Greetings from California

Did you know that California has weird freeways?

We’ve made it to Los Angeles. It’s already been an adventure, and we’re tired, but we’re glad to be here. We ended up driving my father’s diesel truck, and we’re towing Rick Thale’s car dolly. That’s been interesting; more in a minute.

We’ve seen:

• Sue starting our trip with the flu. We considered changing the schedule, but decided not to (with her blessing!)
• An overturned logging truck (yesterday) that blocked all northbound lanes of I-5. I was stunned at the percentage of trucks to cars (about 80% trucks!)
• An extended time in the Alabaster house in Redding (oooh, we liked that!)
• Sue & I have had a wonderful time together, talking and laughing and listening to interesting things. We’ve listened to several sermons, to Abbott & Costello’s “Who’s on First” sketch, to several science fiction short stories (from Escape Pod; I recommend "Squonk the Dragon" and "Nightfall")
• A wonderful visit with friends in Redding, where we borrowed a guest room for the night. I got sick in the night and couldn’t enjoy any of Sherry’s spectacular coffee this morning. Darn it!
• The truck has driven wonderfully, but for about an hour this morning, the cruise control wasn’t working. We prayed for it, and filled the gas tanks (yet again!), and since then, it’s worked perfectly. Thanks, folks, for letting us use it!
• The car dolly wobbles quite a lot. At one point – driving 65 mph through central California – one of the taillights rattled off, and apparently hit a car’s windshield. An uninsured car’s windshield. Sigh. Now we get to deal with insurance issues. (A good place to pray, eh?)
• Since the taillight was gone, the dolly was illegal to drive. So we stopped at an auto parts store in Woodland, CA (where the heck is that?) and worked on replacing the light for a couple of hours, but we couldn’t make it work.
• Since we needed to get magnetic towing lights to pull the car, we went looking for a U-Haul place. But first for lunch, and when we were checking out, the lady asked, “Did you find everything?” and Sue pops out with “No, we need a U-haul place!” and she gave us directions to the biggest and the best U-Haul place I’ve ever seen. They sold us the lights for what I was expecting to pay for renting them, and helped us get them connected. Then he went above and beyond, and found the problem (a blown fuse in a weird place), and gave us a replacement fuse, and everything works again.
• The freeways in California in the night are full of trucks in a hurry. Dang!

It is certainly being an adventure. I was just thinking that in the days of covered wagons, this trip would have taken three months. No wonder I’m tired, and I’m going to bed. Tomorrow, we start meeting people. Yikes. There are a lot of folks we need favor with, and a whole lot of decisions to make.

And we’ve got a lot of packing to do. The goal is to head out early Sunday, heading for points north. We'll see how that goes.

More news as we get the chance. Thanks for your prayers!