On the Road – Day 9

On our ninth day on the road we had an 8:00 am pick-up in Parlier, CA.
After Parlier we headed to Dinuba for another load.

Then we went to Kingsburg, another highlight of the trip for me.
We were in Kingsburg long enough to run some errands and do some sightseeing.

Kingsburg is a pretty little town with a centrally located park, very similar to the type of park you find in small towns back East. Known as “Central California's Swedish Village”, Kingsburg is a city in Fresno County with a population of just under 11,700 people. The sight seeing was interesting, fun and historical:

Interesting

The library mural spans one of the exterior walls of the library. The mural images display numerous aspects of Kingsburg: a world-renowned sports figure, science, religion, culture and education. The artwork is well designed and beautifully painted.

Fun

My favorite attraction was the water tower. A wonderfully whimsical creation, the water tower was cleverly turned into a teapot. Whoever came up with this idea, “Bravo!” ”

Whoever climbed up there and spent the who-knows-how-many hours it must have taken to create the tea pot, “Well done!

While walking down one of the streets, I was taken by the sight of an orange Swedish horse standing amongst the nicely landscaped entrance to George Boyl Way. Perfectly placed. Perfectly painted.

Historical

The historic Kingsburg jail was built in 1925 in six months for $3,098. Wow! The jail was closed in the early 1970s and was used as a storage facility until the 1990s. The building remained vacant and abandoned until the decision was made to lease the building to the Kingsburg Historical Society. I’m glad it was because I enjoyed seeing the jail and learning it’s history.

After spending most of the day in Kingsburg, we had to leave in order to head to Delano to pick-up a third load.

After Delano it was time to make a stop at a Flying J "travel center" in Kern to take showers. Ahhhh, getting cleaned up and putting on fresh clothes felt really good …

But, we weren’t done with driving for the day.

After our showers we drove down to Los Alamitos to be in place for a 4:00 am pick the next day. I thought, “Four a.m.? Ugh. Way too early for me!”
Again, I was glad the truck had a bunk in it.

We drove 265 miles on our ninth day.

On the Road – Day 8

We spent the morning in Tracy, CA. My impression of Tracy was that it is a nice, inland Californian urban town. I can’t remember why, exactly, and it’s not in my notes, but, my boyfriend alluded to the fact that a lot of people’s impressions of Tracy, CA, are not consistent with mine. I could only conclude that people who had a poor impression of Tracy probably:

* Had not actually been to Tracy;
* Have been to Tracy and had a bad experience there;
* Have been to Tracy and only saw the town with a very narrow view.

In any event …

We ate at La Costa, a taqueria with an outdoor walk up counter for ordering and picking up food.
I liked this place a lot. The food was good and the atmosphere nice. While there was some seating inside, most of the restaurant was outside and comprised of a large patio area shaded by a row of palm trees.
There was a nice, breezy, tropical feel to the place.

We spent the rest of day in Manteca running errands. We enjoyed a nice walk to the bank - twice. I’m not sure why we went twice.
Maybe we forgot something and had to go back …
.
.
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Around 6:30pm we started driving towards Traver.
On the way we stopped at the Black Bear Diner, a nice restaurant with a bear theme.
We ate dinner and then got back on the road.

We drove a bit more and then stopped for the night.
We parked in lot across the street from Bravo Farms (neat place!).

Light day of driving – only 185 miles.

On The Road – Day 7

No Notes for day 7. Weird. I could have sworn I took notes every day I was on the road …

It is also weird that two months have gone passed and I have not posted on this blog.
Well, a lot happened during the holiday months of November and December.
I’ll write a little more about that in a later post.

For now, I’m going to pull out my notes for day 8 and get cracking on my next post for this blog.

Stay tuned.