Red Hot Red Stick Road Trip Entry # 1

 On July 27th, Bob, Genna and I loaded her stuff and ourselves into her car and started a road trip which would eventually land us in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. This will be her new home for the next five years or so, while she gets her PhD at Louisiana State University.

Baton Rouge is French for Red Stick, and everyone kept telling us how hot our journey would be, hence the name of our adventure: Red Hot Red Stick Road Trip !

The subtitle for this trip was " Where Evolution Meets Mardi Gras." Genna will be getting her degree in evolution and ecology and, of course, Louisiana is famous for it's celebration of Mardi Gras. That is why Genna is wearing her green feather headdress in many of these photos. You may also notice that at times she is holding a large ceramic turtle, his name is Phil. Hopefully you can figure it out from there.

I didn't take my computer on this trip that's why I am getting to this travelogue after the fact.
I want to tell you about the places we stayed, the food we ate and whatever else seems interesting.

 Entry One: Santa Cruz, CA, Winnemucca, NV, Rock Spring WY.

Through most of this trip we did picnic lunches from our little cooler, cheese, crackers, fresh veggies, fruit. This was our first stop, Davis, CA, where Genna got her undergraduate degree at UCD.

As we stopped for a break on Donner Pass, there was a Peep's car on it's way to a trade show in Reno. They actually gave us free Peep's which I am not sure was a good thing ;-)

We spent our first night at the Town House Motel in Winnemucca. It was rated the best motel in town out of 18 on Trip Advisor. It was clean, the owner was friendly and price was good. We even used the swimming pool.














There are a lot of Basque in this area, and a lot of sheep. Genna and Phil had a nice chat with the sheep at the motel.

We used Yelp at lot on this trip to find places to eat. It used to be a scary decision, where to eat in the small towns we stayed in ?? Ask the locals and you could get answers like the one we got in Tonopah, there a gas station attendant told us that to treat herself she went to Burger King, yikes !!

We were very pleased with all the choices we made using Yelp as our guide. In Winnemucca we had a good Mexican dinner at Chihuahua's Grill .

The real score was breakfast the next morning at The Griddle, a cute little breakfast place on the main drag. The owner is third generation local, with Basque and Italian ancestry, she teaches French at the high school during the rest of the year and her grandfather built several large homes in the town.
The menu was amazingly sophisticated for such a small town. I wished we could have eaten lunch  there as well. The service was excellent.
I had great almond French toast with berries.

Back on the the road, we drove through Utah, stopping for photos and reststop break at the Bonneville salt flats, where is was rather windy.

The sky kept getting darker and darker...

until it finally rained like crazy. At least the weather was cooler than we expected.

We drove through Utah into Wyoming.

There were indeed bison behind that fence...

We spent that night in Rock Springs, WY, a rather rough and tumble town.

 Our accommodations were  at the Outlaw Inn, now run by Best Western. The staff were helpful, the room in a rather strange lower floor, which made it feel somewhat cavelike. Since we were only there to sleep this was not a problem, except that this made the wifi a bit sketchy.

Dinner that night was another Yelp recommendations, I can say with some assurance we would never have gone to this place had it not been for the good reviews. It was an Asian bistro called Chopstix.
They served Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese and sushi !!

I love the rocky hillside in the background.

The decor was classic, complete with this huge tank of koi.

We had pad thai, broccoli with beef and another dish I can't recall. The broccoli with beef was very good, the pad thai fine and I am guessing the other dish was good too since it doesn't stick out in my mind. 

Broccoli with beef.

The service was surly but competent and the portions were huge. We ended up taking enough with us to make lunch for the next day. It was great cold !!

Once again it was breakfast that made the biggest impression. The Open Range was part of our hotel, it's dinner reviews were not great which is why we ended up at the Chopstix. Our stay at the motel included breakfast at the Open Range. It was right across an atrium from our room. Bob was the first one to wander over  there at some ungodly hour to get his coffee and some breakfast. He made fast friends with one of the waitresses, so when Genna and I were finally ready eat, we were given special attention. Biscuits and gravy are a common breakfast choice for Bob and Genna when we travel...no accounting for taste ;-) I was told that these were quite good.

We drove that day through Wyoming and down into Colorado on our way to Lakewood. The rain was becoming more constant, in fact there was flooding and hail in Cheyenne. So much for the "red hot" part of the this road trip.

Next up: Colorado with family and Texas with friends.