We’re still in the California House this evening and we don’t have much to post about. We enjoyed a grilled tenderloin steak dinner with a Southwestern style salad and cheesy broccoli crowns.
I took this photo in the Arizona house before we left for the big house of one of the bunch of tiger lilies we bought just before leaving. I love the orange colors as autumn approaches. Click on the image to enlarge.
We had to make an urgent trip to California today in connection with refinancing the home there. On the way, there is always something interesting to see on the interstate. I saw this yellow Smart Car drive up the ramp to get on the road. Just after I took this photo, I saw a billboard on the other side of the interstate with an ad “Driving a Lemon? Want your money back?” We both LOLed at that little coincidence. Click on the image to enlarge.
Over the last two days, I have made a marathon trip to California to fetch our Mom to her new accommodations here in beautiful Wickenburg, AZ. Overall, the traffic was not too terrible, but the usual watch your @$$ factor for the California Crazies on the road did apply. There were a couple of instances where I got cut off by inadvisable lane changes where the other driver’s rear bumper was a mere four feet in front of my front bumper.
Luckily, the trip was without incident and Mom is safely spending the night here in beautiful Casa Casandro. As I write this, she is all settled in on the sofa in the great room with the TV and some of her favorite word puzzles. (Note to self – get more word puzzle books.)
Tomorrow, we will enroll her in the assisted living program at our local retirement ranch. She is sad about leaving her cats and daughter in California, but looks forward to meeting new friends and getting quality 24/7 care. She really likes our house, so we can look forward to having her over for visits and food from time to time.
When we have to make the obligatory trip back to the old homestead in The People’s Republik, we try and plan such that we only need to buy fuel once while we’re there. This recent trip worked out OK in that we bought only once there and at the “best” price available in the area. Still, the Arco (cheap) price is between thirty and fifty cents per gallon more than we pay in Arizona. Mostly (I’m certain), thanks to the enviro-nutty tax on fuel out there. Still, fuel prices are going up everywhere according to the plan of the idiots in Congress and elsewhere.
Note the eighteen cent differential between Arco and Chevron located on the same intersection in Torrance, CA. Click on the image to enlarge.
Here I am on the roof of the “Albatross” (our California house) sawing off a dead palm frond. I also sawed off three palm berry pods. Our eventual plan is to have the four palms removed from the property, but that won’t happen until next summer when some new financial arrangements will have been made.
In the meantime, we have to make trips to take care of some of the maintenance items. Damsel removed most of a prickly pear cactus that fell over since we last were here. It’s a pain for now, because we have to remove ourselves from our beautiful Arizona home to attend to matters here.
The local (Los Angeles) TV stations are all breathlessly covering the Dorner case. This is a very important news story, especially for people in the immediate San Bernardino County area where the manhunt continues.
At this time, they believe the suspect is still inside a cabin near Big Bear. The cabin appears to be on fire and the law enforcement resources are said to have the cabin surrounded.
They are not sure Dorner is still inside the burning structure.
As I write this. it is a half hour before the SOTU. If the drama in the mountains continues into the next hour, I hope that Fox LA has enough sense to stay with the breaking news rather than switching coverage to some bloviating, gun-grabbing socialist inside the beltway.
UPDATE: No way of knowing for sure until forensics clears the scene, but it appears Dorner is probably dead.
At about the half-way point across California on our way from the Colorado River to the old homestead, lies the Whitewater rest stop. Whitewater is located in the Banning pass between Mount San Gorgonio and Mount San Jacinto. This is an image of San Jacinto taken from the rest stop while we were taking a break from the grueling drive across I-10. Click on the image to enlarge.