Whitney Drake

Roadtrips are wonderful, especially road trips to Las Vegas. The first time we (Ronnie and I) went, it was just a couple weeks shy of my 21^st birthday. (I’d been to Las Vegas a couple times with my family, but you have to admit, Las Vegas as a kid is an entirely different experience) At the time, we were working at Disneyland and going to school. January was (and still is) the slowest month at the Park. After the hustle and bustle of the holidays, everyone stays home. Consequently, there aren’t many shifts during the week. January was still part of the winter holiday for me, as I never took part in the Winter Semester. So we could take off in the middle of the week, as we did, for Sin City.

The first trip was largely just to see the sights, since I couldn’t gamble. It was during the CES convention, so Las Vegas was packed. We (our group also included three other friends) crammed ourselves into a room at the Travelodge next to Circus Circus. I had a cold, and was taking plenty of medicine to keep myself from making everyone ill. Mostly, we ate. We walked along the Strip, went to the Forum Shops. Mostly, it was the journey that made the trip fun.

Driving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, you have to make a couple stops along the way- either to fill up with gas, to get a bite to eat, use facilities, or just to stretch your legs. This trip, we left our house around 10 am, got some Starbucks and headed off.

It didn’t take long for us to get to Barstow, which is always one of our stops. The first few trips, we stopped at Barstow Station – a run down little cluster of shops with a Taco Bell, Quiznos and McDonald’s thrown in. The most notable part about it is that you dine in the train cars at the McDonald’s. It was where we’d all stopped as kids, so we stopped there, and looked at the candy shop, at the variety of bizarre hot sauces.

This time, we stopped near the outlet mall. There’s a Del Taco, an In n Out, and now a Bob’s Big Boy (“The Big Boy never left, Sir. He still offers quality food at reasonable prices!”). We gassed up, and went to the Del Taco. Barstow’s the home of Del Taco, as they’ll proudly tell you, and the food’s just a little different than the rest of their chain. The chicken soft tacos are larger, for one. The first time we’d stopped there, we made our usual order, and the woman looked at us like we were insane. Five tacos for two people? Then we saw how large they were, and understood. This particular Del Taco is a well oiled machine. They deliver the food to your table, have people monitoring the tables to make sure they’re cleaned promptly, that you get bags to take your excess food in, and that you always have enough hot sauce.

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Originally published at The Fabulous Whitney Drake. You can comment here or there.