Upin' Down the Road

So, yesterday we entered California by the back door. We left St. George, drove without pausing in Las Vegas and headed down highway 95 through a place called CalNevAri (I'm not making that up) along a two lane road with a sign "Dips next 23 miles" (also not making that up). They weren't kidding. The road was a 55mph rollercoaster.

Mom almost smiled. She said, “Maybe they left the dips in the road to make up for the fact that there is nothing to look at”. She tried to amuse herself by taking pictures of the occasional cactus.

"Needles is kind of at the point of Nevada, on the California side" is how Mom read the map. And that's where we found it, in the late afternoon sun, alongside Interstate 40, on the old Route 66, like a desolate moonscape implanted with gas stations and fast food places. First impression--Needles is U-G-L-Y.