California at last!

Today we made it to California (huzzah!). We're spending our last night on the road at the 29 Palms Inn, located in, yes, 29 Palms, CA. It's a little place just above Joshua Tree National Park, where our family came camping when we were kids. It's a nice little place to be and only a few hours, barring traffic, from where we need to be in LA.

We're hoping to get to LA by early afternoon tomorrow so we can check into our house, check into temporary lodging, and get our bearings a bit. For those who don't know, we'll be down in (at least while we're in TLF) Fort MacArthur in San Pedro. You can see on the map that it's right next to the water so at least we should have some nice scenery.

Before we left Florence this morning we stopped at Casa Grande National Monument to look at the ruins. Very impressive, very big, and very old. The sings around the ruins explained that some of the windows near the top (3 stories) aligned with the sun at solstice and the moon every 18.5 years. We decided the building was a primitive version of Google's calendar tool. For comparison, we took a picture of me standing in front of the Casa Grande ruins with my Blackberry, which I think has a superior calendar function since it works year round. I'll have to post the pic tomorrow though because I drove to get internet access and I left the camera and cable in our room. Yep. Still got it...

Here's the story of my moderate panic this morning: As we went to leave Casa Grande I noticed my car wasn't locking and unlocking in response to my key fob. And then Sid's key fob too. You might be thinking this is minor but I experienced this once before just before my car battery died coming home from a trip. This cost me (and an uncharacteristically helpful and understanding Graves) a couple extra hours in Orlando. I was in no hurry to repeat this experience in a place relatively far off the beaten path in Arizona. It either had to be battery/alternator related or the key fobs themselves. Fortunately, there was a Walgreens nearby where I was able to procure new batteries for the key fobs and viola! problem solved. Whew.

The drive went quite well. I can say that because I didn't drive much today. Kamiah took over just before Phoenix (and did very well through the city, especially for someone who claims not to like driving) and drove all the way here. I very much appreciated this since my shoulder was killing me after yesterday's stint (who knew 6 days in the car would aggravate an injury like that?).

In closing, the trip has been great, but I'm really *really* happy to finally be in California. Now we just take care of getting moved in (next Monday or Tuesday, I guess) and getting checked into my new job. Whoo?