Texas to California: Round Trip Road Trip
We decided to forgo our flights we had bought for the holidays and drive to California instead! We were gone from December 18th - January 2nd and while it was a lot of driving and pretty fast-paced, we got to see some amazing places that we’ve never been to before.
At first we thought canceling our flights and driving would save us some money (flights from Texas to CA for the holidays aren’t cheap!), but between gas, food, and paying for places to stay, we spent a bit more than we thought. Overall, worth it, and we would highly recommend our route! Another important thing to us, was to try and take a different route each way. Over 25 hours in a car is pretty rough, so we wanted to make sure we could do different stops. Below is a map of our complete route and the breakdown is after that!
Total mileage: approx 3,806
Since we were starting our trip mid-December, it was definitely already getting cold. We decided to head more north on the way to Sacramento and then stay south on the way back. We got pretty lucky with weather. Even though it was cold (average highs were 55, lows were 30), we had mostly sunny days.
Day 1: Austin, TX - Abilene State Park, TX, 230 miles, 3 hours 50 minutes
We decided to leave Austin Wednesday evening and take a quick pit stop in Abilene to break up the drive a bit. We didn’t get to Abilene until 10:30pm, and just went to sleep. There were only about four other people staying at the park, but it’s pretty big! We drove around a bit in the morning, and would definitely like to go back and check it out for a weekend trip.
Day 2: Abilene, TX - Albuquerque, NM, 490 miles, 7 hours 30 minutes
Our first long day on the road. We left Abilene early and made the full day drive to Albuquerque. Since we had our dog with us, we tried to plan our lunch stops in towns that had parks that we could get him out to play along the way. We had an AirBnB for the night, which was nice for Rye to be able to stretch his legs a bit while we went to Marble Brewing and then dinner at Farina Pizzeria. We had brunch the next morning at the Grove Cafe & Market. Would recommend all of these places! We really enjoyed them all.
Day 3: Albuquerque, NM - Sedona, AZ, 352 miles, 5 hours 15 minutes
We’ve heard such amazing things about Sedona, we were really excited to check it out. On our way to Sedona, we stopped through the Petrified Forest National Park. We got into town right before sunset, which was great to be able to catch some daylight, beautiful views, and scope out some campsites. We were using iOverlander to find local sites, since a lot of places were closed for the season. While there are plenty of places to off-road and find a private place to park and camp for the night, we ended up staying the night at Manzanita Campground, which was great. We got the last spot since it’s first come first serve. We had dinner that night at Creekside American Bistro, since they had an outdoor patio and dog friendly!
In the morning, we woke up before the sun to try and find a good sunrise spot and start our hikes early. Luckily, a lot of the trails in Sedona are dog friendly. We headed out to Doe Mountain Trailhead, which was an easy 2 mile round trip trail. While we were out that way, we went to the Honanki Heritage Site, which was so cool to see hieroglyphics and ruins. Since we had the truck out of the first road trip, Chris wanted to do some off roading, so we did an off-roading trail to lead us back into town. Then we did a short hike at Cathedral Rock, and went to Wildflower Bread for lunch!
Day 4: Sedona, AZ - Lake Mead, NV (Boulder Beach Campground), 249 miles, 3 hours 50 minutes
Easy driving day, which was nice. We headed to Lake Mead National Park which is right outside of Las Vegas. The Boulder Beach Campground is pretty built up, almost every site is an RV spot, but is totally fine for tent camping. Had a nice campfire and dinner and then checked out the lake in the morning. We were hoping for a better sunrise, but it wasn’t great. From there we drove 15 minutes to the Hoover Dam! And then headed to Death Valley National Park.
Day 5: Lake Mead, NV - Bishop, CA, 317 miles, 5 hours 30 minutes
From Lake Mead into Death Valley National Park (to Stovepipe Wells) is a 3 hour drive, and then from Stovepipe to Bishop is 2.5 hours. Death Valley was awesome. We stopped a few times as we drove through the park and were shocked with how busy is was! We checked out a few vista points and the sand dunes, which were so cool. Would highly recommend going through Death Valley if you have the choice.
On our way to Bishop, we stopped in Alabama Hills, specifically at a place called Movie Road, which is a famous off roading spot that a bunch of famous movies have filmed at! A storm was rolling, so we spent about 45 minutes at Movie Road and then headed into Bishop, which is a cool little ski town. We went to Mountain Rambler Brewing for a beer and dinner, before staying at out Holiday Inn for the night (we really needed to shower).
Day 6: Bishop, CA - Sacramento, CA, 280 miles, 4 hours 50 minutes
Our last day on the road before we were in Sacramento for a few days with family! We did the beautiful drive up the eastern Sierras. Unfortunately, this was our one day that we didn’t have sunny skies, so we didn’t get quite the views we were hoping for. But relatively decent weather for driving through the mountains, so we still made good time!
Day 7 and 8: Stayed in Sacramento, CA
Day 8: Sacramento, CA - Mill Valley, CA, 90 miles, 1 hour 35 minutes
Drove to Mill Valley for Christmas dinner :) Headed out the next morning to San Luis Obispo!
Day 9: Mill Valley, CA - San Luis Obispo, CA, 247 miles, 4 hours
We were so excited to get down to San Luis Obispo and spend some time on the coast. I went to Cal Poly, SLO, so it’s always so fun to get back there and explore the places that bring back so many awesome memories! We spent three days in SLO, stayed at the Cliff’s Resort in Pismo Beach with my parents and sister, wine tasted, hiked, enjoyed Avila Beach… ah… I miss it already.
While we were in Avila Beach, Chris ended up running to Chris Burkard, which was just so cool. They chatted a bit, and Burkard recommended a spot for Chris Wiley to check out for some awesome sunset photos. He had to climb down a cliff via rope, but it was so worth it.
Day 9, 10, 11: In San Luis Obispo, CA
Day 12: San Luis Obispo, CA - Malibu, CA, 146 miles, 3 hours
We said goodbye to family as we continued our trip, heading down the coast. We were hoping to stay on the beach, but due to a recent storm, a lot of the campground were closed due to flooding, or at capacity because a lot of the spots were rained out. We ended up staying at Sycamore Canyon Campground (which was right across the street from the beach) in Point Magu State Park, and it was an awesome site! There was plenty of availability, the spots were a good size, bathrooms and token showers. There’s a trailhead right at the campground that has a few miles of trails through the canyons which we explored a bit in the morning.
Day 13: Malibu, CA - Joshua Tree, CA, 171 miles, 3 hours 5 minutes
Our adventures on the coast came to an end as we headed back east towards Austin. From Sycamore Canyon, we drove to Pioneertown, CA, which is an old western movie set and town outside of Joshua Tree. Over 50 films and television shows were filmed in Pioneertown in the 40s and 50s. Super cool to see and walk around for a bit. From Pioneertown, we drove into Joshua Tree National Park, which was only about 20 minutes. There had been a huge winter storm roll through a few days before, so it was crazy to see Joshua Tree covered in snow! We made it right before sunset, so we explored a bit and found a campground. There are 5 campgrounds within the park that are all first come first serve. We stayed at the Ryan Mountain Campground, which is about 30 minutes inside the park. In the morning, we went down to the Cholla Cactus Garden to watch the sunrise and make coffee. It took another 30 minutes to get out of the park from there, but we detoured to the Pinkham Canyon Road to take the off-roading trail out of the park. It took us 2 hours from the start of the Pinkham Canyon Road to get back to I-10.
Day 14: Joshua Tree, CA - Tucson Mountain Park, AZ, 329 miles, 4 hours 45 minutes
Tucson Mountain Park was a bit of a last minute decision, but it was great! It’s right outside of Saguaro National Park, so the drive into the campground was beautiful. It was probably one of the best sunsets we saw on our trip. There are no wood fires allowed in the campground, which was a bit of a bummer since it was cold, but that just meant we got in bed at 9pm on New Years Eve. We debated doing some exploration within the national park in the morning, but dogs aren’t allowed on any of the trails, and we didn’t want to leave Rye in the car for a few hours when we already had a long drive ahead of us.
Day 15: Tucson, AZ - Fort Stockton, TX, 568 miles, 8 hours
This day was a bit of an accident… we had full intentions of staying at the Franklin Mountains, but by the time we were almost there, we decided to do a few more hours in the car to cut down for our last day of driving in the morning. But unfortunately, winds were about 40 mph outside of Franklin Mountains, so no fires, Balmorhea State Park is closed until Spring 2020, which lead us to be in the middle of West Texas at 8pm with not many options. Whoops. Called an audible and got into Fort Stockton and stayed at the Days Inn for the night. Not the most ideal way to spend our last night on the road, but we did really need to shower, and it made the next days drive only 5 hours rather than the 9 we had originally planned.
Day 16: Fort Stockton, TX - Austin, TX, 337 miles, 5 hours
Our last day on the road… we were ready to get home. It’s a long drive through West Texas, but it was a nice drive to reflect on the trip. How did we last over 50 hours in the car, you may ask? We listened to season 2 of “In The Dark”, an investigative podcast from APM Reports, which we would highly recommend.
