Diane took Max and me a little bit southwest of Barstow to visit a couple of places that caught her eye. Both are on iconic Route 66. Before going to those places, however, it was unanimous that we stop for lunch. Diane pulled off the road so we could search for a likely place to eat. The only place to pull off the road was to the left because to the right are railroad tracks, lots of them, where trains whiz by going 100’s of mph. Some of the places were within a few miles of us but the one that caught her eye was the Cross Eyed Cow Pizza in Oro Grande. She looked up from her search and saw a sign for that restaurant about 100 feet ahead of us, pointing to the buildings directly in front of us. To get there she had to pull onto Route 66, drive about 50 feet, then turn left into the parking lot behind the buildings.

From the parking area we entered through the back door.

Once inside, the young lady behind the counter told us to take a menu and sit anywhere we wanted. So we did, and studied the menu.

The menu was interesting, with lots of choices, and the area on the right (black on white) was a list of everything that’s on the menu. Interesting. We ordered a 12″ pepperoni pizza and 2 root beer floats. Though the place wasn’t full, it took a long time to get our order. Sadly, I failed to take a picture. The pizza was one of the best we’ve had in years, and we ate it all. The floats were pretty awesome, too.

The booth dividers are adorned with butter knives.

Max watched me take every bite and managed to get a number of little bites for being such a good boy. He spent most of his time laying under the table watching everyone else.

After finishing lunch, we went back to the parking lot where I got these photos.

This was actually the highlight of the day because it was so unexpected. Then we proceeded to the locations Diane had on the calendar.

The first place was called Antique Station. From outside the building looks like a strip mall of sorts where there are numerous individual stores, side by side. But. no matter which entrance you choose, you wind up in one huge store that’s full of an amazing amount of stuff and it’s all well-organized.

The second stop was Elmer Long’s Bottle Tree Ranch. Somehow, Elmer either inherited an unlimited supply of bottles he had no use for, or he drinks a lot and needed to misdirect observers away from that thought, he had a momentary flash of insanity and decided to make a device on which he could stick his various bottles to make them look like trees. These might also be what’s left over from when Elmer built the bottle house in Calico. I doubt it, but who knows? I’m pretty sure Elmer didn’t build that house.

Elmer spent a lot of time building his trees and adding the bottles.

And he has a stockpile of jars and bottles to keep him going for a while.

As we were pulling out of the parking lot Diane spied a white box laying in the gravel that was totally out of place. so she stopped and I retrieved it. Turns out it was an unopened pack of Japanese cigarettes unlike anything I’ve ever seen for sale here in the good old USA. Of man interest to us was the warnings they put on the package. All the writing is in Japanese, but they make it very clear that smoking isn’t good for you. They use pictures.

Kind makes you want to light up, sit back, and relax, right? I’ve done a bunch of research trying to find photos of the pack we found but they just aren’t out there. They do, however, have these.

Very graphic, huh?

Moving on, we joined the crowds on Route 66 and headed east back to Barstow. There actually wasn’t very much traffic, so the trip was very pleasant. We stopped at the Walmart Superstore about a mile from the base so Diane could get some essentials, then got back home in time for this.

Drilling in on this photo reveals what appears to be an airborne tornado. That, or it’s an alien elevator created on demand so they can get from one cloud to another. Isn’t nature interesting?

That’s it.