Long Drive

Okay, some of you know and many of you do not know that Karl is on an "extended vacation" for a while. I won't go into the details of it, but just so you know, he got into some trouble a couple of years ago and I am proud of him for being a man and taking the responsibility for his actions--even though it means spending a few years 2 states away!! He is a much better person than he was prior to his "trouble" and we are both looking forward to him getting back home to be with our family. Anyway, in normal Young family fashion, we had a good time. We always have a good time when we travel, even if the circumstances aren't the best! We had to drive to this sleepy little place in the armpit of the Mojave desert called Taft, CA.Not a bad town, but OLD--Taft is an oil town and was settled in the 1800's when rich oil & natural gas reserves were found there!! Now, at least in Delta, there are things to look at. For example, hay fields, the power plant, the occasional deer or jack rabbit and so on and so forth. In Taft, there are oil derricks and dirt. That's it! Wait, there is a Kmart too!! At least the people there are really nice! When I had to ask for directions to the post office, the lady at the gas station was very polite and pointed me around the corner to the post office!! (literally around the corner-we were a half a block away!) Anywho--the drive is mostly boring with nothing to see except sagebrush and mountains, if you can find them through the haze. Of course there is Las Vegas which is always fun to see! So, just when you think you can't take anymore sagebrush, you enter a beautiful green canyon! And wouldn't you know, nestled in that canyon is a small city called Tehachapi, CA. Gorgeous little place!! I could totally live there!! One of the coolest things about it is that right as you enter the canyon, there are hundreds, if not thousands of windmills on the mountains! It is almost mesmorizing as you drive by them--too bad I had to watch the road! It was so cool that we had to take pictures! I know it isn't that exciting, but being a redneck chick from Delta, I thought it was pretty neat! Once we got out of the canyon, we passed lots of vineyards (wine country!), orange groves, and even passed a truck hauling a load of carrots!! JT was having a blast the whole time and started to get a little goofy (more so than normal) once we passed thru Bakersfield--he was shoving his whole foot in his mouth! He is such a weirdo!


Finally, we arrived in Taft (thank heaven--my butt is still recovering from that trip) and stopped to get something to eat! Of course we had to get some family pictures in the parking lot! Round trip we drove 934 miles in less than 48 hours! It was weird coming home without Karl but we were very glad to get home! At least we got to go somewhere we had never been before!!