Moving On

We will depart Travis on Thursday morning and probably stay in Bakersfield that night before going on to the Salton Sea on Friday. We have been busy and entertained while here with the arrival of both the Spragues and the Ouseys within an hour of each other last Friday.

Gary and Carolyn took a look at the map and decided it was a pretty short side trip to hop off I-5 and come visit, so it has been the six of us. There is lots of available space here in the Famcamp so we had no problem getting either the Spragues or the Ouseys in.

In addition to spending time visiting, Karen and I have worked on a small quilting project, and this afternoon she, Rod, and I went to see Invictus which was an awesome movie. But then I don't think any of Morgan Freeman's movies are anything but awesome.

The six of us toured the Jelly Belly factory here in Fairfield this week, and it was an OK tour, but they offer a complete tour down on the floor of the production area for a mere $47/person. We settled for the free tour which gave us an overhead perspective on the entire operation. Every one of those little jelly beans exits the production line with Jelly Belly stamped on it!! The gift shop had a plethora of Jelly Belly items, all appropriately over-priced, but I did purchase a two-pound bag of Belly Flops, the misshapen beans that didn't make it out the door.

Finally this morning I am seeing some blue sky and sunshine which is a vast improvement over the past five or six days of fog, damp, and dank. And the weather is bound to get more appealing as we move south.

Cooper has been a happy trooper. We weren't sure he was going to live to travel with us this year, but he has rallied and is as happy as a clam having the both of us confined to an area where he can keep an eye on us. He hardly looks fifteen when we take him outside and he bounds around in the grass looking for rabbits. He has lived to hunt another day.

There is an interesting phenomenon next door. A man arrived with a small older used motor home last weekend, and obviously knew NOTHING about an RV, but he said it was something he had always wanted to do, and had just purchased and driven this over from someone's driveway in the area.

Now it is the middle of the week, and I have gotten a glimpse of a woman and at least one teenager, but the curtains stay drawn and there is very limited activity except for the car being away during the day. My speculation is that it is a family who has lost their home, and have had to succumb to living in a small RV. No one goes out on their maiden voyage in an old RV they know nothing about just for the fun of it during the winter months. I will probably never know the entire story since we are leaving tomorrow. Ken helped him set up when he first arrived.

I need to get on with laundry and shopping to be ready to leave tomorrow. Ciao.