6/24/2011
Left Phoenix around 6:30. We had planned to leave at 5:30 but had a little snafu when I couldn’t find my debit card, so we went back to my sister’s place (said goodbye to her twice!) and went through everything I had brought into her place before finding it in my backpack.
My mom is a lovely traveling companion. We both wished we weren’t so much on a time schedule and could stop by and look at the places we were passing – Joshua Tree National Park, the Santa Anita Racetrack, the Rose Bowl, wineries, lakes. We must have passed at least a dozen signs warning us to not run into construction workers, even though we only passed one group of construction workers in the 12 hour drive. Mom wondered how much money California spent on those signs, warning people to not run into workers when there was no road construction in sight.
We arrived in Mercer around 6:50, which is where Mom would catch the bus and go back to Tucson. I arrived in Groveland around 8:00 pm. One of the roads that mapquest took me on was a backcountry road with no striping that winded around hills where cows grazed in fields around lakes. Pretty cool.
My friend Sam lives in a “gated community” in Groveland where pretty much the entire community lives. She shares a house with her birding partner, who is currently out of town. The town is basically a one-road town, really cute, with pine trees and green vegetation all over the place. At night frogs call, and I want to track one down.
Too bad you didn't have time to stop at Joshua Tree, I've yet to go and would have loved to see photos and hear about it.. Oh well, maybe on your return trip. I have to agree with your mom. I bet California could save a ton of money if it repealed (or maybe even just amended) some of its laws that were started with good intent, but the reality turned out much different. You'll no doubt see Proposition 65 stickers stating that the labeled thing is known to cause cancer. They are everywhere down there. Started as consumers have the right to know if something is bad for them. Sounds good to me as a consumer. Problem is, because their definition of known to cause cancer is pretty broad, so almost everything is labeled with that warning. Very costly and in the end, somewhat ridiculous, as the consumer stops paying attention to them.
ReplyDeleteThen again that is a lot of California, costly and somewhat ridiculous. :)
Without a doubt there are some really great things about California too, Take the redwood forests for one. Where you are going for two. I can't wait to hear about the Kings!