Ridgecrest

I lived in Ridgecrest with my first husband when he was stationed at China Lake Naval Base.  This is where my daughter was born and I have some good memories there.  So, I was thankful that Don didn't mind making a small (?) detour so that I could go back after 28 years.

The Mojave Desert

Windmill farm on our way to Ridgecrest

More Mojave

China Lake Navy Base

They wouldn't let us drive in, not surprising

Where my beautiful daughter was born

More hospital.

I worked at this dealership.  The same guy owned both the Chevy delearship above (which is now a Toyota store) and the Ford store below.  The Blue Angels were at the base once while I was pregnant.  I was outside and walking around the dealership for some reason when from around the corner of the building, a jet flew past really, really low.  I looked in the plane and saw the pilot's face and I swear he saw me as he flew by.  I went into labor that night.

Ridgecrest has really grown in the last 28 years.  I couldn't find a lot of the buildings that I remembered  but that's what happens!

Leaving Ridgecrest we had to stop and take a bathroom break.  We haven't lost anything during this trip except for my pillow.  But we thought we lost Don's phone here.  We had to drive back and look around for it.  It was in a bag in the car all along.  Whew!  We also almost lost Bailey.  He took off smelling things and wouldn't come back.  Once again I had to weigh coaxing him back to the car and determining his survival skills in the desert.  He came back.

It's no wonder that when I went back home after the two years or so we were in Ridgecrest that I felt claustrophobic!

So on to Ojai.  This place is a major contender for retirement!  It's hot here right now but I understand that's unusual for this time of year.  There are some beautiful mountains for me and the beach isn't that far away for Don.  Hmmm.  Anthony Hopkins lives here I heard (but no sign of him yet).

We're making our last trek to San Fran tomorrow morning.  We've been traveling for 4 weeks so it's going to be really nice to unpack that car for the last time and stay put for a while.  I want to make dinners every night (almost), find a job (maybe) and not be hot anymore!  We'll send our summer clothes home and have a little more room in the car for all the things we're buying.  We're supposed to be buying Christmas gifts but we've only just bought things for ourselves:

Okay it looks kind of sketchy in the picture but it's really kind of cool.  It's two foxes made out of metal playing.   It's part of a wildlife sculpture that a local artist was doing for the city of Los Angeles but he had a stroke while working on it. The family is selling pieces of it and we came across this today.

It's been an amazing trip.  A once in a life time kind of trip.  We live in a beautiful country; from the mountains of Tennessee to the rolling hills of South Dakota to the desert in the southwest and finally to the beautiful diversity of California.  Everyone should take this kind of trip at least once in their lifetime!