December 13, 2012
A restless sleep! By 3:30 AM I just had to go ahead and wake up. Don't you hate when your sleep patterns change. I'm usually a good sleeper but twice on this trip this has happened. So, around 6:30 AM, with coffee brewing, we got up to start another day.
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| Otis is watching me pick the oranges. |
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| Green Mountainous Terrain |
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| Exciting! |
We had another short day of driving ahead. Stopping in Barstow, CA. Before leaving the Orange Grove spot, I was able to pick a huge bag of oranges. This was great! Picked straight from the tree we were parked beside. Then we set sail for ports ahead. Mountainous terrain was in our site. Again, breath taking scenery. It's as good a feeling as a revival at church. I must have taken 75 pictures of mountains. Each time the view was better than the last one. Just as we left Bakersfield those mountains were adorned with green trees. We drove closer to LA and we noticed a difference. It had snowed last night! I was beside myself! Us southerners just don't get to see snow very much. It was beautiful. The closer we got to Barstow, the Mojave Desert came into view. Brown and sandy gravel for miles.
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| Desert land "For Sale" hahahahaha |
As we were driving, I happened to notice a sign along the roadside that said something like "electric car charging station". Michael told me bigger cities are offering them to electric car owners as a convenience. They want to encourage drivers to use alternate sources instead of gas. The cities cover the charges. I thought that was great.
Driving is very different for our drive back. Maybe it's because we just know what to expect or are we just relaxed a little. Whatever, we are actually looking at the things around us.
Oh, we got some great news today! Remember our car in Winslow, AZ? Well.....I didn't want to go into what happened because we both just wanted to enjoy our vacation and not dwell on it. But, the transmission just blew up. We had just been singing The Eagles song, "Take it Easy", because of Winslow. I looked in the rear view camera and the car was smoking behind us. The transmission was burnt and lot of other parts with it. We were in the middle of nowhere. Called our insurance company and they called for a flatbed Ford to tow it in to Winslow Ford. It is a 2012 Ford Escape and only has 31,000 miles on the car. The service manager told us that Ford would not warrant the repairs. Well, he doesn't know my husband. After 3 hrs, we decided to leave it. Michael contacted Ford headquarters directly and today found out that Ford IS going to warrant the repairs. Whew! After 36,000 miles the warranty would have expired. $6000 worth of repairs! Whew again! Persistence pays off. Thank you Michael.
We are staying at the neatest KOA. We actually got here around 2:00 today. Very cute and private. It is the middle of the desert! They have a teepee for a gathering spot complete with tables and a grill. It also has an archery field. Nice playground for kids and a pool. A locomotive on the grounds strictly for decoration. It's just a very nice place. 
Merry Christmas!
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