Besides being half way between Las Vegas and Los Angeles and being near a ghost town, Barstow has one more claim to fame: outlet shopping. Although neither of us are shoppers we did have a few things on our "need" list and so we spent some time at the Barstow Outlet Mall and the outlet mall in Tulare. Our "need" lists are now empty.
Our goal for the day was to get as close to Sequoia National Park as possible. For the first hour or so, our drive was on more of the Mojave Desert where we saw the testing site for KIA and Hyundai automobiles, Edwards Air Force Base and the Marine Aircraft Test Site. There is definitely a military presence in the desert.
The transition from desert to fertile valley was sudden. It was as if we merely crossed a line and all of a sudden we were seeing grass, trees, rolling hills and farmland. We had entered the San Joaquin Valley. We came across a farm market that sold fresh fruit, dried fruit, nuts and dates. Needless to say, we filled a basket with goodies and had lots to munch on for the rest of the drive. We passed acres and acres of apple orchards, orange groves, lemon groves, grapefruit groves and vineyards. Unfortunately, we also passed farms for sale, boarded up buildings and idle factories.
We arrived at Three Rivers Hideaway RV Park at around 6. After dinner we walked to the river, took a couple of pictures and planned our day tomorrow. We will spend most of it in the Sierra Nevadas, Sequoia National Park where I understand the bears have come out of hibernation.
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