1. Today we drove through Tehachapi, the town where my friend Th. is from, and then we drove through Fresno, the town where my friend Green Mormon Architect is from. Tehachapi is a pretty little town, picturesque hills with trees sprinkled about; Fresno is not so pretty, dirty highways with homeless people sprinkled about. But Fresno did have a yummy Inn-N-Out, right at dinner time. So now I'm not sure which of my friends is better.
2. Please don't tell my mother-in-law that we let our children watch two movies on our ten-hour drive today, rather than insist they enjoy the world around them. Or that we didn't stop to look at the world's tallest thermometer or the groovy cheese factory or any of the other random roadside attractions that she would have stopped at, despite her children's protests.
3. Tonight we are sleeping in a motel in Sacramento before we go check into our apartment in Davis tomorrow. I feel like the children of Israel, waiting to enter the Promised Land. Or Abraham, camped at the base of Mount Moriah, waiting to offer up the contents of his checking account to his new landlord.
Ah, now that you have experienced the initiation of driving Highway 99, you will always feel good about where you live, knowing that there are worse places you could be. Speaking of the joys of Fresno reminds me of one of my favorite books of all time called Science Made Stupid by Tom Weller. In it he defines a half-life as a Saturday night in Fresno (http://sms.mike.neir.org/sms.htm). He also puts Fresno at the center of all Black holes (http://hamburgsteak.sandwich.net/temp/sms_fresno.jpg) and lists the distance of Fresno to the sun as the same distance as from Fresno to anywhere.
ReplyDeleteFunny, I thought the same thing about Fresno when I flew into there the first time after we were married. (I got out of the airplane and walked down steps and across the tarmac to enter the airport!) And I don't like Inn-N-Out Burger so there are no redeeming factors.
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeleteI'm better.
Yay!! You're here!!! (well. sorta. you're in my general area. . .) Wanna have a blogger/blue-beta party?? I can host!
ReplyDeleteWhat?! You didn't look at the hawks?! Or count license plates?! Actually, when our children were that age, we usually drove at night and laid them in the camper in the back with (!!) no carseats, seatbelts, or other safety restraints except a couple of big dogs for padding. (Oh, and one of the parents...) And I'm definitely going to stop at the World's Tallest Thermometer on my way to visit, duh.
ReplyDeleteGMA & Julie--It makes me feel better that neither of you thinks much of Fresno either.
ReplyDeleteTh.--Thanks for clearing that up for me.
JB--Yay! If you host it, we will come, and bring something yummy to eat.
ESM--I actually slept through the thermometer, but Foxy says it was a digital one. How disappointing is that? I want a fifty-foot glass thermometer with twenty gallons of mercury climbing up the little notches.