Heading North

Today, there is not much on our list but driving north in order to reach Davis in the evening. We have about 600 miles left to go, which does not leave us much time to stop somewhere to take a closer look at things, especially since we want to be in Davis on time to take Silke out for a nice dinner. Therefore, we leave Needles at about 9.00 AM and follow the I-40 towards Barstow. At one point, we decide to travel on the historic Route 66 again, which crosses the I-40 but seems to lead quite far a way from the interstate. Again, it pays off to give Route 66 another shot: Just like two days ago, we enjoy the loneliness spreading an atmosphere of adventure and freedom while traveling on it. Yet again, we are rewarded with a scenic drive through the lonesome Mojave Desert, which leads us by several deserted ghost towns and signs of earlier travelers who wrote their names in the sand by using stones or who cast their shoes in trees and bushes along the route. After passing Ludlow the 66 merges into an unpaved dirt road and since we do not really have an off-road car and still have a lot of miles ahead of us today, we switch back to the I-40 to make some miles. On our way the scenery changes from the Mojave Desert into soft hills with yellowish grass and green trees. This kind of scenery stays with us all the way through from Bakersfield to Davis. The closer we come to Davis, the more agriculture we see: herds of cattle, fruit trees, fields that grow crops and cotton. We reach Davis by about 8.30 PM, and have a nice dinner with Silke in "downtown" Davis in Bistro 33 where you can sit comfortably in the garden in front of the restaurant. Afterwards, we stroll a bit through the town and realize that Davis really is a nice little city with cute shops and a good infrastructure, obviously very appealing to students and postdocs alike. Now we can really imagine why Silke decided to stay an additional year in this area.