Starting Off on a Sad Note.....

Last week there was a death in the family.  My aunt Anne unexpectedly passed away on the 29th.  There was no inkling that anything had been wrong.  My uncle is understandably still in shock over this.  They had been married for 61 years.

I'm going to ask that you keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

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I was away from home for Christmas this time, visiting family and friends in San Jose.  The trip went mainly well.  There was a bad traffic backup in L.A. at high noon due to a big rig catching on fire, which backed us up for seven miles.  At that point it was too late to make that north turn at San Berdoo so I-210 it was.  Once past that, traffic actually moved at a decent pace.

At the Wheeler Ridge split of I-5 and CA 99, the CA Highway Patrol was running traffic breaks onto the I-5 portion, and after that big rig thing I wasn't in the mood to join the parade.  I took 99 up a ways and then cut across on highway 223.  All of 99 probably ought to be resurfaced, but the People's Republic has decided that the bullet train linking Fresno and Bakersfield is more important.

On the return leg of the trip there were Jersey barriers along stretches of 99 north of Bakersfield, but I couldn't tell if they going to resurface or widen it.

Maybe they're destroying a lane of it for the train.

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My schedule was tight; and getting sick for a couple of days didn't help matters any.  If there had been time I would have taken three days to get back, and maybe I would have done the stretch of Route 66 near San Bernardino.  As it was I was trying to get to Quartzsite for the night (an early start helped).

I could have stopped in Blythe, where there are five or so motor inns to stop at for the night, but I don't like Blythe.  I stopped there for a quick refreshment and I saw what I had seen there on a previous trip:  a bunch of loiterers hanging around doing nothing, aside from waiting for you to leave your car so that they could break into it.

There are several hotel/casinos along I-10 near Palm Springs, which would have made for nicer accommodations, and maybe that's what I should do the next time I do this kind of trip.

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I think this is going to be it for this evening.  I'm not yet entirely over my cold and I think an early bedtime this evening would be wise.

Don't forget to pet a dog or a cat.