On the road again…..

Day 90 – Tuesday, September 10

We said goodbye to the beautiful coast this morning, and headed on down the road.  We got an early start, at 6:15am, and it was still dark.  It’s one of the few times we’ve driven in the dark since we left Indy back in June!  We had to travel about 70 miles on an east/west road, which was quite challenging, (a winding, twisty road…lots and lots of curves, steep inclines, and big dropoffs) but it treated us to some wonderful sights along the way.  It was the Redwood Highway—and guess why???  Because the road travelled through a forest, and huge Redwoods popped up along the side of the road.  The road was narrow anyway, and In some places, the tree was so close to the edge of the road it was marked with a reflector.  The trees provided a canopy above the road, and created a peaceful scenic drive as we moved inland toward Interstate 5.  I5 extends south through the entire state of California. Once we hit the interstate, it felt like a huge relief—the road was straight and smooth, and Jim got to engage the cruise control (for the first time in a long, long time!)

We continue to be amazed at the different parts of the country, and how the scenery changes.   Our country is truly beautiful—something to see at every turn.  The wide variety of scenery was an unexpected bonus on this trip.  For the past 90 days, we have enjoyed our travels, and the landscapes.

As we moved through California, we saw Mt. Shasta in the distance.  It had snow on the top, but the temperatures at our level really warmed up (the temp showed 100+ at one point!)  We saw volcanos toward the east—part of the Lassen Volcanic National Park (I didn’t even know there was one).

We were quite a distance west of Yosemite, but we looked for smoke or the smell of smoke from the fires, as we passed the area, and didn’t see any.  We did see a lot of brown…brown hills, brown grass and brown everything. It was quite a contrast to the landscape we just left.  We also saw a lot of agriculture…trucks were full of vegetables…carrots were falling out of one truck, and this one is full of tomatoes.  We were surprised by the lack of population in the northern California area as we passed through.  We went through a large stretch of highway with very few exits, and lots of groves…grapes, and trees (maybe olive trees?), lots of cattle grazing, but little evidence of people.  But…that all changed further south as we approached the LA area.   The highway was completely full of trucks…big trucks, little trucks, every kind of truck you’ve ever seen.  On top of that, there was construction, with lots of orange cones, and a huge incline, which made the trucks have to pull over or go slow with their lights blinking.  It was a little crazy.  The last 100 miles were tense, and we were in the dark again.  It was a big day…we covered about 775 miles!  We made it to just north of LA—Santa Clarita.  We pulled into Valencia RV park for the night, hoping to get a good night sleep and hit the road again tomorrow.