04 March, 2012

Day Two.
The weather is brutal and I don’t know if we can take it much longer. The sun is beating down relentlessly causing blindness at times, making us fear for our lives as we dodge the continuous stream of trucks. The blindness was on Diane’s side of the vehicle because she forgot to bring her sunglasses. They were left in the PT because that’s the last vehicle she drove when the sun was shining at home. Now we’ll have to visit COSTCO to get another pair because we know they have the kind that fit her glasses perfectly. I don’t need sun glasses because when the sun shines in my eyes I just squint real hard.

I drove the first 2 hours and got us almost to Shasta Lake before our urinary tracts began to influence our decisions. That was partly caused by the need to stop in Weed. We hit a “Black Butte Coffee” drive through and got our favorite beverages. Very tasty.
The rest area we stopped at was a new on on our list. We were sure we’d stopped at every rest area on I-5, both directions, over the years we’ve been driving this highway, but never the south bound unit at Shasta Lake. We’ve seen some significant improvements at all the others we’ve visited in the past. I’ve often thought that we should write a guide book with details about all the rest stops on the highways we’ve driven. For the ones we haven’t been to, I could just make stuff up and get pictures off the internet to substantiate my false claims.

I’ve discovered that my hip doesn’t hurt nearly as bad when I don’t wear pants in the car. That’s a guess, of course, because Diane makes me wear pants in the car whether I want to or not. What I did was undo my belt. That relieved the pain so much that I can only assume taking my pants off would only be better. I was thinking that I may never know, but the temperature is 66, at 11:30 am, so I might just yank on a pair of shorts for the ride tomorrow. Actually, I’ll yank on the only pair of shorts I have. Maybe I’ll wear my swimming suit, then I can eliminate underwear, too. Diane refused to take a picture so I could show everyone how comfortable I am so you’ll just have to let your minds wander around a little. Maybe we’ll run into each other in there.

At 1:30 pm the speedometer was fixing to rotate to 50700 miles and decided to each a mini lunch to commemorate this historic milestone. That meant we were 600 miles from home and only about 10 miles from Sacramento. I’d call Sacramento Kathie but it’s Sunday and she’s probably home now. But, we’ll have and holler when we drive through town, just the same.

Lunch consisted of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We had the bread but the peanut butter and jelly were snitched from our last motel by Diane. I was afraid they were going to call the police, but she smooth-talked them out of it claiming she has a rare disease that makes it imperative that she has fresh peanut butter handy at all times. In a pinch she can spread it on the back of her hands, like lotion, and the important nutrients will soak into her skin. What she didn’t tell them is that later in the day she lets me like it off. There’s more to that, but it’s not what you think. Perhaps I’ll forget I’m not supposed to tell you and reveal that secret.

Agnus successfully tiptoed us through Sacramento from I-5 to Highway 99 at 2:10pm. At that time, Diane said she could only drive another 62 miles on the remaining gas, but Agnus reported that we still have 155 miles to go to Fresno. It’s very possible that we’ll be stranded on the Highway for hours waiting for AAA to show up with some gas to get us to the next gas station. We’ll no doubt burn to a crisp because the temperature is 77 degrees. We feared we were doomed! Then, right out of the blue, a gas station showed up. It was at COSTCO!! How lucky was that? We spent $77.95 for 19.017 gallons of gas. That’s $4.099 a gallon. We also bought Diane a new pair of clip on sun glasses. Now she’s happy and not quit so cranky and a lot less likely to be blinded by the intense sun.

We made it to our hotel in Fresno around 5:25 pm. We would have been there sooner, perhaps by 5:15, had Diane listened to Agnus, but nooooo, she listened to me. You’ think she would learn, wouldn’t you?

After we checked in we drove across the street to Chili’s and had a very filling dinner served by a so-so waiter named Matt. Then it was back to our room and sleep.

See you tomorrow.

We have three dogs. Two bigs ones and one little one. The little one is the loudest and most annoying, and he’s a racist. He’s a little black one and he always sides with the big black one. The other big dog is light brown. It doesn’t matter to either of the black dogs that the light brown one is the alfa. I’m the one with the laptop in the picture.

All day long they all get long just great. In the evening the dog wars begin, and it always starts with food. Maybe it has something to do with their names. The big light brown one is Panzee. The big black one is Ziva. The little black one is Ozzie. Perhaps Ziva and Ozzie consider Panzee to be a sissy name and find it OK to pick on her.

Back to the food thing. Ozzie’s food bowl is inside his little bitty kennel where neither Panzee nor Ziva can get to it. They really like Ozzie’s food. It’s really tiny compared to what they get that I suspect they found it amusing to pick it up a tiny piece at a time, with their big dog feet with their big dog pinky-finger-like nail sticky out to the side like they’re high society or something. They can’t do that any more because I put a heavy chair on top of Ozzie’s kennel so they can’t move it.

Panzee and Ziva have food bowls on either side of their water bowl. I fill them every morning, but they don’t eat until night. Things start out OK but deteriorate quickly when Panzee bends over to take a bite and finds Ziva standing over her as if she’s daring her to do something about it. It’s all about intimidation, and yelling at each other. Panzee just ignores Ziva, picks up her food bowl and carries it into another room, or down the hall, dumping food all along the way. Once in a while she picks it up and doesn’t spill a drop. This distresses Ziva because she normally follows along, eating all the spilled food. When Panzee succeeds in not spilling anything it’s as if Ziva doesn’t get anything to eat even though her bowl is still full.

So, normally, Ziva eats all the spilled food, and Panzee only gets what she manage to keep in the bowl. When she empties her bowl, she goes back to the water bowl and gets into another argument with Ziva over Ziva’s full bowl of food. As Panzee pushes her way to Ziva’s food they yell and posture at each other and it increases in volume to the point where you’d swear they are going to tear each other apart. They don’t, however. What happens is Panzee picks up Ziva’s bowl and carts it off to another room to finish her meal. Ziva follows along eating the spilled food.

This happens every day. Like clock work. You’d think they’d get tired of arguing like this all the time. I’ve tried to talk sense to them, but it’s useless. They just won’t listen. Logic isn’t part of their belief system. Ultimately, they both wind up eating about the same amount of food, so it isn’t all bad. I guess I should just ignore them because they always seem to work things out.

They’re a lot like BFF’s in that regard. Friends one moment, arguing the next, but they always wind up friends when it’s all said and done.

I’ve thought about yelling and posturing over Diane’s food that way but I really believe that things would work out a whole lot differently for me than it does for the dogs. They always come out of their little tiffs unharmed.