Traveling Through California

Our Pacific Northwest tour ended a few days ago.  We have been traveling in California for two days now.  Just past the Oregon / California border we visited Doug's old stomping grounds of Hilt, CA.  Things have changed a bit since last living here.  The logging community is now gone and there may only be 10 residents left but there still is the  gas station, liquor store, burger dive- all in a wooden shack with the wood stove going full blast!

We pulled in and checked out the big city of Hornbrook where Doug's family once lived.  It isn't doing much better than Hilt, but at least it still is a town, and then hit the road again heading south.  We could see Mt. Shasta as we drove by, but it was a little cloudy so you couldn't see the summit.

Then it was on south to Redding and Red Bluff where we cut off on some other road to get off of I-5 and headed over to Chico and down to Sacramento.  We stopped in Chico to find the Sierra Nevada Brewery and asked a UPS guy for directions.  We stopped and had some beer and fish tacos and then headed on to Sacramento.  Along the way we pulled over and grabbed some walnuts that were dropped off of the trees, and they were pretty good!  

We were looking for an REI to pick up some more water bags, and found that there are some in Roseville, so that is where we headed.  However, once in Sacramento and Roseville, we got so messed up that we couldn't get out of there fast enough.  It turns out that the REI only had one of the bags that we needed and we had to spend the night and find the bags at another store in Folsom the next morning- so we grabbed a hotel and spent the night.

This morning I called a friend, Keith Powers, that lived in the area and he drove us to REI to get our bags and to have breakfast.  Note to self.... order everything on line from here on out!  We saw more turkeys and deer with Keith then we saw in 2000 miles so far!  Also we saw a dead raccoon in front of a vet clinic which we though was pretty ironic, until we saw something even more ironic.... a taxidermy shop next to the vet clinic!  We also saw Folsom Prison, and then hit the road south.

We passed fruit trees of every sort and then vegetable crops as we moved through Lodi, Stockton, and on down to Bakersfield.  Out of Bakersfield on our way to Palm Springs we were surprised to see all of the wind turbines there.  We thought that there were a lot of them from Ellensburg to the Columbia River, but this put that to shame!  There must be thousands of them out here, and they go all the way on in to San Bernidino.

We drove by the Edwards Airforce base where not only has Chuck Yeager flown many test flights but also where the Space Shuttle has landed many a time.  To bad we couldn't see the launch that is suppose to happen in the next fews days.  Guess we won't be able to check that one off the list.  Just past the airforce base was the Borax refinery where 20/20 Mule Team is made (we think).

We are here in Indio for the night where Mark's mom lived for a while as a kid.

Tomorrow we are going to do our final inventory check on supplies and cross the boarder probably around noon.  Looking forward to the paddle!  Stay tuned....