Posted on

Oh Lord

 Stuck in Lodi (Yuma) again. The air conditioner took an all-day tweaking.  We should be good to go tomorrow though.  We backtracked a little into California to get to a nice RV Park for the night. 2016 Summer Trip Map While we were in California, we saw all the Southern Californians we were looking for: Sister-in-law BarbaraSister Sue and John California gnatcatcherCalifornia gullCalifornia quailCalifornia thrasherCalifornia towhee Nineteen more birds and we’ll have our four hundred for the year. Sent to me by my brother: 
Posted on

Funny thing

 Taking off clothes at a nudist resort, or being around the pool with other people who are naked, is not nearly as provocative as an R rated movie, or a lingerie commercial on network television.   Meanwhile, we’ve rejoined the textile world.  We’ve gone as far as Yuma.  It’s pretty freaking hot here!  No worries though.  It’s supposed to cool off to 85 degrees sometime tonight. We stopped to get an air conditioner tweaked tomorrow morning. 2016 Summer Trip Map That trip report I wrote last night; it was about the desert in general, not just one spot.  Everything we found was just serendipitous; going for a walk, topping a ridge and there are the old train cars parked on a siding; going for a drive to find a bird, walking about and finding those old wooden cars near an old train station.  The metal art was in the same park as the bird pond.  We looked for a grocery store and drove past the old mechanic’s shop in Boulevard, and a candy store where the same family has been making candy for generations. I expanded the map I sent out yesterday for the train cars, to show where we found each thing in relation to the others. Desert treasures map You can zoom in and out on the map to see more detail.  (There might even be naked people around the pool at De Anza Springs Resort.) Yesterday I wrote about the stuff in the desert until it seemed like time to stop, not because I was out of things to say.  I didn’t mention the last car in line in the abandoned string of cars. I don’t even have a guess for what that used to be. I didn’t mention the Institute of Perception, with its serious signs of counterculture, or the mysterious metal pyramid in the distance.  I googled it though and came up with a couple reports: http://www.sacbee.com/entertainment/living/travel/sam-mcmanis/article11234969.html http://hiddensandiego.net/institute-of-perception.php Yes.  There is serious counter-culture stuff going on out there in the desert.  
Posted on

The desert

  The desert is a time capsule. There might be signs for hazards that no longer exist. Abandoned train cars. On sidings that will never be used again. How many people walked through these doors?  Seating for four across below. A tiny stairway. …leading to the best-view seats in a single row along the top. When we came across this train, I thought no way they really parked these rail cars here right on top of the switch track so it’s blocking both sidings.  There is enough room at the end of this siding. Before it runs into the rocks. They could have put the cars all the way at the back.  I surmised that they must have put these cars away neatly, then after a number of years, the cars just rolled forward and derailed. I looked it up on Google Earth.  Abandoned train.  There it is, right where it’s supposed to be.  I guess it’s been a while since this map has been updated. There in the distance.  Another abandoned rail car. These cars are so old, they’re made out of wood.     An abandoned garage that looks straight out of the 50s. With a car still on the hoist! Tin cans from when tin cans were made out of tin.  An old house That hasn’t fallen down yet. What must this old tow truck have towed? A metal sculpture Made out of found metal. And an old vinyl.(Tennessee Ernie Ford.)