Hot flashes along with 90-degree temperatures are a sort of hell–maybe Dante’s 10th reserved for women who refuse to conform to old rules. But both can be beat. I got back on the hormone balancing pharmaceuticals and moved on to higher ground–heading south and east via Hwy 79 to Santa Ysabel and into Julian, California for a few days of cooler temperatures. I lucked into the Pinezanita Campground after stopping in Julian for lunch and pie. It’s pie country according to all the signs and the fifty-three varieties on the menu. Isn’t everywhere pie country? I chose strawberry rhubarb, not because it’s my favorite but because it’s so rare.
Trees. Cooler. Elevation 4200 and so quiet you could hear a … wait… is that … a leaf blower? Noooo! People! It’s a campground with trees and lots and lots of leaves. You are killing the campground ambiance! I went to the little office/market at the entrance and complained. Apparently, they do this every morning! OMG.
I swore to the travel spirits before I left that there would be no complaining on this adventure about anything—particularly weather (except the wind as mentioned in an earlier post!) or the varied and many inconveniences of traveling in and towing a small trailer. So, for the 2 hours of unproductive leaf-wrangling noise every morning, I put on my noise cancelling headphones, fired up the MiFi (Verizon Jet Pack 4G) and concentrated on several work projects.
And about that WiFi. It was at Pinezanita that I discovered that the claims of free WiFi are not exactly what they say (what a surprise, right?). There might be free WiFi, but it’s in the community room and has very limited bandwidth (so limited that you won’t bother). And there won’t be any complaining about that either.
Leaf blowers: Because silence and sanity were overrated anyway.