I woke up early and had breakfast at the hotel, which was fairly spare. The news was on and the election results were getting a lot of air time. I watched in disbelief.
When I went back to the room I got a lovely wake up dog pile from the kids. After getting ready, Nathan, Lexie and I snuck down to the kitchen to get Nutella packets from the kitchen. They never eat the breakfast so getting some snacks was something, at least. The wind was pretty bad still this morning so the front hotel doors were still closed, meaning we used the back hotel door.
Lone Pine felt an uncomfortable town. I don't know if it was the Luke-warm reception, the howling wind or just because this was where we found out the election results. The most surreal part of the morning was definitely coming to terms with Trump getting elected. It knocked the wind out of me the night before and I was still processing the l news the next day. It's funny to walk around wondering which people voted away women's and other minority group rights so easily. It's not hard to see how they are so divided. I felt somewhat paranoid and defensive that day, and a little more homesick than usual. It was a bit like being bitten by a family pet, and I think I subconsciously attached that feeling of disappointment and bewilderment unfairly with Lone pine.
Election results aside, we quickly packed the car and got ready to get moving.
We got some fuel and I had a funny moment in the servo. I saw the stand of over-the-counter medicine as I was paying for drinks and wondered aloud "do I need any drugs..?". The sales person helpfully pointed to the 420 stand in the corner and said "oh, you get those over there". California!
For some reason there was an oversize red chair out the front of the petrol station, so we took photos of the kids and I tried to get photos of a bird I'd id'd earlier at the hotel. I was very impressed with myself for recognising a couple of birds just by appearance - something I can almost guarantee I picked up from playing Wingspan.
I started the driving and as we went along we talked about the stunning landscapes, which was flush with Joshua trees. The night before the audio guide recommended a spot to pull over and take a photo with the joshua trees, but it was pitch dark and much too late at that time. Kieran and I had mentioned our disappointment in missing out, as we were both charmed by the trees since seeing them on our drive from Anaheim to Las Vegas. With that it mind, while passing through a particularly populus grove we made a split-second decision to pull over. I'm so glad we did.
Walking among the trees was a little surreal, with the distinctive, twisted, not-quite-trees lining the horizon. I remember thinking of the word "alien" when looking at the landscape. Beautiful, but strange!
The trees can live for hundreds of years and grow up to 15 metres tall. None of the ones we saw were quite that big, but there were some very large and impressive yucca in the area.
Kieran took on the driving next, which was always fun for me because it means I can take heaps of photos out the window as we go. Our plan was to have a short stop at picturesque Lake Isabella, and set our GPS accordingly. Ever the sleeve to technology, we followed the directions dutifully and found ourselves at... a retirement village in the town near Lake Isabella. No lake views in sight.
We thought it was quite funny and decided to just grab some lunch at Taco Bell before resuming our trip to Bakersfield. We kept ourselves entertained by taking turns to list American states and managed to invent a few along the way. Before too long we were pulling into the carpark of the California Living Museum (CALM).
Situated opposite a large yellow Hill, the carpark hosted a number of ground squirrels busily flitting around looking for good. These squirrels had long, thin tails - different from the Page ground squirrels, which had round tails, or the tree squirrels, which have the traditional bushy tail. I found them fascinating and probably spent a little too long trying to get the perfect photo (spoiler alert - I did not get a perfect photo).
We entered through a surprisingly shabby entrance and into the shop. CALM is and animal sanctuary which houses, heals and rehabs animals and birds native to the area. By all accounts they are a great organisation that put the animals first.
We hired a vehicle stroller for the kids to ride in and were away. We started with the reptile house, which had a lot of brightly coloured snakes. They had some fun with it, with one enclosure hosting a inflatable snake and another having a sign directing "no parsletongue".
We continued around to the birds, and while I was taking photos at the fence and turned around in time to see Lexie, who was in the car stroller with Charlie, midway through climbing out the back of it. The stroller tipped, pinning her between the stroller and the ground. She panicked and tried to pull herself free, causing more scrapes to get arms. I quickly righted the stroller (Charlie was fine, by the way), and poor Lexie was all cut up, though thankfully no serious damage. We went out to the car to get the first aid kit and clean her up while Kieran continued on with the boys and strollers.
Lexie was very brave when I cleaned the wounds with antiseptic and we got her bandaged up then returned to the "scene of the crime" to catch up with the rest.
As we walked through we saw some bears in a big open enclosure, which a few squirrels decided to call home, including one particularly well-fed one. We saw a bunch of foxes, a coyote named Wiley, and some raptors. The enclosures seemed ok, but not really visitor-friendly and overdue for an upgrade.
We caught up with Kieran and the boys before getting to the big cat enclosures. These were quite good, nice and big, with different levels to climb for the cats and lots of vegetation. The mountain lions were majestic. Mountain lions are the cool-kids of the cat world. The adjoining enclosure had a pair of bob cats. They looked very comfortable in their enclosure and were playing and romping. The cats were a real highlight of the facility.
Leaving the cat area it had become very apparent that it was not just Lexie who got banged up in the fall - the wheel on the car stroller was really struggling by this point. we took the stroller back then went into the petting zoo. My favourite here were the donkeys. I was petting one and when I stopped he would he-haw for more attention. They were super dusty and patting them elicited smoke-signal-like clouds of brown dust, similar in colour to chocolate Nesquik.
After a thorough hand wash and sanitize we went back to the shop/entrance/exit. We picked up some souvenirs and i noticed the store was dead-quiet, just us and the three staff behind the desk. During the trip I'd been trying to find quarters from each of the states we visited and I was missing most of them. I took advantage of the quiet to strike up a conversation and ask if they might have any I could trade for. The team was so good. They all got into it, saying things like "I've never even noticed before!" and ended up checking every quarter in every register. This was a fun way to end the visit.
While leaving town we passed a park and noticed both ground squirrels and tree squirrels (I only saw grey, but Kieran said she saw red ones too). Naturally, we had to stop the car so I could fill up my phone with blurry photos of grey specks against the green.
We drove on, through another glorious Californian sunset, this time amongst the oil derricks. We arrived in darkness at the Lazy J Ranvh, nestled in the Sierra mountain foothills. I checked us in and was thrilled to meet (and have many pats with) the reception cat, Turtle.
The town had a blackout earlier that day, so we were limited with food options and the places that were open were packed. I called ahead and booked in at what turned out to be a lovely bar and restaurant. The people drinking at the bar were super friendly and it felt like old times at Woomera, chatting to the tourists (except this time it was us who were the tourists!).
Dinner was nice and surprisingly, a bit fancy. The servers were great, especially with the kids. After dinner we checked out the Kaweah River, which backs onto the restaurant. It was a very peaceful - if cold - night, and we were treated with seeing an albino duck sitting alongside it's brown speckled friends.
While CALM wasn't as spectacular as we were expecting, this turned out to be one of the most memorable days. From the Joshua trees to hunting for quarters, sunset on the oil fields to the thoroughly enjoyable dinner, it was a day full of positive experiences and people.
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