Five Lane Parking Lot

Day 27  Clear and Sunny – High-75 Low-56

Our only plan for today was to drive to Los Angeles. We use a GPS device that tracks the time and location (latitude and longitude) as you travel throughout the day. This time and location data is then matched by software that comes with the GPS device with the time the camera records for each picture taken. This unit is called the GiSTEQ PhotoTracker and the process is called geocoding.

On our National Park tour last year, geocoding was extremely helpful in pinpointing exactly where each picture was taken. After a few of days of taking hundreds of photographs each day, it all gets kind of muddy. Prior to leaving, Bill found a problem with the unit and worked with tech support to fix it. They thought they had worked out the problem, but alas, at the beginning of the trip, it quit working. Since we are in California, we thought we could take it to the manufacturer and either get it repaired or replaced. So, with directions in hand and only 116 mile trip ahead of us, we set off on another adventure.

We had to drive south on CA Route 99 and that gave us an additional opportunity to see the San Joaquin Valley. Unfortunately, what we saw wasn’t nearly as lush. There were some vineyards prospering in the north, but as we drove south, it looked like the dust bowl of 1930s. In some places, there was so much dust in the air, you couldn’t see the mountains. In the last three years, the San Joaquin Valley has had only 70% of its average rainfall. Compounding the drought problem, there are water delivery restrictions to protect the endangered delta smelt, a two-inch long fish. A federal judge ruled that the water used for irrigation coming from the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta could wipe out the delta smelt. Therefore, pumping had to be curtailed by about two-thirds. These two factors have led farmers to idle more than a quarter-million acres and put thousands of people out of work. Seeing this disaster first hand gives you a perspective on the problem of weighing nature vs. the needs of man.

As soon as we reached Interstate 5, our trip went from a leisurely drive to 80 mph bumper to bumper traffic with periodic screeching halts forming a rolling parking lot of 20 foot starts and stops that’s called a Southern California commute. The first thing we noticed was the massive number of trucks on the road. California restricts them to the rightmost lanes; however, even with that consideration, they formed a solid caravan along the route. Many California drivers are very aggressive, constantly weaving and dodging in and around traffic. Couple that with 5 lanes of solid traffic in one direction and you can understand why our leisurely 116 mile drive turned into a frustrating 4 hour nightmare. The good news is we did reach our destination and did get a brand new GiSTEQ PhotoTracker device courtesy of Erick at GiSTEQ.

All along our trip, we have relied on three pieces of technology. The first is satellite radio. It is so nice to be able to listen to the same programming across the country without the need of searching for a new static free station every time you go out of signal range. Although not all the over 100 channels are commercial free, it is nice to be able to listen to your favorite talk shows, news programming, and music. The next essential is audio books. We both like the mystery/intrigue genre, which makes it easier than if we liked different types of books. When we start listening to a book, the miles evaporate and we have little difficulty driving long distances. The third technology is a GPS navigation device. Ours works with software on a laptop, and although it is roughly the same as a dashboard or hand-held device, it calculates and displays a wider variety of information. We would have gone crazy today trying to drive and figure out how to navigate from hotel to the repair facility and then to the next hotel in the frenzied traffic. California drivers cut you no slack, and it’s bad enough driving with Florida plates, but it seems that it would have been far worse, if we also looked lost.

Early tomorrow, we are going to stop by the Nikon repair facility to get the 12 to 24 MM lens fixed. This wide-angle zoom lens is great for landscape photography and we have missed being able to use it since sand and grit blew into the mechanism at the Colorado National Monument just west of Grand Junction, CO. We will then head off to the Getty Center, a world-class art gallery. We visited the Getty Villa several years ago and wanted to see the newest gallery/museum. We will then head to San Diego to visit our friend Diego and his family.