From the land of fruits and nuts

I told everyone I was going to San Jose. Well, the plane took me to Santa Nella, so I'm not in San Jose. Actually, the plane took me to Fresno and we drove to Santa Nella. For once, it wasn't quite my fault. The quick glance at my itinerary said, "San Jose." :-)

The flight was actually pretty nice. I somehow go bumped up to first class, so I got free drink refils... which means I got to see the plane's "Laboratory." I Don't know why they call bathrooms, "laboratories," and I don't know why Federal law prohibits tampering with the smoke detector in the laboratory. (Ok, I guess I might :-)

Anyway, it was a really small plane and there wasn't any DirectTV. WAAAaaaAAaAAaaaahhHHhhhh! I guess first class made up for that. The lady sitting next to me took pity on me after I drooled on her while sleeping. (no tv = Ben sleeps. Ok, so Ben sleeps on plane anyway, but without TV and plenty of "soda," I had plenty of drool fuel. I don't think I actually drooled, but it would have been hideously funny as long as I didn't drool on anyone but me.) Anyway, the lady next to me gave me a copy of, Us to look at. Man. I'm glad I'm not famous. You go do anything and boom! There's an article written about it. Yikes. I learned that Destiny Cyrus (Hannah Montana) ate ice cream with some guy. I guess that was pretty much headline news. :-)

When we arrived in Fresno, I stepped off the plane onto the tarmac and Whoo... It's hot and humid down here in the "valley."

We drove to Santa Nella -- basically a city of farmers -- so I could do something "green" in my lifetime... which could end at any minute, honey. LOL -- sorry. The front-desk lady at the hotel was really funny. Anyway, we came down here to figure out why some pumps aren't working... without them, the wetlands in the wildlife refuge would be drylands -- something that would surly make the entire universe collapse into a cloud of dust. Ok, maybe not. Now my old cello teacher can be happy with me again. True, I've done a lot of work at evil dams. (BTW, each of our dams provides enough "renewable energy" that each is equivalent to between 50 - 45,000 of the largest wind generators around.) Now I've amended my ways and have worked to recreate wetlands for... birds? Dumb birds? You've got to be kidding me! Green. Whatever. I guess I didn't squash every bug I saw on the wildlife refuge. :-) I have some pictures, but I don't have a USB cable with me, so I can't post them.

The pumping plant kind of looks like a gas station out in the middle of a flat nowhere. Flat as in the visibility was 10 miles today and you could clearly see all 10 miles. The pumps are on a concrete pad with a roof over it. Bugs galore. House flys. Black Widows. They're all happy to live on the concrete pad. Oh, and there's these little black beetle things that adore hiding under any or all of our shipping cases. It scared me the first time. I moved a backpack and about 50 beetles scurried away from under it... searching for dark. Dark for dark business, I guess. I'm not sure what those little guys have against the sun, but that seems to be their only purpose in life -- to get away from light. It was fun tormenting them. Whoo, hoo, hoo! You thought you were safe, huh? Well... LET ME MOVE THAT BOX! YAHHH, HAAAAAA, HAAAA, HAAA! *Ahem*

We ate lunch at a hole-in-the-wall place. This one really was a hole-in-the-wall. Ok, only the bathroom had a hole in the wall, but the food wasn't very good. Usually, places like that are really good and fairly cheap, but this one... nah.

For dinner, we ate at Land-O-Bland. Ok, so it was actually called something like, "Anderson's Split Pea Soup," but the food was really bland. Cool building, though! It was... er... in the Tudor style? I DON'T HAVE A CLUE, but it sounded good :-) Ok, it actually looked like it was modeled after your typical Dutch hut. (house, but hut sounded cooler.) Kinda like White Fence Farm only cooler. It even had a windmill. The first bite of my chicken fried steak, though? My first impression was, "this is breaded with chicken feed." We'd driven past turkey farms on our way "home" that night, so pardon the thought. I shoulda gotten the burger... but I like eat burgers for every meal on trips because I love 'em so much... IDK! Whatever it was, the "chicken fried steak" had too much "chicken" and not enough "steak." :-)

Uh... old Cally -- the land of hot and humid. After work today, we hopped in the car and it said, "107 degrees." The humidity out here doesn't help either. Ok, so the car didn't speak. It indicated. I have very mixed emotions about California. I don't think I'd like living out here... or maybe I would. I don't know.

Well, tonight, I'm in Fresno. We ate at Applebees and they gave us free dessert because our food took so long to get. I'm lounging in my PJs on my bed, typing away on my laptop, just like they show in the pictures. (For once, I'm using a laptop like you're supposed to! I just hope nothing crawls out of it...) COOL! There's a lot of thunder outside right now! Now I'll probably sleep like a log! (If I snore, than I'll sleep like a log that's being cut up with a chain saw.)

Well, there's probably other things to say, but I have a 7:55am flight tomorrow, so I should probably go to bed.

Oh, this hotel is kinda cool. It's only a Holiday Inn, but there's this big indoor "courtyard" in the middle with a cool pool. It rhymes, you see? There's this tall... palm-tree-with-a-big-bowl-on-top that water comes out of and drops about 15' into the pool. I guess it's an "airport" hotel. I knew I'd want my swimming suit! You never know when you'll have to rescue a fair maiden from the clutches of death! (Kidding, as always.)

Er.. Thanks for reading!