Sunny Topical (sic) California

It’s an interesting sate. First of all it’s big but secondly it is extreme on many levels. Texas may think they’ve got intense covered but California gives it a run for its money. I wrote about the food production last year – over the top miles of orchards and huge stockyards. This year we were more aware of how compartmentalized the agriculture is. We stopped in Corning on the way south and Corning is all about olives. Other places grow almonds, or pistachios, or raisins (grapes not for wine if you can imagine that!). Some other places only grow windmills for power or oil wells.

A dense strip of oil wells in the midst of cattle country.

Thousands of windmills outside Palm Springs

Even the desert is sectioned off. In Joshua Tree National Park the various flora thrive in specific places. Cholla (choya) in one area, Joshua Trees somewhere else. It’s tidy but odd. Population is the most odd. There are MILLIONS of people and cars in the Los Angeles and San Francisco neighbourhoods and absolute emptiness for miles and miles and miles.

Cholla Garden

Some Mormon settler thought this looked liked Joshua raising his arms in prayer

Big Horn Sheep! (Joshua Tree NP)

Big Sur

Big vista

Big surf (San Simeon)

Big mountain (Shasta)

big impact (Skull Rock, Joshua Tree NP)

It was 19 and 20 degrees as we traveled along, and then 6 as storms ripped through if we were high enough up. There are rain forests and deserts, ocean and alps, dead flat plains and rolling hills. And that’s not even mentioning the politics and the demographics. It is a fascinating place which means neither good nor bad – just fascinating. We went out to the coast and traveled down route 1 from Monterey to Cambria stopping at San Simeon where William Randolph Hearst built his castle. I was shocked to realize that there is virtually nothing at Big Sur. Who hasn't heard about the place and there is nothing more there than you would find on Hornby Island or Sombrio Beach.
We are in Palm Desert for a few days enjoying a family reunion and seeing the sights.

Paul, Cathy, Jim, me Pete, Betty