The Penguins have landed

 We’re here! Arrived at 1;00 pm after driving from Bakersfield. We decided to follow the GPS this time and put ourselves completely in her hands. Sometimes that’s a good idea but other times… This time, Honey turned into Voldemort and we drove through congested Los Angeles proper and then at 20K for much of the remaining 160 miles - four lanes of truck traffic as expected but maybe also people trying to get somewhere for New Year’s weekend? Anyway, we made it after receiving the good news that we could get in our place a day early. 

    Once here, Bill said we were like Sbuni and Lia creeping from one room to another checking out the place. Holy retro, batman! Now I know why we are in a gated community. It’s all those valuable antiques from the 70’s that are being protected!

    We met two of our neighbours as we all engaged in a dog rescue - turns out it was sleeping in a neighbour’s house. The full-time residents are a breed unto themselves. And they must see us as strangely polite and quiet but hopefully friendly enough. We all walked back into our places no doubt musing over the exchange. We are going to have fun, see lots and enjoy our stay.

    We are currently sitting outside on our patio sipping wine and watching the sunset over the palm trees.

    More in a few days.

    Happy New Year!

Bougainvillea grows everywhere

A palm tree around the corner

Many miles under our belts...

 Sitting in hotel in Bakersfield after a long boring drive. Nothing but rain, fields of bare almond trees, trucks, and miles.... But we are within a day of our goal! Expect to arrive in Palm Desert tomorrow - a day early so one more night dragging in our bags and we are there!! Nice way to bring in the New Year!

The view most of the day

Sometimes we just couldn't escape them. 

This was a potent reminder of the importance of driving carefully. Where do these go??? 

Mt Shasta

 

  Other than a few short bursts of rain, today (Wednesday) was sunny. The temperature stayed at 8 degrees for much of the day. And Bill kept saying how much better life looks in the sunshine!! 

We sailed through Grant’s Pass with no snow! We had been wondering when we’d come to Shasta Pass and finally the enormous and beautiful mountain appeared. What a stunning and surprising monolith!. But it took Shasta Dam for us to stop our race for Palm Desert. The dam is currently at 1/3 capacity and the shocking sight drew us to the information centre to find out more. 

The security guard answered more of our questions than the interpreters. He assured us the dam can fill in 8 months of rain (I didn’t push him for details of just how that was going to happen). In our fun conversation he also revealed that he has competed in the Calgary Stampede seven times - bull riding. When Bill asked him if he had ever been injured we were treated to details of skin grafts over the broken eye socket, and other assorted injuries. We just never know when the fun is going to happen.

We are in Redding which brings us back on schedule, pulling in just after sunset. Now we are loosely planning the next three days travel. California is one long state!! 

Borders, technology and finding a hotel in the dark....

 Day 1: Smooth sailing until we hit the border. Then two and one-half hours of crawling along with hundreds of other cars to the three open kiosks. We should have known better than to travel on the day after boxing day. The border guard took less that 30 seconds to glance at us then look away while he asked us the required questions (purpose for coming and how long we are staying), type in our response, and wave us off with a sideways “bye”. I figure grey hair really does make us invisible.     

    Half the day gone, we drove through rain, foggy rain, wind-blowing rain and pounding rain. Especially horrible because the highway is full of large transport trucks spewing out oceans of water from all 18 wheels! We saw nothing of Washington as we squinted though foggy windshields.

    Activating our roaming options and booking a room took us to computer hell but what else do you expect. Using our GPS we just kept driving south as one option after another didn’t work out. The first two Comfort Inns were no longer open. The third one had a bell to ring and a sign asking us to be patient with the few employees they could get to come to work….

Finally at 9:00, we slumped into our room in Wilsonville, Oregon, and crashed! 

Penguins join snowbirds

     It is just over three years ago that we returned from Spain. Soon after our return, Europe was in the throes of Covid19 and three months later we were also in lock-down. Any further European travel was impossible. That dark time was accompanied by politics in the US that made travel there, even more unsavoury. 

    Now, with the major political objection aside, we had a chance to escape winter and head south. We have never been away from family for three months but are heading to snowbird country with the possibility of returning mid-holiday for battery-recharging. 

    We’ve stayed in Palm Desert Greens before and while I have still have a problem with gated communities, little white dogs in strollers, and suntanned legs that start at the ankle, I am thrilled to have a chance to walk in the amazing Mohave and Sonoran Desert, go bird-watching in Morongo Canyon, and pick oranges, lemons and grapefruit off the neighbourhood trees.