My husband and I are drivers. We're the type to hop in the car on a whim, for destinations unknown, and we have happy memories of spontaneous weekend drives where we discovered new towns, sites and things to do.
That said, I dread those times when we drive north to San Francisco or Sacramento. I love being in those cities -- but hate the long, monotonous drive to get there. While California is famous for the beauty of its coastline, mountains and deserts, in between all that spectacular scenery is the San Joaquin Valley -- 32,000 miles of flat, fertile farmland, providing an estimated 25% of all the produce grown in the United States.
Yesterday's drive was a little bit different. For one thing, my daughter and I were taking this trip together -- just the two of us (for the first time since she was a baby). And we were doing it in my brand new car (as we finally replaced the 11-year-old Saturn I bought new right after I found out I was pregnant with Megan)! Those two factors would make it fun, I reasoned.
We left the house bright and early yesterday morning. By 7:30, we were already in the Grapevine, the long and gnarly mountain roadway that leads out of Los Angeles county into the big central valley. The morning sun and wispy clouds made beautiful patterns on the mountainsides, turned golden brown with dried brush. Like much of the country, we've been in the middle of a record-breaking heat wave -- I suspect that it will be followed by a record-breaking fire season.
Traffic was much lighter than we usually experience -- probably because for once, we were not making the trip on a holiday weekend. I reflexively felt relief that we were doing it early in the morning instead of late in the afternoon, when the side of the road is littered with vehicles that overheated while trying to make it over the mountains (and then I remembered that my brand new Volvo would not be likely to have that problem).
I briefly considered stopping in the little town of Gorman to take some pictures for this post and again at Fort Tejon (site of one of California's strongest recorded earthquakes, an estimated 8.0 back in 1857 -- the last big one generated on the southern portion of the San Andreas fault). However, I knew both Megan and my parents were anxious for our arrival, so instead I handed my daughter my camera and asked her to take some shots -- which she did, until the battery ran out.
We descended into the Valley before 9:00 a.m. and made it to Harris Ranch -- where I'd planned to stop for lunch -- at 10:30. This is an actual cattle ranch (one of the nation's largest) in Coalinga, halfway between Los Angeles and Sacramento. Years ago, the Harris family realized they could capitalize on all the traffic from the new Interstate by building amenities on their land. These include an inn, restaurant, gift shops, landing strip, gas station, car wash and fast food facilities. We always stop to stretch 
our legs and use the clean bathrooms (which includes pint-sized facilities for "little ladies" -- and although I've not visited the men's room, I am assuming the same exists there for boys). I contemplated picking up a few steaks to take to my sister's -- but decided to continue on.
We made good time, arriving in Sacramento at 2:00 p.m. The ambient temperature reading on my new car's dashboard read 107 degrees -- believe it or not, a little bit cooler than what we've been experiencing in the state the last several days. The drive was a little bit less boring than usual (for me, anyway -- it makes a difference to be the one doing the actual driving, I think). I dropped Megan off at her grandparents and spent the night at my sister's home.
Tomorrow's post: San Francisco.
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