End of the Journey, but not the Adventure!

Not sure exactly where the time change was, but we realized we missed it when we woke up at 5 instead of 6 in the morning on Monday! Patrick and his dad went back to sleep after their showers since breakfast wasn't available yet, but I stayed up to avoid being the last one ready for once. It paid off in an additional way, since I was able to watch the sunrise over the mountains from the hotel window.

We had a perfect view of the Las Vegas Strip, except for that darn treetop covering up the middle casinos & hotels! It wouldn't have been visible in this photo anyway due to the lack of light, but it drove me crazy how close we were to a penthouse view!

Crossed into CA by mid-morning! But we still needed another 6+ hours of driving North to get to our destination.
Our drive took us through the Mojave desert. We actually saw an Oasis in the distance once too!

A lot of shrubby vegetation inhabited the area, but there were sections of these odd trees too. I'm not quite sure if they're a cactus or a palm derivative since I haven't observed one up close yet.

Now doesn't this seem like a mouth full of cheerios? What an unusual combination of letters!

And sure enough, with our large capacity vehicle and our potted plants in Doris' trunk, we were searched.... But the lady was very nice, just doing her job, and didn't make us jump through any unnecessary hoops. Just needed to open up the back so she could take a look, let her check our botanicals for any obvious diseases or bugs, and make sure our kayaks didn't have any fungi growing in the dents on the bottom. Only took a few minutes, thankfully.

Miles and miles and miles of this, with the occasional abandoned, graffiti-decorated home. First impression: boring. Second impression: apprehension about our new home-state!

We thought there were a lot of windmills in Kansas, but this took the cake! Patrick's mom told us later that this is the largest wind turbine field in the country, able to generate enough power in a year for 300,000 homes. When we drove through these hills, there were more waiting around each bend, and of varying sizes.

Past the windmills, we were surrounded about as far as the eye could see with these tall grass-covered hills. It was so startling (in a good way) after hours of flat, desolate, barren land.

We felt refreshed and relieved to see more dynamic topography, trees, and signs of civilization as we continued our route. And the sign on the left is one of many advertising strawberries, dates, peaches, etc. for sale.

Not surprising, considering all the farmland and vineyards that began to adorn the landscape. That instilled more positive feelings in us, as well!

Sometime between 4 and 5pm Pacific time, we arrived in Merced! Initial conclusions were the town was definitely more diverse, but not like we're the only white people in town! :) We've seen a pretty good spread of white, Asian, Hispanic, and some black too. Naturally that makes us a little more self-conscious, coming from 97% white Springfield, but all the people we've interacted with at the hotel, restaurants, stores, and the U-haul place (dropped off the car tow dolly; still got the truck) have been very friendly, putting us more at ease.

The town seems average- not too big or too small, rich/poor/middle class sections of town, both chains and independently-owned businesses. And as to be expected, HOT! :) However, it's much more dry out here. The lack of humidity is a mixed blessing since it makes the heat less intolerable, but it's obvious we'll need to use lotion and pumice stones religiously.

And as the title of this post suggests, even though we're here, only one part of our adventure is complete, as we look ahead to house hunting, new jobs, meeting ALL new people, and simply adjusting to the differences of being in California!