Day 4- Traveling to Travis' House in LeMoore, CA

Packing the car for the departure from Anaheim
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We checked out of the hotel in Anaheim around 11am and we officially got on the road to Travis' house at 11:40am.

My thoughts of traveling during the mid-day to avoid traffic congestion was well intended but as I have found, it looks like rush hour traffic at all times of the day in LA. The travel time was much longer then expected and believe me, Yahoo Maps! does not factor in stop-and-go traffic when they compute their travel times. According to Yahoo our trip from Anaheim to LeMoore should have taken 3:23 minutes but our actual trip time was 5:10 minutes.

It looks like rush hour traffic at all times of the day in LA.

View leaving the LA area
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The trip/journey was mix of contrasts - we started out in congested roads which transformed into a mountainous, hilly ride just north of the LA metropolitan area. The scene of the flowing roadway alongside the massive hills made for a great scenic drive. About two hours into the drive the surroundings changed into a long, flat boring drive for the remaining trip. The road didn't seem to have a curve, hill  or dip for about a straight hour - good thing I took that No-Doze! We did see a lot of agricultre during this stretch so we seemed to try to entertain ourselves by trying to guess what type of fruit was growing in he various fields. Check out some to the pictures along the way.

In the distance you can see the valley - a long boring stretch of the drive to LeMoore
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A big difference I noticed as we got to LeMoore was the temperature. Anaheim was in the lower 80s the entire time we were there - LeMoore on the other hand was and will be 100+ degrees the rest of the week. Whew!

Travis' two-story house was in the Naval Air Station housing development - it was a nice looking, newer development. One thing for sure, you would need to definately know the address because all the duplexes looked exactly the same. They had a community playground directly behind their house so I have a feeling the kids would be begging to go out - but I think they realized it was too hot and didn't even ask.

Travis and Adrienne's house on the Naval Air Station base - LeMoore, CA
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This evening Adrienne wanted us to meet our her parents--Neil and Terry Kinser--for dinner so we loaded up the caravan and headed to Adrienne's hometown of Hanford, CA (a city of 50,000 about 12 miles from LeMoore). Neil and Terry are very outgoing folks who own and operate their own pesticide business.

The restaurant that was chosen was called La Fiesta in the downtown area. As we were waiting for dinner to be served, Travis took me on a quick tour of downtown so I could get some pictures of Adrienne's work place-a beauty salon--as well as some of their historically buildings. Check out some of the pictures of this cozy town.

Travis and Mom
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After dinner, Adrienne's parents wanted us to visit their home which was about 5 minutes from the restaurant. The Kinser's house was well landscaped but I was unable to get pictures due to the low light. I did get some pictures of their cool backyard which looked like a place made to be "party central". They had a pool and a covered bar and sitting area including a flat-screen TV. Neil was a big SF Giants and 49er fan (which I had to forgive him for). As we were there we had to pause to watch Barry Bonds come up to bat in the bottom of the 9th inning - I believe he was still two homeruns short of the record.

Travis and Dad
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I found out that Neil was in a jazz-type band part time and was a very popular muscian in the area. We also met their over-excited dog Mattie who was running around the pool and licking and scaring Aria and Jadin.

We headed back to Travis' house around 10pm and I was exhausted. I have a feeling I'm sleeping in tomorrow.