We took the 101 highway down the Central Valley of California. The almond trees were in glorious fullness. Di you know that the California Central Valley supplies the USA with 100% of the almonds we eat? I never knew that, but I would believe it after all of the orchards we passed. 

From Bakersfield we headed east across the Tehachapi Pass. There are massive wind farms there now. The pass is steep and we got enmeshed with all of the trucks heading over the pass. Lots of starting and stopping. 

The stop on Tuesday night finally landed us in Barstow, the west end of the Mojave desert. At 4:30 it was 100 degrees with a hot, furnace like wind blowing. We decided we would need to find better accommodations than the van, so we got a room at a hotel. Barstow has grown so much, that it was easy to find a nice place for the night. We seemed to be hunkered down with a lot of truck drivers. None of us wanted to hang out in that heat.