general idea.

 

We left Fullerton this morning with the temperature in the sultry 70’s. The sky was still filled with remnants of smoke from the various wildfires burning in the Southland. In fact, the air did not clear up until we were well northeast of Baker, CA. 

 

Our first stop was at Eddie World, near Yermo, CA. The road signs describing it as California’s largest gas station were just too much to pass up. All we really needed was a restroom stop, and I will say they had very clean and roomy facilities in that respect. However, Eddie World left us both wanting more. There really weren’t that many gas pumps (although they had lots of electric vehicle charging stations). Once inside, with Bollywood dance tracks blaring from the store P.A., you are greeted with rows of shelving containing every kind of sugary candy and snack you can imagine. The food court offers similar fare. When you leave Eddie World, you can have both a full gas tank and a super-charged sugar high.

 

Further down the road, and near the Nevada State border, we crested a hill and saw what looked like an space alien outpost out toward the base of Clark Mountain. It turns out that this is the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility. The three extremely bright lights we saw coming across the desert were actually three huge boilers mounted on the top of nearly 500’ towers. A large array of solar mirrors focus intense sunlight onto these boilers in order to produce thermal energy.

 

Next stop was to see Karen’s brother, Mike in Henderson, NV. Mike lives in a very nice community in the Del Webb McDonald Ranch area in the hills overlooking the Las Vegas valley. We only had time for a quick visit, but it was good to see him again.

 

Mike told us a little bit about the very large homes we saw in the hills behind and above his neighborhood. They are part of a community called Ascaya, which had its start in the early 1990’s when a Hong Kong billionaire began buying up the land there. Over the next couple of decades, he blasted a series of terraces into the mountains to make luxury home lots (local residents apparently were very upset at all the dynamite activity). The whole thing came to a halt during the financial meltdown of 2007, and it wasn’t until several years later that homes started getting built on the lots. In terms of size, these homes look more like large commercial buildings than private residences.

 

After saying goodbye to Mike, we continued north on I-15 to St. George, UT. Just before getting there, the outside temperature hit 118 degrees. Karen’s iPad got so hot, it started displaying psychedelic colors on its screen (see screenshot photo below).

 

 

 After a 'no-touch' check in at the Chalet Motel (apparently, all you have to do is have some curly exterior window moldings and you can call your place a chalet), Karen used her new ultra-violet light wand and Clorox wipes to sanitize the room.

It’s nearly 10PM now in St. George and it’s cooled down to 99 degrees. So, I’ll pull up another blanket and say goodnight for now, while Karen works on the maps for tomorrow.

 

Next:  Ogden, UT and other Beehive activities.