Blog#5-I’ve got pie!
Day 5, Lake Havasu to San Diego
Drove across the Mojave Desert to San Diego—with a little detour down Route 66 to Oatman to see the wild desert burros. They are the descendants of burros turned loose by miners after the Goldrush stopped panning out. Each day toward noon, they make their way out of the scrub and mesquite and come into Oatman, looking for some feed from the tourists that arrive at that time to see the Wild West Show. They never disappoint. Eeyores Galore.
Needles to Oatman
Pavlov’s burros. Somebody rang the bell.
Backtracking a ways from Oatman to Needles, I passed yet another sign of my impending meeting with Jimmy Buffett.
I wonder if JB is feeling it
I made my way to Hwy 10/95 heading southwest. There is a very barren section of highway out there, with flat desert on either side and the San Bernardino Mountains far off in the distance. Along this stretch, there is scrub but no trees. There is a square frame for a small building out there, it’s just 4x4s in the shape of a box, maybe 12 feet high and 16 feet to a side. There were probably two hundred pairs of shoes hanging from the beams. No tree for a shoe tree, but that didn’t stop these folks. A bit further west on the opposite side of the highway runs a railroad on an elevated dike (since rains in the mountains can lead to flooding down there). Miles from any town, slanted against that dike, people have come out to spell out names and form hearts out of stones. The letters must be three or four feet in length, because I could read them as I passed at 75 MPH. There were dozens of names, they stretched over a mile.
How strange we humans are. So much effort taken and distance traveled to place a mark of one’s own upon the earth. And they remain—out there in the harsh desert. I wish I had stopped and built my name there. It was like a sweet whim of humanity… I wish I had stopped.
I will stay two nights in San Diego with Titi, my husband’s aunt. She is a tiny, gorgeous New Mexican woman and more full of energy and enthusiasm than most people I’ll ever know. Still working in her 70s, planning her next trip. She is incredible. She swears by her daily swallow of unfiltered apple cider vinegar, giving it credit for helping to reduce her A1C (a marker for Diabetes, which her mother had). She is at her goal weight, but follows Weight Watchers pretty close—minus all the fruit. That’s why it was perfect that when I stopped in Julian, CA for apple pie to bring to her it happened that Julian had snow. Snow that didn’t cover all the ground, but snow. Apparently, this ushers people from the San Diego area up to the snow to play. Snow here is a bit different than where I come from. There were dozens out sledding the hillsides (on the patches >15 feet in length), and the streets of Julian had nary a parking space available. I stuck right to my mission and found a spot. Walked through the melting slush to stand in line at the Julian Pie Company, a line that went out the door, where I stood with water dripping off the roof onto my head. I finally made it to the front, only to learn that the original apple pie and the Dutch apple pie were sold out. “A promise made is a debt unpaid” (thank you, Robert Service) and I had promised apple pie. “What kind of apple pie do you have?” I asked, and promptly bought the last “natural apple pie”, which had no added sugar. Kismet. Weight watcher Titi would be pleased, as long as the pie lived up to the Julian reputation. It mostly did, with the addition of vanilla bean ice cream.
Titi takes in college-age foreign students for 30 day stretches while they attend school, mostly to improve their English. The majority of them are from Japan, but she has had many from Europe and some from the Middle East as well. Her student this time is from Japan, a 19 year- old beautiful girl. I thought it would be nice if I cooked dinner for the three of us while I was there, since I was getting free lodging and Titi was working all day. So I made Korean barbecue chicken, coconut rice and a apple/mango salad. Usually I prep this meal at home and my husband comes home and cooks it. I wish he had been here— the chicken was good, the salad a big hit and the rice was awful. Similar to salty coconut Elmers school glue. I probably will cook that rice again when I’m in the mood to do some decoupage. SOOO glad I served it to a Japanese girl who has limited exposure to correctly prepared rice. If my man were here, the meal would have been perfect. I miss that guy.
Titi’s student had been to Potato Chip Rock(San Diego area) today and had performed some gymnastics there. She shared this photo with me.
Me at Potato Chip Rock
I have issues with plantar fasciitis, and have to do stretching every day if I am to ward off a flare up. I sent this photo to my daughter, Amelia, and told her I had posed for it and had a stranger take the photo—I told her the stretching was really making me limber, and in this photo I look like I’ve lost weight. 🙂