Mom

One hundred eighty seven miles northwest of Indio, CA, we pulled into Mountain View RV Park. We will be spending a few days with my Mom and Sister, and help Sis celebrate her birthday. We rode I 10 west out of Indio, and then took US 210 west through San Bernardino and Redlands to merge with I 5 northbound. For the most part, the highways were very nice except for about 10 miles of I 5 south of Santa Clarita, where the vibration from the potholes and cracks managed to sent one of D's prized plants over the edge of the counter, breaking the pot. This particular plant has been with us all summer, enduring thousands of miles of well used roads, but it only took a half hour on California's I 5 to destroy it!

My sister Becky got a kick out of some of the little gifts that were collected for her!

After two evenings at Mom's house, she and Becky came to the motorhome to have dinner with us. Donna prepared a fantastic feast! You get a sense of how close the sites are in Mountain View Park by looking out the window. In fact, a motorhome newly arriving had difficulty getting into the assigned site and ran into another guests' pickup, breaking a tail-light and denting the pickup bed as well as damaging several baggage doors on the motorhome!

After four wonderful days visiting family, we hit the road towards home in Northern California. We have been following the effects of the current drought on the state, but we were not prepared for what we found in Californias Central Valley. This area is aptly known at the nation's breadbasket, with crops of all description normally grown here. This afternoon we saw tens of thousands of acres of once productive farmland lying fallow. As we passed signs saying "Dams, not Trains", we shook our heads at the folly of the state government that has, and will continue to invest billions of dollars into a high speed rail system that is supposed to connect Sacramento and the Bay Area with Southern California. With a projected final cost (in current dollars) of $68 Billion, and a completion date for Phase I of 2029, the final dream will not be realized for many, many years. Curiously, the project was sold to the public as needing no subsidy, but it receives hundreds of millions of dollars annually in "cap and trade" monies.

Meanwhile, the state is unable to manage it's water resources, cutting hundred year old guaranteed water allotments to farmers willy-nilly, while mandating policies that raise the water prices for many folks ill able to afford the increases. Incomprehensible! Mind the house you live in, Sacramento.

Santa Nella, in the Great Central Valley, is known for three things: Andersen's Pea Soup Restaurant, In-n-Out hamburgers, and Starbucks. That's about it, but since it's a long way to the next stop, Santa Nella has become a thriving stop for travelers going north and south on I 5. It's two hundred and sixty nine miles from our place of the last four nights, and we're tucked into the Santa Nella RV Park. This is a small park designed for overnighters, but is reasonably priced and so-so quiet. It's located two hundred yards from In-n-Out, and a hundred yards from Starbucks. We're happy!