We were in Fresno and Oakhurst, California, over the past few days, and until this morning it was unbelievably hot. Triple digit hot. But not unbearably hot, because we bore it just fine and even managed to have a lot of fun. Lots of visiting, a trip down memory lane (in an air-conditioned car) as I showed the boys some of my old haunts around the mountains.
We settled around Bass Lake in the middle of Thursday after discovering that it was about fifteen degrees cooler there. Karen and the boys went swimming, and William got to slide, several times, down the stone waterfall at the west end of the lake. There are pictures and video coming, but I don't have the tools to do it from here, so they'll have to wait until I get back to New Hampshire.
Friday was a visiting day in Fresno, with lots of catching up and swapping of stories. And more swimming for the boys in the pool. The heat broke this morning, just in time for our trip back down south.
It's been an interesting trip for me. I've remembered a lot, and I've also seen a lot of changes. And, to tell the truth, I've become more than a little homesick. But I'll drag myself onto a plane at the end of it all and get back into the routine. But I'll be mentally preparing for my return to the West Coast every day.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Adventures In Travel
Here we are. California. It's been a very, very long trip, and not just because of the actual traveling. The adventure started last night when, much to our surprise, the tree across the street caught on fire.
The old, dead tree had been leaning against the power pole for at least a year, but for some reason, perhaps a combination of a slight shift in position and the rain, it began smoking and smoldering yesterday afternoon. We were too busy to notice, though I did wonder as I came home from some pre-travel errands that one of the local fire trucks seemed to have parked itself on the street for no apparent reason.
After the fire truck came a work pickup from the electric company which sat in our old driveway and shone a light at the tree to keep an eye on it, presumably to contact either the fire department if it started a bigger fire, or the line crew if it snapped a line, and waited for the tree crew to arrive. By this time even we had noticed.
So here are we, trying to get ready for a trup for which we have to get out of bed at 2:00 a.m. and wondering if our alarm clocks are going to be reset in the middle of the night by a power outage.
Eventually we had the power outage, but the crew told us beforehand and it was only for five minutes while they got the tree off the line. But that pretty much did it for our plans to go to bed early.
Still, we made it to everything one time, except the car rental counter and that was only because our flight was delayed. But then, so was our car, not because of any malfeasance or incompetence on the part of the rental company, but because they were swamped. By the time we got our car and left, the line was out the door and partway around the block.
I asked the guy at the counter if this was unusual, and he said it was a little unusual. A man with a gift for understatement.
But we got the car, and hightailed it to Carl's Jr. for lunch. They hadn't fed us on the plane and we don't have Carl's Jr. in new Hampshire, so we had a double incentive to go there. After lunch--sorry Burger King but the Rodeo Cheeseburger is but a pale imitation of the original Western Bacon Cheeseburger--we took to the roads of LA, and promptly it a traffic jam on the 405.
That's when I knew for certain. I'm home.
The old, dead tree had been leaning against the power pole for at least a year, but for some reason, perhaps a combination of a slight shift in position and the rain, it began smoking and smoldering yesterday afternoon. We were too busy to notice, though I did wonder as I came home from some pre-travel errands that one of the local fire trucks seemed to have parked itself on the street for no apparent reason.
After the fire truck came a work pickup from the electric company which sat in our old driveway and shone a light at the tree to keep an eye on it, presumably to contact either the fire department if it started a bigger fire, or the line crew if it snapped a line, and waited for the tree crew to arrive. By this time even we had noticed.
So here are we, trying to get ready for a trup for which we have to get out of bed at 2:00 a.m. and wondering if our alarm clocks are going to be reset in the middle of the night by a power outage.
Eventually we had the power outage, but the crew told us beforehand and it was only for five minutes while they got the tree off the line. But that pretty much did it for our plans to go to bed early.
Still, we made it to everything one time, except the car rental counter and that was only because our flight was delayed. But then, so was our car, not because of any malfeasance or incompetence on the part of the rental company, but because they were swamped. By the time we got our car and left, the line was out the door and partway around the block.
I asked the guy at the counter if this was unusual, and he said it was a little unusual. A man with a gift for understatement.
But we got the car, and hightailed it to Carl's Jr. for lunch. They hadn't fed us on the plane and we don't have Carl's Jr. in new Hampshire, so we had a double incentive to go there. After lunch--sorry Burger King but the Rodeo Cheeseburger is but a pale imitation of the original Western Bacon Cheeseburger--we took to the roads of LA, and promptly it a traffic jam on the 405.
That's when I knew for certain. I'm home.
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