Meandering...: A Short Trip to CA!

Yes, I am fully aware of the fact that we just got to AZ less than three weeks ago but now we are on the road again. We had a busy day yesterday with well issues that delayed laundry, a meeting with a contractor, and prepping the motorhome. About 2:30 Rich asked me how soon I could be ready and what did I think about leaving then rather than wait until morning! It was after 5:00 last evening before laundry was finished, we packed, had everything loaded and drove off. Not bad. By the time we got west of Phoenix it was getting dark.

With a stop for fuel and a quick dinner, we made it to the Flying J Truck Stop in Ehrenberg, AZ which is 1 mile from the California border. This Flying J listed RV parking so we had planned to spend the night there. The lot was packed. There must have been 100 semis parked for the night, either backed into single row spaces or parked two deep in some rows. We can't back up because we are towing a car so we need to pull through a space to eliminate the need to unhook the car. There were only two open spaces, unfortunately they were not one in front of the other but were catty-cornered to each other. Here's my sketch of the incredible maneuver by my hero to get us parked for the night. He serpentined that RV in-between the rear right corner of one truck and the front driver's side of another like it was made of rubber.

This morning I cooked breakfast and we drove straight out of our overnight parking space without having to unhitch. He is an amazing driver! In just a couple of minutes after getting back on I-10 we crossed the Colorado River into California!

There are always beautiful sights, just about everywhere we travel. Here are a couple of shots of the Chocolate Mountains. In the second one are a few of the dead palm trees in Desert Center, CA. I've always been curious about all the palms with their tops lopped off and many more that have fallen and are lying full length on the ground side by side.

An interstate overpass at Cathedral City is decorated with these Gothic shapes that when overlapped are the trim on the dishes we just bought for the new house and also the shape of the openings on the Brooklyn Bridge...love these links!

In the Palm Springs area there are massive wind farms in the mountains on either side of I-10. Even though you now see turbines everywhere, these have been here for years.

From about Palm Springs on the drive seems interminable. There isn't much of interest except for the famous Cabazon Dinosaurs. Coming back from skiing at Big Bear one winter we had stopped and visited the dinosaurs. There's a gift shop inside the belly of Dinny.

We decided that the rest of the drive seems so long because you feel like you're there, since it's just solidly linked town after town, yet there are a lot of miles left to L.A.

As we passed the city, we switched from I-10 to the familiar I-5 and then when we reached the 118 I really felt like we were back home.

The 118 Freeway was part of my commute from our home in Canyon Country to Cal Lutheran University the two years I went to school there in Thousand Oaks. Here a few scenes; what a lovely commute. I never got tired of that drive.