Today we turned back to the east, starting our return home.  I drove first, and hadn’t asked exactly what route we would take to our next stop, but trusted it would be a different one from our last visit here.   So we headed out cross-country, through the Mojave Desert.  We took California Route 62 past Twentynine Palms and turned north on North Amboy Road.  To our east we passed Bristol Dry Lake, a large salt flat, where there is a large salt evaporator operation.

We saw on the map that we would be near the Amboy Crater, but for some reason we thought it was a meteor crater, not a volcano.   As we drove on we saw the black lava close to the road, and looking further out we could see a short, fat, black cone – definitely a volcano.  Designated a National Natural Landmark, the Amboy Crater is an extinct North American cinder cone volcano.  It’s estimated to be 79,000 years old, and rises above a 27 square mile lava field.  It stands out distinctly in the surrounding desert.

As we passed the crater, we came up to one of the most famous blue highways, Route 66.  As we turned east onto 66, we were right at Roy’s Café, quite a surprise for me, since I didn’t realize that we would be on Route 66, let alone that we would see one of my favorite 30’s roadside buildings.  What a treat!

Due to recent rains, only a small portion of Route 66 was open today, so we headed north to hook up with I-40.