What Was I Talking About Anyway?

So, where was I? Oh, yes, our exciting road trip on Labor Day. We did not want to drive to the coast since we've done that so many times and just couldn't face that boring drive over the mountains, so we decided we would take a drive in the opposite direction.

A few years ago when we went through Sequoia on our way back from Sacramento, we went down Highway 65 and passed through the little town of Exeter just outside of Visalia. It looked really charming and quaint and I've always wanted to go back and check it out a little further. So, that is where we headed, up 65 which starts out near the Bakersfield oilfields which is not a pretty sight, but kind of the reason Bakersfield even exists, that and crops. You drive through the oilfields for a while and then you start going through rolling hills with ranches and cattle and that part is pretty, and then you drive through farmland and a few tiny towns, a couple of which we pulled off to investigate. If you ever want to see a really nice, clean, and yes, quaint, small town, stop in Lindsay for a look. Nothing much was open because of the holiday, so downtown was deserted, but what a nice clean downtown it was! These are some pictures that I did not take but rather borrowed off the internet.

As you drive into the downtown, you go through this roundabout with the windmill or whatever that is in the center of it. It was just about this deserted when we drove through it.

The Napa Auto Parts is apparently a local landmark.

This old movie theater is now a playhouse with murals of people waiting to see The Wizard of Oz around the side of the building.

There was another old theater down the street from this one, so at one time the town was busy enough to support not one, but two movie theaters.

There really wasn't any reason to stop as we didn't even see an open restaurant other than the gas station restaurants and fast food places right off the highway, but what a nice little town this was.

Then up the road through Porterville, which has the biggest Walmart distribution center I've ever seen, there must have been 500 truck trailers parked in the lot and I'm thinking the people who work in there have to drive around in golf carts it's so big. And that was the most exciting thing about Porterville, wasn't all that impressed with that town.

And then to Exeter, which is still cute, but we were getting hungry and nothing much was open in this town either. We finally found a restaurant called East/West, which serves traditional coffee shop food on one side of the menu, and Chinese food on the other. It was okay, nothing special, but lunch is lunch and tastes good when you are hungry.

We did find a couple of antique stores that were open, but no air conditioning in them and it was getting HOT by then, so time to get back on the road and go home.

Back through the farmlands and then Keith decides to go back on the 99 instead of the 65 which was a mistake because everyone else in the world was going south on the 99.

So, it was a pleasant outing and other than lunch and a couple of antique store purchases, didn't cost anything except for the gas and got us out of the house for the day.