Today we traveled just 180 miles from Paso Robles to Castaic which is on the distant outer edges of the Los Angeles area. We first traveled along Hwy 46 past many many fields of grapevines (the Paso Robles area is well known for its grapes and wines)
The lush looking green was surrounded by lots of "golden hills" (very dry grass)
Only where farmers are watering their crop is it green - yes there are some random trees and bushes which are green but highly stressed by the lack of water. Mostly it is just more of the same as above.
As you can see by this picture above and the one below, the roads did a lot of zigging and zagging
Sometimes we would see irrigation ditches near the farmland - some had a fair amount of water, and others were almost empty
Is it any wonder fire is an ever present danger?
We saw a variety of vegetables and fruits growing as well as nut trees. We've been told there are alot of almond trees on the flatter land that made up part of the valley floor we passed through. At a rest stop we were right next to this orchard so I took a close up of the "fruit" of the tree which we assume was almonds. One field that went on for miles had a sign by it saying Pacific Almonds.
One "crop" we were startled to see was hundreds of oil pumpers. They were close together as you can see in this picture and covered many acres of land.
Another thing we saw was a huge area filled with solar panels lined up side by side in closely packed rows. Across the highway was a series of electrical stations.
Here are fruit or nut trees
We saw other things but couldn't identify what they were like this with lots of yellow blossoms
and this
This truck is evidence that oranges were on some of the trees in the area
And early on in our journey we saw signs for farm market stands advertising home grown almonds, pistachios, strawberries, cherries and watermelon.
We also passed a huge feed lot loaded with cattle all quite close together. They were being fattened up for the market.
We passed by the area where James Dean died many years ago and even saw a spot with huge cardboard images of him along with sign boards. That took us back to our teen age days!!
As we drew closer to Castaic, we got into mountainous area. In fact we climbed to over 4000 feet before heading back down again on a very very long down grade. This took us through the Angeles National Forest - certainly not the kind of forest I think of when I hear that word.
After we arrived at Valemcia Travel Village and got set up
the four of us drove to the nearby Soup Plantation restaurant (California's name for the Sweet Tomatoes we love to eat at in Florida) where we met an old air force buddy of Frank's from his days in Japan. He and Dar shared stories from the past as we enjoyed our very very late lunch or maybe it was early dinner.
Later Bette and I enjoyed a couple of games of Triominos before calling it a night.
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