For our last day in town – or to be more accurate, out in the desert – Justin’s mom and stepdad thought it would be fun to take a little road trip down the stretch of Route 66 that runs near their house. The historic highway runs from Chicago to Santa Monica and someday I’d love to drive the whole way to see all the interesting curiosities it has to offer. It isn’t maintained as well as it used to be and some spots are bumpy and beat up, but that just adds to the adventure… Sometimes the journey is the destination.
We hit the road pretty early so we could stop for breakfast at an internationally famous diner. The restaurant served as the location for the 1987 German film Bagdad Cafe. If you enjoy slightly strange and eccentric movies, it’s definitely worth watching. And if you enjoy greasy diner food, this place is definitely worth visiting. Believe it or not, it draws tourists in from all over the world, especially Europe.
After we placed our order, I got up to wander around and do some urban exploring. It’s not every day that this Midwest girl is on a former California movie set, so I had to check it out!
They keep a guest book for visitors to sign, domestic and international. The little diner has hosted so many guests through the years, they’ve gone through a stack of books!
There’s even a geocache in the Cafe! Justin’s family introduced me to the high tech game of hide and seek, and we always seem to find a few with them whenever we visit California.
After our breakfast adventure, we jumped on the road again and drove out to Amboy Crater.
From the parking lot, it was about a mile hike out to the crater.
After a steep climb, we were greeted by the view of the beautiful hidden meadow. There’s also a geocache hidden here, and Justin posed proudly near it, before we cleared away the rocks and uncovered the treasure.
Things were going really well… We’d had a great hike out to the crater, a safe climb up, and found the geocache hidden within. We decided to climb all the way up to the ledge and take in the view from on top of the world. As we started up the trail, Justin spoke the fateful words: “Be careful, the rocks are loose. Don’t slip!”
A few seconds later, I took a step, lost my footing and went down hard. I was lucky enough to land on a jagged lava rock, which slammed into my left thigh. It hurt so bad, I couldn’t even scream – it knocked the wind out of me completely.
Witnessing my very ugly and uncoordinated fall from a distance, Justin ran down the hill and his mom ran up to make sure that I hadn’t knocked myself unconscious. Except for a few small scrapes on my hands, there was no blood – just a throbbing pain in my leg. I sat there for a few minutes to catch my breath, and when I was able to speak again, I announced that I was done climbing for the day. They could carry on without me and continue to the top of the crater, but I would not be joining them.
Justin refused to let me quit, so I reluctantly stumbled to my feet and limped up the remainder of the path. When we reached the summit, I was so glad he’d forced me to my feet. The view was breathtaking! I had to have a shot of our triumphant group on top of the crater, so I set up the camera and crawled over before the self timer counted down. Don’t let that smile fool you, I’m in intense pain in the shot below, but it was worth it.
It was a 360 degree view of amazing! On a railroad in the distance, Justin spotted a train with over 100 cars. We figured it was just over a mile long, and it’s still barely visible in the shot below.
When it was time to make the climb down, Justin decided to be daring and walk the entire perimeter of the ledge of the crater. The path got pretty narrow in places with a steep drop, so it made me nervous to watch. I only looked up twice as he made his way down the far side.
When we arrived back at the car, I threw an ice pack on my leg to slow the swelling that had begun. We hit the road again and made a quick pit stop for some ibuprofen. A few pills later, I felt much better.
We continued on to the Kelso Dunes. When I stepped out of the car, I declared that I would hike as long as the pain in my leg allowed, but I had no intention of climbing all the way to the top.
As we hiked up the dunes, the stunning beauty of landscape kept my mind off the pain, so I kept going.
When we were about eighty percent of the way to the summit, I decided that since I’d come this far, it would be silly to stop now. So we took a little break so I could rest for a bit and then continued to the top.
We made it! We conquered the Kelso Dunes! The view was unbelievable… well worth pushing through the pain and all the sand that ended up in our shoes!
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