The route was a new one to us for much of the way...and, we love new roads. It took us up a number of amazing mountain passes, each one less green than the previous one, as we dropped eventually into the southern end of the Mojave Desert.
One of the early passes was the Tehachapi. There is a famous old railroad loop there. If a train has at least 85 cars, as the engine snakes around loop, it passes over (or under, depending on its direction) the caboose. We were not lucky enough to see a train there, but did see the loop.
Tehachapi is also noted for a HUGE windmill farm. We have seen big windmill farms before in Palm Springs and outside of San Francisco, but this one put them to shame. It has over 4,500 windmills covering the pass. They can supply power for a year for over 300,000 houses. Very impressive and beautiful.
We pulled off for lunch at The Mad Greek 
diner, something else that Mark got from Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. We expected a rather small diner. Instead, it was a huge place and very crowded. It is very, very tacky with loads of plaster Greek statues outside and inside. I had a good Greek salad and Mark had a gyro. We also split a vanilla milk shake. When we talked with David on the phone, amazingly, he knew the place we were - Baker, California, from Hunter S. Thompson's book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Amazing as we did not make the connection and thought we had never heard of the place.
diner, something else that Mark got from Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. We expected a rather small diner. Instead, it was a huge place and very crowded. It is very, very tacky with loads of plaster Greek statues outside and inside. I had a good Greek salad and Mark had a gyro. We also split a vanilla milk shake. When we talked with David on the phone, amazingly, he knew the place we were - Baker, California, from Hunter S. Thompson's book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Amazing as we did not make the connection and thought we had never heard of the place.We arrived in downtown Las Vegas where we are staying at the Golden Nugget for $39 a night. It is one of the old-time casinos and not on The Strip. Our room is on the 21st floor and has quite an amazing view. We had hoped for warm weather so we could bask by the pool, but it is in the 60's and is really windy. In fact, they closed the pool down because of it. And, northern Mexico also had a 7.2 earthquake, which supposedly was felt in Vegas, although we didn't feel it.
We went out and did a big laundry and then went to a sports bar across the street from our hotel and watched the opening game of the Sox which was in Fenway with the Yankees. It was a nail-biter, but the Sox did pull off a win.
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