January 20, 2006 ... Trip from Vegas to Porterville,CA -- Met Ed Mathias & Family.
A really special person and a beautiful family!!
The 350 mile trip was filled with great weather and the Mojave desert ... everywhere. As we got into the San Joaquin Valley
the storm that we had skirtered by going through Vegas, showed itself as fog ... and that's four hours south of Sacramento.
We didn't hear about how bad the snow was on Route 80, but if the fog was any indication, we were given another miracle
by taking the route we did. It was safe, dry and uneventful weatherwise!
We arrived in Porterville,CA about 7PM which included an hour time zone change. Ed and family had just finished dinner,
and were very gracious to save us some Chinese food, which was delicious! They had already prepared a room for us ...
with wireless internet! How's that for great hosts!! You can't beat that kind of hospitality. Ed was fabulous, as
I was sure he would be, since he was KatieRose's surrogate father while they managed a B&B for about 18 months on Maui!!
What a beautiful family and the spirit was definitely filling their home.
They asked if we wanted to stay another day!
The energy was so wonderful that it would have been tempting if we weren't on a schedule to be in Oakland on the 21st.
We thank you for such a wonderful evening and the exquisite opportunity to meet you Ed and your beautiful family
(doesn't his daughter Mimi look like a young Susan Lucci?).
As I said to him, "The Lord wanted so much for us all to meet and visit that He created a storm for millions
of people in Nevada and Utah changing our route so we have to come thru Porterville ... a totally amazing visit!"
January 21, 2006 ... Trip from Porterville,CA to Oakland,CA ... getting closer to Hawaii!!
The final leg before departure ... 3500 miles since the 9th!!
Here was a case where I missed a SE!! As we were winding our way to I5, we passed a country (very rural) gas station
with gas at $2.47 and that still small voice was saying get gas. BUT NO! I missed that opportunity.
The next gas station was nearly 100 miles away! I have never driven that far in the Pathfinder in all of the two years that
I had it ... 294.3 miles!! and the gas was $2.629! I'm sure we were on fumes when we pulled up.
I must have gotten more than 18.5mpg ... unfortunately since we were only allowed to have only a quarter tank of gas when
we dropped off the car to ship at Matson I didn't fill up to see what this back up miracle of running on fumes was ...
So I only got 10 gals ... as it turned out I should have filled up since I had to get another 5 gals which is a full tank.
Anyway, We pulled into the Concord,CA area about 6PM. KatieRose was a great co-pilot and after some white knuckle
driving did find the Holiday Inn, where we had this great package deal that KatieRose found on Hotwire.com for $285- which
included an 2006 Impala 4D full sized car and a room, with wireless internet!, for three nights!! A great deal and we needed
all that time to get all that we needed to do, done! Nice view from the room also ...
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