Another scorcher

With temps forecasted today at 103F I have decided to turn on the a/c a bit later. The mornings are very comfortable, especially when dog walking before 7 am. The evenings aren't bad except for the bugs keeping the dogs and me indoors where the retained heat is awful. Yesterday I reached for a glass to pour a cold one, and the glass felt like it just came out of the dishwasher. Everything in the rig feels warm to the touch, even the toilet seat! The beer isn't cold enough, although that could be the warm glass. I should drink it out of the bottle except I just don't feel right at my age swigging out of a quart!

Steve is going to try to come up to Orland for a few hours this afternoon, and we plan to ride out to the lake and scope out our campsites once more. I don't know what the final count will be but I think it keeps growing. Ara will be home from college this week, and a couple of foreign exchange students from her school are touring the US this summer and will be in the area, so they are coming with us as well. I would like to leave the dogs here in the air conditioning, but it depends if Steve brings his with him then I'll take mine and we can let them run up on the buttes though I can't imagine any running in this heat.

I spoke with the campground owner yesterday, and while I am gone he plans to pull the picnic table over on the parking pad as an indication that the space is rented. I will probably leave my grill and I'd like to leave the big ladder but if Steve wants to rearrange the storage again I'll have him stow it.

Thanks to Al of the Bayfield Bunch for looking up CA State route 36 in the Western Mountain Directory. Yesterday I mentioned driving from this part of California (North Central) over to the Pacific Coast. There are few roads that go directly across, and 36 looked it might be ok, but NO, IT ISN'T! I will either find a better route or just skip it altogether. I could have gotten stuck between two redwood trees growing along the white lines at the side of the roadway, and been there forever!

Thanks also to rickd, a reader who told me about Highway 299 from Redding to Eureka. I read the posts in one of the forums and the folks who have traveled it all say it isn't a bad road at all. Hot this time of year though, on the eastern side of the Cascades.

Since there is no doubt a reader or two from California who knows it better than I do, I should clarify that there is a loooong valley that runs most of the length of the state. Where I am right now is properly referred to as the Northern Sacramento Valley. South of Sacramento is the San Joaquin Valley, and the valleys run all the way down to the Imperial Valley, which I believe is the southernmost before Mexico, but I won't swear to it. I refer to the whole shebang as the Central Valley! It is agricultural and contributes greatly to feeding the nation. It is criss-crossed with canals and water runs from them to the fields, an absolutely amazing system.