Monday, July 31, 2000

In the morning, we woke up way too early for my tastes, but got on the road to Rialto. The drive was refreshingly uneventful and we arrived to a very foggy LA megaplex. Our main purpose for going to Rialto was to shoot the Wigwam village, which has recently been "refurbished". It now sports yellowish cream colored teepees with a different rainbow colored stripe on each one. If it were in any other context, I would say it was a little tacky. But that is usually a good thing when dealing with these roadside artifacts. We also took time out to get pictures developed and were delighted to find that our motels from the previous day came out very nicely.

We then, headed out for Indio and the location of a famous truck stop called "Clark's Rt 99 truck stop". This stop used to be a main stopping point for many truckers before Interstate 10 bypassed it. We were hoping for a museum and lots of Rt 99 memorabilia but Andy was very satisfied with their great display of Rt 99 postcards. Most of them were from motels and all of them made Andy quite giddy. He enjoyed a short chat with the owner/operator and former truck driver who has his own passion for Rt 99. A plaque on the outside of the building boasts that it was the site where Jimmy Swaggart was busted for soliciting a prostitute. This was a real memorable spot.

After Indio, I snoozed in the back of the car while Andy and Vienna faced the 100-mile trek through the desert to Blythe, CA, our final destination for the day. Our recently fixed A/C was very welcome in the over 100 degree heat. Along the way on I-10 we saw a couple of giant dinosaur statues on the side of the road. Those are always a treat, but to add to it, we then found a great postcard of them at our next stop.

Once we reached Blythe around 3:30 in the afternoon, we were faced with a decision. Would we take the extra time and weather the heat to get further down the road toward Texas? Or, would we pack it in for the day and spend some time by the pool and possibly photograph some nice neon shots in the evening. The lure of the blue water at the local Best Value Motel was too strong for us to resist. We had become temporary residents of Blythe, CA. We enjoyed a nice ice cream at the Courtesy Coffee Shop and took a dip before dinner at the Steaks and Cakes restaurant. The food there was surprisingly good and the service was very efficient. We did take some time to shoot a couple of motels in the evening before watching some tube and having a final refreshment at the local Denny's.