Palm Springs, Ca to Fresno! - Day 4

This morning, we were able to sleep in a bit later as our trip today was only going to take us about 5 hours and some change to get there.  So, it was a little strange to get up when the sun had beaten us to it....:-).  We did our usual routine of coffee and decided to get the car loaded before headed for breakfast in the lobby area.....

I didn't take the time to get a picture of the hotel itself once we got there since we wanted to see the town.  So, here is a picture of the lobby area.....not too shabby, I guess....:-).

and here is the tiny little breakfast room ........

We had our jackets on because there was a bit of a chill in the air.  But it would have cooled the food off to quickly to sit outside...but I like the patio area, though....:-).

simple breakfast....

and then we hit the "super slab" by 8:00am.  Farewell, Palm Springs!

You could tell when you were getting close to leaving town because you started seeing this...

 
and a whole lot of these!  Wow, these folks know how to harness the wind!

and it seemed that once we rounded this corner, it was pretty straight sailing most of the way until we started hitting the cities in between.....

Scootard got excited about the American highways again....most of the other shots were a "blurr"...:-).

There is a historical church somewhere in this area.  I believe the name is the Azusa Street Mission.   We needed to get some gas and hope to be able to snap a picture of the church if we found it near by....but we didn't.

 

after we made our stop, we got back in the saddle and we passed this aqua duct.  It supplies water to Los Angeles....

and the road seemed to go on forever.......but the texture of the hills began to change.....

I don't know how much time went past, but we drank enough water and coffee to have to make another stop!  Well, since we are here, we might as well gas up again......

I cannot believe the prices of gas and food any more......6 gallons cost $23.33.  ONLY 6 GALLONS!  Glad we weren't on "E"!  .....:-(.

and the further we went, the more the hills changed before our eyes......

Until they took on the form of velvet......Like someone through a huge blanket over the entire landscape.....

then just a few miles down the road, we hit almond trees ..:-).

rest stop......well, you know how water does you...:-(.

gotta love the walk way though.  Blue crushed glass lining the paving.  Makes you want to go "potty" just so you can walk on it...haha

feeling pretty special right about now.......:-).  haha

Scootard kept insisting that the monster tree across the parking lot was a Eucalyptus tree.

he was right.....haha (again).

Scandahoovianville!!!   Scootard is of Scandinavian decent which has always peaked my interest since he and I met.  So, whenever I get the chance to see and learn more about this culture, I indulge myself.  We ran across this village in our journey to Fresno and decided to check it out....:-)

We drove through the little village and noticed how decorative everything was.  There were colorful homes and pastry shops dotting the village....

There was a few little churches that had appeared to have been there for a very long time.....:-)

 

and they are serious about their kings...:-).  Notice the crown on top of the pole?  Those were scattered though out the village as well.

The Swedes had also taken pride in their village by putting some of their history on the walls of their buildings which told the story of their lives.....:-).

 I was a little disappointed about the cars in front of this one, so I tried to get a half way decent shot from across the street......:-(.  It's a big ship....:-)

One of the walls has these placards on them representing different districts of Sweden....:-).  Very cool...

and this seems to be a "mascot" of sorts.  I saw this horse or one like it in yellow suspended from a pole at another location in the village.

 

and I found it later while we were walking about.....

as you know, I love windows and doors, alleys and hide aways....:-).  I'll bet this is very beautiful when the plants and flowers are in full bloom....:-)

We came across this mural addressing different cultures with words of wisdom from different sources on each of them.  This particular wisdom came from the Holy Bible of which I am very familiar....:-).

 

 this is a native boy sitting at a table learning "something"....:-)

These are a group of Swedish men looking at the generations following them.....

I regret that the writing is so small that you really can't see it.  But I like how they gave tribute to other cultures and not just their own.....

Now, I know that Scootard would like to think that he fits in here.  But the truth is he does not have the blonde hair even though he does have the blue eyes......haha.

ok,  that's more like it!  GO VIKINGS!  ....hahaha.....Scootard is Norwegian and not Swedish.

the little village was only a couple of blocks long.  At the very edge of it was this wind mill....:-). I thought that was kinda strange since the Dutch were famous for the wind mills not the Swedes and the Dutch are not "Scandahoovians" either.  But it was a good shot anyway....:-).  

This water tower was designed to look like a huge tea pot!  very cool, indeed....I guess one would need a pretty big cup to match it though...

and of course, by now we are hungry and need to find some thing to eat.  We found this little place that had a couple of restaurant/bistro thingees along with some antique shops and art galleries inside....

This stained glass bird bath was right inside the door.  I loved it and considered taking it with us, but decided to pass since I don't need one in a condo...haha.

This is a view of the gallery/ restaurant  bistro thingee.  Scootard is trying to get a signal on his "fablet"...No signal to be found...:-(.

I have no idea what the sandwich was called that I ordered, but it had chicken, some kind of cheese, cream cheese and carmelized onions on it.  I had a little bowl of broccoli and cheese soup.  I surrendered it to Scootard after tasting it and found that the texture was more like a "stew" than a soup.  I couldn't wrap my head around that...haha.  My glass has some peach ice tea.  I did manage to finish all of it....

the man is determined to find a signal  (which does not exist).....:-).

 after lunch, I considered some desert that my eye fell on earlier, but I decided to pass on it.  Yay for me!

We decided to head back to the car and get checked into our hotel up the road.  But I couldn't help but notice these horses which seemed to dot the village along with the Swedish flag.

You know, I only turned by back for a second......ha...

 See what happened to him???  haha.

After Scootard peeled himself off of that horse, we made our way back to the car and saw this school house at the end of the street.

Our hotel was just a few minutes away and it was kinda weird getting there so early in the afternoon, but we were glad we did.

That ice tea was working on me!  And when I got in there, I was shocked that the hotel would think that I might need their help....???  I think I can handle things... thank you very much!

Then Scootard noticed; to his shock and my horror that our trailer no longer had a lock to hold the thing in place.  I guess it was not properly secured before we took off this morning and popped off somewhere on the highway on the way here......So, we found ourselves at a Super Target looking for another lock to secure it.

The parking lot was narrow enough that we had to unhook the trailer to park it.  The front desk said it would not be a problem for us to take two spaces to park.  Scootard pulled the trailer along side the car and secured it to the front wheel....  glad we don't have hub caps...haha

there is our new lock with our old chain.  I suppose we will need to replace that too after a while.

We got into the room and settled in with our new snacks....that wasabi chocolate liked to blow my nose right off my head, but I adjusted quickly since this was going to be dinner along with some beef jerky.

Tomorrow-  Redwood City, California....:-)

goodnight!