Valley Of Nuts

Recently, I had my very first week of vacation. 2 ½ years later, finally. And I was so excited. But what was I going to do with a whole week? Sure, we had stuff to do. Catherine's birthday fell in there. There were school appointments and house cleaning. But I wanted to get away. So we decided to go visiting.

My step mom Vicki made the girls and I some absolutely beautiful quilts. And we had never even met. Plus she was having a bad few weeks with her father passing away and we thought she could use some cheering up. So off we were to Fresno.

I had never been that far north in California before. Once I drove to Santa Barbara along the coast. But I never drove through the central valley before. So it was going to be an adventure.

We left on a Sunday morning. We drove through Adelanto. That is pretty much a whole lot of nothing. Except we passed what I believe was an elaborate Buddist Temple. It looked so cool. I would have stopped to take a picture, but there were tons of cars and Asian people.

Next we came to a huge solar plant. From far away it looked like a big blue lake. But when we got close we found out what it really was. We are to dopey to have taken a picture.

Next we came to a giant flat nothing called Boron. Ask Carolynn what comes from Boron and gets your whites the whitest. (See Carolynn's Science Project.) Then more and more desert and nothing and boring. OMG!

We were starting to get hungry. So we stopped in Tehachapi. We ate lunch at the McDonald's. Then we started up over the mountains. It was so brown.

I bet it looks really pretty in the spring when it's all green and lush. As we came over the hills, the brown began giving way to green. We saw cows and fields. Then trees. Fields and fields of trees. Pistachio trees, almond trees, citrus trees. And the eucalyptus trees that lined the highway were huge.

There were lots of little farm towns along the way. Eventually we came through Bakersfield. You know, that was kind of a crummy looking city. Or maybe it was just the parts you could see from the freeway. After that came more little farm towns. More cows. More nuts.

Finally, when I didn't think my behind could take much more, we were in Fresno. Fresno is a pretty little town. Except for it's not that little. My dad says it is the 4th largest city in California. But it doesn't feel like a big city.

My dad's house was nice.The front living room is the girliest room I ever saw. Pink walls. Doilies. Lace. Candles. A cute little bear wearing a dress. It was like a tea party. It was awesome. The bathroom matched. It had beaded towels. And there was a pink sewing room too. I loved it.

Vicki was so nice. She made excellent spaghetti. Very similar to mine. Amazingly enough, we had the same teacher.

My dad was happy to see us. He and Vicki bought Catherine the largest amount of scrap booking supplies ever. She had a great time making a few pages.Carolynn got to play with my dad's cool camera.(P.S. I want a camera like that.) She took lots of pictures. My dad has a cool collection of bonsai trees in his back yard. She took quite a few pictures of them.

On Monday, my dad so kindly fixed my car. The battery had started to wear and I wanted to replace it before I drove it back. And since he's the dad, he wanted to do it. So I let him.

He took us to breakfast at this cute little breakfast place. They had excellent food. We just hung around the house for the the day. David got to check out my dad's stingray. (Which is clearly the coolest car he has ever been in.) I took Carolynn to buy some scrap booking stuff of her own. And she bought none. Because she is nuts. But I did buy some cool stuff for Catherine. And for me.

Vicki had to work, but when she got home, we went to dinner and this funny little lumber jack restaurant. The food was good. They put dried cranberries and walnuts on their dinner salad. Which I thought was weird. That is until I ate it. It was awesome. I actually made it at home a few days later. The only thing that was bad was it was freaking cold in there. If your food is good, but you need a parka to eat there, you might want to think about that.

After that we had to head home. The drive home was so peaceful. It was so dark in the fields and you could see every star. You could also smell every cow. Not as awesome, but not something we get at home.

Anyway, it was a fun adventure. Carolynn said it was great to find people who get our humor. Where did she think I got it from?