Day 10 and Day 11

I'm behind again. I am writing this on Friday, but I am going to tell you about Thursday. After Meteor Crater, as I said I drove back to Flagstaff and happened upon an interesting hotel. Here are the pictures:






As you can see, I wound up with the "Robert Englund" room; ie, the Freddy Kruger room. I really liked that. And, no, I did not see Freddy in my dreams. Although I wish the people down the hall had. They got to their rooms at 2:00AM and started fighting and slamming doors at 3:00AM. They were very rude. I didn't sleep well at the Monte Vista.
The next morning, I got up, packed, sat on the floor of my hotel room and ate a coffee cake muffin from the cafe downstairs for breakfast, and then hit the road. On my way out of town, I stopped by the Lowell Observatory. Perceval Lowell was a Harvard mathematician who discovered the contentious planet/plutoid/whatever called Pluto. Here are some photos of his 24" optical telescope he built for $20,000:

Here are a couple of calculating instruments they had in the museum. The first is the biggest scale I've ever seen, and the second is a mechanical calculator.

So, I didn't get out of Flagstaff until about 11AM. I should probably mention that I changed my plans again. I talked to one of my old college roommates who now lives north of San Francisco. He told me I could come visit. So, I decided to drive up to see him for a couple of days. I would drive half the distance on Thursday and half on Friday. Thursday's stopping point was going to be the Sequoia National Forest. It took a lot longer to get out of Arizona than I had expected; about 4 hours.

Eventually, I made it into California and was promptly greeted in the Mojave desert by gasoline at $4.89 per gallon. Yes, that's regular unleaded. I took it on the teeth and soldiered on. It started to look like I wasn't going to make my goal, but having no other plans, I kept going. After leaving the desert just past Mojave, CA, I turned north into the mountains. That was an interesting drive. Very narrow roads that were extremely curvy took me forty or so miles up to a town called Isabella.

I stopped to get a Subway sub and had to negotiate some Jerry Springer Show meth heads fighting in the parking lot about drugs, money, or both. Quick to flee the scene, I got back in the truck with my sandwich and began looking for a campground as I had intended to sleep out in the open again. Seven miles west of Isabella, on the shores of Lake Isabella, I found a National Forest Campground. I parked, ate my sandwich, and proceeded to set up "hobo tent v. 1.2". This time it turned out even better. more head room and more square footage!

The new setup involved me draping the tarp over the roof of the truck. I then used the back window to climb into the bed of the truck. That allowed me to more securely fasten the rear portion. So, I was pleased.
While setting all this up however, I noticed something that could have been disastrous. And by disastrous, I mean potentially dangerous. My left front tire had worn down so much that the steel belt was torn. That means that a blowout was imminent. And on the very curvy California mountain roads i had to drive to get out of the forest, I could have tumbled off the mountain. So, I changed the tire in the dark last night. I had to dig through the mountain of clothes and food and various other supplies in the back of the cab to get at the jack, so it amounted to some hard labor, but I preferred to have it done before I went to bed so I could get up and drive in the morning.
The night in the bed of the truck was great. I slept very well. I think it was because I was so tired, and it was much more peaceful and quiet than that Flagstaff hotel.
The next morning I got up, brushed my teeth, put on fresh clothes, and hit the road. On the way out, I made an attempt to pay the $19 camping fee, but no one was around to collect, so I left, having had a free stay.
Here is what my morning looked like:

And here is what the tire looked like:
I stopped at a Sears Auto in Visalia, CA and got two new tires. So, now I have four new tires and all should be well. (got the alignment straightened out as well).
And, finally, one picture of the golden hills of California. I took this on my way to Richmond.:
I am now at Davy's house. I will take a picture of that tomorrow and post. We're ordering pizza now. I tell you couch surfing is really nice.