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Finally we are free of the winter climate. The one and half duffle bags of woolens and fleece are in storage, in the back of the Hummer. We made the transition from winter to summer as we turned off US 395 on to California 14 and headed up the pass toward the Kern River Valley. Cresting the mountain range the landscape changed from winter brown to spring green. The hills and valleys were a velvet carpet of bright green. From the Kern Valley we continued west until Bakersfield unrolled before us. Acres and acres of fruit trees, fields with crop and fields without. As far as the eye could see in all directions agriculture was shape of the land. An hour and half later we were climbing the foothills of the coastal range, and making our way through oil fields and dry pastures. Sunset found us heading up US 101 and entering Santa Barbara just as the last rays of sunshine slipped behind the mountains. These were the last days of preparation for our trip to Puerto Rico and Panama. Even though we are leaving first on an airplane, the hardest part is still leaving the dock. We have been living fat for the past 4 weeks and have acquired a lot of baggage. Clothes for wintertime, wine from around the world, books, papers and unopened mail. In the last two days we whittled it down from a pile that would barely fit in the back of the Hummer. Now we have only two bags a bit larger then a carryon and one small backpack and one cloth briefcase. The two bags we will check-in and the backpack is K2's carryon and the briefcase is mine. It feels good to be light and mobile again. Life reduced to just what you really need. In my case that involves a portable computer, a Toshiba 3110Ct. It weights just over a pound and just under an inch thick. It's the accessories that take more room and weight, but they live in the checked baggage. In addition to the computer I am toting a Digital Video camera, a Sony DCR-PC100 - the latest and greatest of the line. This too, lives in the briefcase, and the various accessories travel with checked baggage. In fact a good ¼ of my checked bag is regulated to the power supplies, disk drives (floppy and CD-ROM), port expanders etc. that make all this electronic stuff go. If that were not enough, I borrowed an underwater case for the video camera. Guess where that is packed. Yep it is in the check bag. Life would be so much simpler without these items, but they enrich the experience. These toys make it possible for me to capture moments in time and share them with friend and family. One of the last things that we needed was sunscreen. I am picky about this stuff and I always try to find a gel, but will use whatever is available if necessary. So we make what we think is a simple trip to Longs Drugs, on State Street. We head to the sunscreen area, and in SoCa this is a pretty large selection. The area is no less then 6 feet long and 5 levels high of stuff to keep off what we try so hard to find, the Sun. There are 4 gels to choose from; I pick up my favorite Sundown SPF 30, in the 4 oz bottle. In addition, I pick out a brand I have not seen before. It too is a gel in SPF 20. K2 finds a brand that she normally only finds in Canada. With that done we walk down the isles, and as we see things we remember items that we need to pick up. In all we accumulate the following items:
The camera was $100 of that, but we realized that there were a couple of places were we seldom took pictures, snorkeling and on the outside of the boat in less then good weather. It was a good thing we only came in for sunscreen. I would hate to think what would have happened if we had a real list. Of course we could have bought most of this in Puerto Rico, maybe. So we left the Hummer in the able care of David Jonathan, Hummer wanabe driver turned into Hummer Captain. And took Roadrunner Shuttle vehicle #135 - Serving Venture County, from Santa Barbara to the Howard Johnson at LAX airport where we spent the night before leaving at 7am on Continental 1852 bound for Huston and changing to Continental 1468 arriving in San Juan, Puerto Rico at 7:21 PM. The adventure is on and the excitement is building. I'll leave you with a quote that use as mantra when I having an "Adventure"
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