Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Bakersfield is Shit

Ok, I feel the need to come out of blogging retirement for a public service announcement. I'll tell you, because no one told me: Bakersfield California is awful, and you should not go there. We stopped there for one night because we needed a place to break our journey between Las Vegas and San Luis Obispo. I pretty much thought: "Half way, we've done enough driving, the print size on the map suggests it's a big important place". It seemed as promising as all the other unexpected places we had spent the night at because that was simply where we had arrived. Then we got into town and spent an age driving through different neighbourhoods looking for a place to stay, each area being grotty according to its own individual style. We found a decent enough hotel, eventually, and hid. After a while it became necessary to eat, and we went to the most depressing Wendy's there has ever been. It was like purgatory, filled with benighted souls eating soggy fries with a blank, desperate look in their eyes. It is a testament to Kaia's good qualities that I didn't have a Bakersfield-induced nervous breakdown after one night.

The journey surrounding the Bakersfield black hole of human misery (I may be laying this on a bit thick), took us through the Mojave desert, Joshua trees, fantastic landscape. We bypassed Death Valley, because that didn't sound fun. I've actually been to Death Valley, a long time ago, but in April when the temperature wasn't so bad. I heard that in summer you can fry an egg on the hood of your car, it gets so freaking hot. The clue's in the name really.

Also we passed 'Zzyzx Rd', which has a pretty interesting history if you feel like looking it up on Wikepedia. Among other things, two movies are named after it, including the lowest grossing movie of all time (starring Katherine Heigl from Grey's Anatomy, it earned $30). Also the associated town of Zzyzx has alphabetically the last place name, umm, ever, I think. So that's a random street sign we passed in the Mojave desert.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ah! When did you post this stuff? More about our adventures!

"...my good quatlities." - more like YOUR good qualities *smirk*

12:20 AM, August 04, 2007  
Blogger susie r said...

It's all you, babe... *smirk*

3:45 PM, August 11, 2007  

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