Because it's a little warm in the desert, I left the door to the tent open. Picture Alfred Hitchcok's The Birds. That's what the ceiling of the tent looked like when I woke up, but with mosquitoes instead of birds. No bites, though.
5:30 AM, with a big day ahead of me, so it was time to brush my teeth, take down the tent, and be on my way.
I caught an interesting sunrise on the way to Highway 5:
I didn't hit any traffic in LA -- this time it really was due mostly to planning (passing through on Saturday instead of Friday). But I saw two 10-mile traffic jams going in the other direction.
Once through the "grapevine" (the name for the route through the mountains north of LA)
highway five turns into a straight-arrow jet stream heading north at 70 MPH. The nice thing about not drinking caffeine much is that when you need to stay awake, a cup of coffee really does the trick. A slice of Butterfingers cream pie doesn't hurt either.
I had five George Carlin CDs to keep me entertained, and I made good progress. Here's a rest stop next to the California Aqueduct. Note the strips of towel tied on to keep the rack straps from buzzing at high speed.
The temperature here was 103 degrees, but with the A/C (which had fixed itself and could now be turned on or off), it was a pleasant drive. In fact, I considered pushing on all the way to home, but wanted to stop and visit with friends Tom, Berit, Sam, and Sven in Moraga.
I arrived there at 5 PM, and Tom and I collaborated on a dinner of butternut squash, corn, homemade applesauce, and spaghetti with a garlic, carrot, celery, heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, Parmesan, and onions sauce. All accompanied with a delicious bottle of J Lohr 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon.
One more day to go.
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