Driving to LHC 11-25-08

I drove from Placentia to Lake Havasu City on Tuesday, it is about a 4-1/2 hour drive for me. Rain had been predicted and I did drive through some showers. When I arrived in LHC there was heavy rain for a few minutes, then light rain and alternating during the night. The rain is always welcome (as long as it isn't a cloud burst) since the entire Southwest is experiencing years of drought

I-15 is the highway to Las Vegas and before the price of gas escalated there was almost always heavy traffic, but I left my house at 11:30am and had light traffic the entire way. After going over Cajon Pass into the high desert the highway goes through several small towns all elbow to elbow, but after Apple Valley the terrain changes to high desert. The "dividing line" is the Mojave River which rarely has much water in it anymore as it is all drained off up stream for agriculture and people. Black willows growing thickly in the riverbed send their roots down deep for the underground water and this time of year they are turning to autumn colors. I had already turned east toward Arizona when I actually pulled off the road and stopped to take some pictures of the sunlight streaming through the broken clouds. But by the time I was ready to click, the clouds had moved and the view wasn't as impressive. Also, the camera doesn't have a polarizing filter, therefore the clouds sort of just smush together. When I looked at all the images on the computer I noticed how much trash there is everywhere. I suppose I am so accustomed to seeing it that I don't usually notice. There are teams that pick up along the shoulders, but then the wind blows, making everything fly along until hitting some barrier.

Since I travel alone so much there aren't many people in my pictures. So, every now and then, when I stop along the way, I take picture of the van showing the license plate just to prove I was really there. For those people who worry about me stopping along the road I'll point out that I was at the intersection of I-10 and Kelbaker Road, rather a well traveled desert road that provides access to the Mojave National Preserve. There are also some people who take a nostalgic trip following the old Highway 66 which winds along the same route as I-40 in this area and can be accessed from Kelbaker Rd.

In between broken clouds came great baggy grey clouds moving east, just collecting themselves to dump their load - possibly on LHC during the night on Tuesday. Beyond the mountains is California where they had an abundance of rain Tuesday night through Wednesday night. When I talked to a friend earlier today there was currently no rain in Riverside where they are visiting, but during the night their motor home was an island between an instant lake and a flowing river. All drained off quickly when the rain stopped.

I stopped again at a rest stop and noticed this naked cottonwood tree decorated with mourning doves. I counted a dozen, with a few more usually in the air - I can't figure out how many there are in the tree. Am I looking at the end of a branch or is that another dove? And there are those saggy, baggy grey clouds.

This is the view from the backyard of Corky's LHC house. It was quite a nice sunset, but, again, I needed a polarizing filter. When the house was built and for over ten years the property below the dirt utility road was BLM property - never to be developed - with the expectation it would eventually become part of the wildlife preserve along the lake. Unbeknownst to anyone that lives in this neighborhood, a building plan was submitted to the Planning Commission - multi-storied houses, retirement residence and a 'neighborhood' shopping corner. The BLM had traded the property for another somewhere else and the new owner was a developer. Needless to say there were a lot of upset property owners, especially those who had paid a premium for the lake view lots. Someone organized a committee of residents to fight the proposal. They couldn't block the building plans, but they were able to restrict the height of the houses which also did away with the retirement residence. Anyway the retirement place would have been directly across the street from the cemetery - that didn't appeal to many retirement age folks. In this picture everything you can see down to the lake has been built in the last few years. I guess it is a good compromise, but I miss the open land and the critters that dwelt there.