Homeward Bound

 We said good bye to Mike and Marti Friday evening and headed west, driving all the way through Oklahoma in the dark, sleeping in a rest area near the Texas border.  We woke up to pouring rain which continued through our morning drive through northern Texas.  Entering New Mexico, we took an unimpressive walk in Santa Rosa, then decided to take a detour and enjoy Santa Fe, rather than Albuquerque.  An early check in to the reasonable Sage Hotel gave us time to walk the plaza with its Day of the Dead festival and our favorite Canyon Road stroll.  We also enjoyed a long walk on a city trail.  Dinner was and expensive disappointing Mexican grill.  Saturday found us driving south through New Mexico to Las Cruces and then west towards Tucson.  It was a stormy drive through southeastern Arizona before we arrived in Tucson and Jim and Diana’s condo.  We enjoyed the evening catching up and having pizza.  The next day we took a walk in Sabina Canyon, drove up to Mt Lemon, stalled through Agra Caliente Park.  Dinner at a good Mexican grill topped off a great day with friends. The next morning, we stopped at a Jiffy Lube for yet another oil change, and headed for California on I-8, through Yuma, then north to Indio where we booked a two bedroom condo in a gated country club.  It ended up being a little trashy, but all we needed to enjoy an evening watching election returns. We took a long walk through the gated country club and ate frozen dinners from the grocery store.  On Wednesday we drove to Lindsay, a small town near Fresno as a launching point to the national parks.  We checked into a motel and walked the town which appeared to almost exclusively Hispanic.  We ate at a Chinese restaurant.  In the morning, we headed for Kings Canyon.  The maps app took us through a long drive through remote windy roads (sometimes one lane) through some beautiful country.  Unfortunately, Esther got really car sick and suffered for a couple of hours.  We finally made it to the visitors center and found out that the canyon proper was closed for the season.  We did enjoy a hike on a ridge looking up to the canyon and some short walks to see the giant sequoia trees.  Leaving mid-afternoon, we made a bee line north, driving until 10pm and sleeping at a rest area near Lake Shasta.  In the morning, we crossed the Siskiyou’s and stopped in Ashland to walk at Emigrant Lake before making Corvallis mid-afternoon to start our grandparents adventure for the weekend.