5 August 2010 - driving to Tulare

Not much to say today.

First part of the day was spent driving across the desert - although the style of desert changed occasionally, it was still desert. The only time I even thought about taking a photo was when we went past an aeroplane graveyard, but turns out the batteries in my camera were flat. Again. It's a new camera and it's small and easy to use but wow, does it chew through batteries!

Eventually, after we got back into California, it got a little less like desert, but there still wasn't a lot to see.

Lunch stop was at Barstow - we ate at a nice restaurant after a quick look around some shops.

Had a mid-afternoon stop at a small farm outlet where we bought some fresh grapes and peaches - all eaten now, they were lovely! Then, on to Tulare where we're staying the night.

The big discovery of the night has been a fast food chain that does some actual non-greasy food. It's called Long John Silver's - they do seafood and some chicken, and most of their stuff is deep-fried and greasy as you'd expect from an american fast food place. However, we both had a grilled fish platter - mine was two small pieces of grilled american salmon on rice, some steamed vegetables, a cob of real sweet corn and a breadstick. And, it was totally delicious, particularly for a fast food outlet - it sounds boring but the rice and vegetables had some really nice spicy-but-not-too-spicy flavouring added. I hadn't heard of them before today but I looked them up and they're one of the bigger franchises around.

Anyway, as I said, not much to say. We've got an early start tomorrow - looking forward to Yosemite Park!

Forgot to mention - tonight's hotel is a Best Western - nice and comfortable and the *free* internet actually works. Still at 100% when it comes to baths - this room has a bath too! I also got in a chance to do some laundry and while I was waiting got to spend 20 minutes exercising in their little gym which is conveniently right beside the laundry. That's the first real exercise I've done this trip, but we've done an awful lot of walking and my clothes all still fit so I'm assuming that I haven't gained too much weight :-)