Driving home from SJB 10-20 11-07-08

Blogger has blocked this blog since Friday night because it was identified as possibly being a spam blog. Subversive quilt makers, no doubt. Seems to be working now so I will try to catch up.

When I returned from San Juan Bautista and PIQF on October 20th I drove east on CA152, past I-5, to CA99 and then south to CA 158 toward Tehachapi for a visit with Mabel who was down from WA to visit her daughter and family. CA99 is the original north/south route through CA, OR and WA, which I drove many times before I-5 was entirely complete from Mexico to Canada. It is still a good highway, but with more local traffic and more towns and the lovely oleander hedges down the median strip.

Santa Nella was few places to buy gas when the new I-5 opened between Grapevine to the south and (maybe) Manteca to the north. I drove the new highway in 1971 or so when there were signs along the way saying how many hundreds of miles it was to the next available gas. The tower shown above is part of a motel and provides a landmark in the flat central valley. CA152 crosses I-5 just below Santa Nella.
I drove east on CA152 and made the transition to CA 99 South which carries a great deal of agriculture shipping - including timber, grapes, corn, rice, and lots more.
I'd never seen grapevines covered like this. For protection against birds? or beasts?

Now on CA58 I looked out to the right and saw what looked like a housing development, however, it wasn't far enough away.

After I came home and downloaded my pictures I enlarged one and I still don't know what those square things are. Too big to be beehives, to small to be storage sheds - besides what are they doing out in the middle of a huge pasture. Any ideas?

East of Tehachapi the road runs for miles through high desert along the northern border of Edwards Air Force Base where the Space fights land when the weather is bad at Cape Kennedy. This time of year the Rabbit Bush (Chrysothamnus nauseosus) is in bloom all over the West. It was used as a dye plant by the Navajo Indians.

By this time the sun was setting and I stopped to take a photo of the very red sunlight on this closeup of the Rabbit Bush.
When CA58 crosses CA395 I turned south toward home. It was about eight o'clock at my journey's end and I had time to unpack everything from the van and run through the mail before I had to go to bed. Good trip, light traffic.