On the Road from San Juan Bautista to Placentia 02-25-19

I did drive home from San Juan Bautista yesterday.  I left there at 8am and finally arrived home at about 6pm!  It wasn't non-stop, obviously.  First I stopped at Santa Nella on the I-5 for gas, a Starbuck's latte, and the use of the facilities.  Further south about two hours I stopped at Harris Ranch to get out and walk around, use the facilities, and do some e-mail.  The next few stops were to take pictures, especially of the snow covered mountains before me.  I did exit onto an overpass in the hope of better views.  And then a potty stop at the Pyramid Lake visitors center - my Empty Spools friend Dotty Daybill recommended this years ago and it is always clean and quiet.  But it is only open during the day, 8 to 5, I think.  I drove straight down I-5 through Los Angeles, and many other towns, to San Clemente in south Orange County to pick up the KoKo dog at Nancy Ota's house.  Then back tracked to north Orange County and home.  The actual driving time was about eight and a half hours.  I don't think I can do that many more times, I was exhausted.  Even with the stops to get out of the car and walk around, my body doesn't like it.  

Tonight I spent about two hours trying to access, modify, and locate the pictures.  Now that I have lost Picasa the pictures are all mixed together and have no captions.  I managed, in all that time, to find and somewhat modify these three images.  The spots are, of course, dead bugs on my windshield.  With Picasa it was just a snap to eliminate them, but I can't find a way to do that in Google pictures.  It seems to me that Google bought Picasa just to eliminate it, not to add that excellent program to their box of tricks.   Anyway, for what they are worth, here are three of the fifty or sixty pictures I took.  

This is a dried up rabbit brush that blooms in the fall.  It was just the other side of the fence at the Pyramid Lake location and it sort of glowed in the sunlight.  

This picture taken on an overpass of the I-5 shows the north side of the mountains between Los Angeles and the Central Valley.  I have never previously seen this amount of snow on them. 

And even closer to the north end of the Grapevine.  This was taken through my bug filled windshield.  

I have more images from the trip home, but it is now 1:30am and I am too tired to figure out how to retrieve and modify any more.  Maybe later in the week.  

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