While we were driving along SR 60 going through California on Monday, we passed this metallic mammoth adorning one of the Jarupa Hills near Riverside.
We see a lot of metallic sculpture when we’re in Arizona, some of it around town and some in the Arizona Outback between Wickenburg and Brenda just before getting on I-10 from US 60. We have seen dinosaurs, horses, a stagecoach and various other sculptures during our travels. Always entertaining. Click on the image to enlarge.
We are safely back home after our productive trip to California. Just across the state line, we pass this welcome sign that energizes us for the next 100+ miles to home. After a four and a half hour drive from the old house, we are always happy to be back in the jurisdiction of a free state.
At this point of our trip, we have a few miles to Quartzsite where we refuel for the rest of the trip with more-reasonably-priced gas (than California’s outrageous $4 per gallon prices) and after refueling, we have just about 12 miles or so until we can get off of Idiot Interstate-10 to join US 60 the rest of the way across the Arizona Outback before entering the Hassayampa River Valley and home.
HOV or High Occupancy Vehicle lanes on California’s Freeways are supposed to be reserved for vehicles with occupancy of 2 or more. When we travel to our former state, we meet their criterion for HOV lane occupancy. Using those lanes gets us around some of the congestion which is rampant throughout urban areas. It cuts our travel time by, perhaps, a half hour out of six hours total travel time.
Some of our fellow travelers seem to equate the so-called Diamond Lane, not with High Occupancy, but with High Speed. While We might be a couple of MPH over the posted speed limit, some of the drivers get right up on our tailgate trying to get us to go faster. Of course, it does them little good, since I have the cruise control set to maintain a speed such as to not attract undue attention to law enforcement.
Some of the drivers get it, and fall back to match our speed. Others, however, have a road rage incident where they pull out to the right and pass us, cutting us off as they pull in ahead of us and speed on down the road. Of course, when we’re on the road, we drive defensively and slow down to let the idiots kill themselves and not get us involved.
We’re in K-stan tonight and tomorrow and Damsel and I look forward to heading back to Free Arizona on Wednesday.
Re-posted from Flag Day 2011:
Several times during the year, the Wickenburg Chapter of the American Legion places US flags in the historic downtown area and along the two main drags through town. Today, Flag Day, we ventured out for several errands and were delighted at the patriotic display. This image was taken along East Wickenburg Way (US 60) near old downtown looking west. Click on the image to enlarge.
I posted a picture of a single water lily last year when we were at this same koi pond inside the hospital courtyard. This time, I got a photo of these three water lilies and they weren’t the only ones in the pond.
I always think that water lilies seem out of place in the high Sonoran Desert, but they apparently do quite well here and in neighboring Yarnell up the road about 20 miles or so. Click on the image to enlarge.
Do you remember the photo I posted of the agave flower stalk last April? It’s a damn shame, but sometime in the last 24 hours, the top-heavy succulent toppled over and into our neighbor’s cactus garden.
We had been watching the progress of the agave since the flower stalk appeared. We drove down our road today to do some errands and saw that the agave had toppled. So sad – I was looking forward to getting some photos of the flowers that the little hummingbirds just love. I feel sorry for our neighbor who has to get the mess cleaned up and hauled. Fortunately, the fall did not destroy the section of split-rail fencing where it fell.
Click on the image to enlarge.
It has long been our opinion (based on facts) that neither wind nor solar power can compete with the efficiency and cost of nuclear power generation. Hyped-up belief and major taxpayer-funded subsidies have taken the wind and solar efforts as far as they have come today. Hyped-up fear and misinformation have been applied to public opinion that nuclear power generation is both dangerous and evil.
Mark Perry, a professor of economics and finance, penned a very interesting piece today that points out that the clean energy movement is missing their best bet for green power.
From Investors Business Daily:
Wind and solar power, once viewed as our best hope for abundant supplies of zero-carbon energy, are distracting us from what might be the real solution: nuclear power.
The time has come for states to reconsider their mandates requiring that a share of electricity come from renewable energy sources, and instead consider a more direct and sensible policy in support of nuclear power.
Currently 30 states have renewable power standards designed to promote the use of wind and solar power, which are carbon-free, non-polluting sources of energy. Among the most ambitious, California’s standard mandates that the state generate one-third of its electricity from renewables by 2020.
But the hype over wind and solar power as clean and renewable is undermined by their fatal flaw — intermittency.