Friday, February 3, 2023

So Cal and beyond

 So far behind!
I headed from the central coast back down to the LA area to bid adieu to family.
My sister’s citrus and avocado farm/ranch is a welcoming spot. Gina enjoyed being off leash as the whole acreage is fenced in. She enjoys the dogs although is more interested in rabbits!

Walking around the house it is a treat to see brother in law, Danny’s bronze sculptures in amusing places. I had a pleasant visit with nephew Henry and his family- wife and toddler. They live in Malibu.
The area is rich with agriculture, Raspberry farms, cauliflower, lots of oranges and such. Yet it is not far from LA. We even sneaked in a lunch in Ventura so it was a busy yet relaxing time.
I stopped in again in Burbank to visit with my daughter over the weekend. I had the good luck to book a room in an apartment near her through Airbnb. It turned out that the woman who I was staying with is a veterinary nurse and she came to my rescue with Gina. Gina had a hotspot on her neck that she had been itching. I did not know it was there, her hair is so thick but Sarah shaved the spot, applied and then gave me medicine to help her and also gave her some meds to help her limping. What a difference it made! Sarah also has a nonprofit business called Go Pawsome. (https://www.gopawesome.com/usa/) she travels the world with pet volunteers to spay neuter and give medical attention to animals in underserved communities. It is a terrific program to support as you can see from their website. If you would like to donate (I did) please contact them, every bit helps. Or pass this information on to a vet in your community.
Gina was glad to get back to squirrel chasing and walking in a residential area she knew. We stayed the weekend, ate some fine food with my daughter and her husband and headed East.

Our first stop outside of LA was the Salton Sea. I had heard about it but didn’t really know anything about it other than it was a watering hole for birds. Say no more. I went there. There were birds. There was also a strange history of how it was formed (by a human error- surprised?) But now the sea is drying up. There is no water feeding it. The birds were interesting- teals, herons, ducks of many flavors, hawks, and others. It lies in a fairly desolate area which, as I left was arresting in it’s wild barren beauty.
From the Sea to the desert and Yuma found us at an RV campground as it was cold in the nights. I wanted to hook up a heater so I have been doing that off and on for the week. It has been an eye opener to travel the southwest in the winter.

Much colder everywhere than anticipated. In Yuma the campground, Hidden Cove, was right by the Colorado River which is more like a creek after we have taken so much water from it.
In Yuma there is not much to see although they had a good dog park with well behaved dogs.

No comments:

Post a Comment