Counterfett's Magical Mystery Tour!

Or, your whimsical guide to Central California.

See, the reason I did not post yesterday is that Friday afternoon I drove nearly 400 miles down to my parent's house in  the desert. I meant to take a camera with me and take some pictures of the trip for you all, but I forgot my camera. Well, my mom had bought a new camera, so gave me her old one. Of course, I packed it and forgot to photograph the desert part, which was all of the really interesting stuff. Anyway, on with the show!

The Tehachapi Pass. It snowed on my way there, I was lucky the pass didn't close. It was colder on the way back, but cloudy, so no snow pics unfortunately.

The Light at the end of the Tehachapi. That City down there is Bakersfield

Everybody hates Bakersfield. I kind of like it. Went to college there. It's a town of 352000 people that still manages to have a small town vibe. And typical SoCal regard to speed limits (i.e. high and ignored).

Most of CenCal looks like this. Dry and flat.

Lots of nice almond orchards.

Mileage signs. 150 minutes in and still a looooong way to go.

Gas was pretty expensive down there too.

Tulare, home of Apple Annie's. There was this girl in college I dated that broke up with me because we had an argument whether this place was in Tulare or Visalia. IT'S IN TULARE! So there, girl who's name I don't remember!

SEE? TULARE!

It's also the home of the int'l Ag Center. I'm so proud.

Still a really long way to go.

Kingsburg, Swedish Village. Also, why would they put a traffic sign right in front of their touristy, historic sign?

The sexiest billboard in the state.

I tried to get a better shot of Fresno, but I forgot the freeway is below these embankments that make good photography impossible. This was the best I could do. I don't know a lot about Fresno, since I never lived or went to school there. I know it has as many strip clubs as San Francisco, with a much higher likelihood of the performers being born female. I can get behind something like that.

The offramp to Los Banos and Gilroy. Neither place is interesting except Los Banos, because its name either means baths or toilet in Spanish. I took this picture because left hand freeway offramps are super rare here. This is one of I think three in the whole state.

'Go, Go, Chowchilla!' Wait, that's not how it goes...

Still a long way from home.

I had to start driving slower and taking less pics at this point because of all the CHPs stationed around these parts. Didn't stop me from taking a pic of their office though.

If texting and driving are a bad idea, what about mirrored self portraiture and driving?

I was trying to take a really nice picture of Merced, but this train got in the way.

Modesto. Frequently rated as one of the worst places in the country to live. I don't think that's fair. No place in California is worse than Detroit. Nowhere. But anyway, this is about where I stopped taking pics because traffic was getting thicker and I was getting close to home.