Shaking the Jello

We left the Merced area this morning with plans to take our usual route - on down 99S to Hwy 58, then east on Hwy 40 to Mojave.

The Merced River at the edge of the RV Park was pretty placid this morning. Forry said he saw a couple of people out there fishing this morning when he got up.

The RV sites here are pretty treed, so no satellite reception. I'm standing by the river bank. The RV in the site in front of me left extremely early this morning.

Today's run was more of the same of yesterday's most of the day. Lots and lots of orchards and lots and lots of vineyards. We did notice one large orchard where the trees were being cut down, but more that had new little trees started in them. There are also many new vineyards started.

As we drove along, we noticed ONE sign that said Highway 58 was closed due to the mud slides of last week. There was no other information about detours or alternative routes. I checked on the internet and found an article in this morning's Los Angeles Times saying it would be closed at least until next week. I tried calling the California DOT and only got a recording. The man at AAA knew it was closed, but wasn't sure where they were re-routing traffic.

Finally, I called the fellow at Sierra Trails RV Park in Mojave where we had planned to spend the night. He said that traffic was being sent down I-5 to Highway 138 and across to Highway 14. So that's the way we went. As we went south, the country changed from vineyards and orchards to pastures and hilly country.

I hadn't asked if Hwy 138 was okay to take an RV on, so I was pleased to see lots of trucks heading up that way into the Tehachapi Mountains. I wished I had counted them, we met several hundred.

We caught a glimpse of Lake Quail off to the north and saw several fishermen.

We even began to see some Joshua trees. I had read somewhere recently that the drought has been very hard on them and these looked a bit tough. Some of the ones we saw later in the Antelope Valley were quite a bit greener looking.

When you go our usual route over Tehachapi Pass, you see many, many big wind turbines. When we went today's way over Tejon Pass, we saw lots of solar panel "farms." The area is a hot bed for California's Clean Energy programs.

It was almost dark when we arrived at Sierra Trails. I was sure glad I still had some kraut ranzas from the MCA sale left to heat up for supper.