Thank you Bakersfield for a lovely Hampton Inn and a good night’s sleep. However, when I went out this morning to load the car and hang the bikes on the back all i could smell in your cool morning air was shit. Yes, that’s what I said. No, I’m not talking poop, poo-poo, stinky, poopie, potty, #2, dukie…this was the aroma of pure unadulterated eye-watering barnyard crap!! I honestly looked down at my shoes to see if I’d stepped in some dog poop. But no, it was just the smell of the oil fields in the air. Holy cow…how do these people do it??
Ok, let’s hit the road, please, get out of town, gotta leave. Whew.
The drive up California 99 North was really great. There were wine “trees” and fruit trees everywhere. Miles and miles and miles of agriculture. What a lush and fertile valley. There were also a lot of vacant railcars parked along the side of the highway. They had the most amazing “tags”on the sides of them. Crazy colors and words and designs. Stunning art really. And only as high on the railcars as a person could reach. Sorry no pix…80mph and 3 lanes!
We were only 360 miles from Sacramento and decided to just drive straight thru. After the third Starbux and 2nd gas fill up we needed food. Chef Steve set up the lunch buffet in the passenger’s seat. Using the top of the cooler, he set his lap with chicken salad, spicy hummus, baby carrots, squirt cheese (yes, we still have some left), Waverly wafers and green olives. OMG it was the best lunch ever! We ate for about 50 miles down the road. Until we ran into a terrible traffic block on the highway which meant we creeped for about 30 minutes. It turned out to be a horrible truck accident. I won’t describe what we saw out of respect for whomever was in the truck.
With the help of “Gypsy” the GPS voice we found a shortcut to Sacto that saved us miles. At long last…the reason we had driven 2260 miles in the past 9 days…
Now the fun begins. If you’ve got kids, hug them today and tell them you love them. If THEY have kids, love them all you can and show them they are more important than the moon and the stars.
Yesterday On The Road 