Hanging Out in Hemet, California

It's been a marvelous four days of relaxation since arriving in Hemet. The weather couldn't have been lovelier. We really needed to find some warmth and sunshine, and Hemet did not disappoint us.

The first order of business was to take Mike's truck to a car wash. It was filthy from our drive south in the rain, and then even more filthy from driving through mud puddles in Borrego Springs. Since I'm still determined to get my 10,000 steps each day, I went for a walk while the truck was at the car wash. Along the way there was plenty to see. For instance, whole hedges of blooming rosemary.

Do you remember the picture of Mt. San Jacinto from my post a few days ago? Here it is from the other side.

Turn your head a little bit to the right, and you see the mountain where my friend Lisa lives...at least I think that's where she lives. I know she'll let me know if I'm wrong. Lisa and I weren't able to work out a time to get together during this visit. It's mostly my fault since I had no idea how close we were going to be. Of course, our original agenda didn't include Hemet, and by the time we were able to work it out, Lisa had plans with her family. Oh well...better luck next time around.

I knew you'd want to see how they disguise cell phone towers as date palms in Southern California. 

I couldn't get a better picture of the plant in the next picture because these were big hedges that were trimmed so that all the blossoms were at the top of the plant high over my head. These are known as "Bottlebrush" in California, but I spent three years in Hawaii from second through fifth grades. In Hawaii, we called them "Pele's Tears". I tried to Google a reference for this, but could find none. That's what happens when you grow up during the 14th Century. In any case, in Hawaii, legend has it that if you pluck one of the red blossoms, it will cause rain. And since it rains at least a little bit almost every day in Hawaii, it always works. I believed it.

There has been plenty of time for embroidery. Recall that I needed to redo this block from Lisa's mother. 

I spent a few days on it, and finished it on Sunday.

Then, right away I started the next one submitted by Barbara L.

Here's Barbara's original block submission.

I haven't taken a lot of artistic license with these blocks, preferring instead to copy them as closely as possible to the original submission. For this one, however, I decided to add some color to it. It seemed pretty straightforward. I started it Sunday morning, and by day's end, it was finished.

So...let's see...what else is going on? Oh, I knew you'd want to see this sign on the neighbor's trailer next door. I think I should make a quilt like this, don't you?

And we never make a visit to Hemet without getting a burger at the In-N-Out just down the street.

We don't have In-N-Out near where we live, and we're not very happy about it. In fact, the first In-N-Out was just built in Oregon, but it's a full day's drive away. 

The kitties are doing really well. Yesterday I thought they might bump noses. Only the leg of a chair was between them. Otherwise, they ignore one another or circle around giving one another a wide berth.

Maggie has spent as much time on the catio as Smitty has.

They seem to have reached a comfortable truce.

We've been moving their food bowls a little closer together, although we still have some work to do on that.

It was rather warm yesterday, and this Oregon cat isn't used to it. He has his Oregon winter woollies on right now, and so he was exposing as much surface area as possible.

Thanks to Quiltshopgal for turning us onto Polly's Pies. When Mike's sister visited yesterday, we decided to have lunch at Polly's. I loved this little quilt hanging near the front door.

We each had a different burger, and then both apple and cherry pies were on sale for $5.99. Well. We couldn't pass up a bargain like that, now could we? We chose cherry, brought it home, and had dessert in the trailer. Mmm, mmm, mmm.

And that pretty well sums up the past four days. This morning we're taking off for Death Valley National Park. We'll be there for three days, and it's doubtful that we'll have internet while we're there. I've been surprised in a national park before, however, and so maybe this will be the visit when cell service and internet are available. I'm only telling you this so that if you don't hear from me for the next several days, you'll know why. There's wonderful hiking and sight-seeing to be done in Death Valley, and you can be sure I'll catch you up as soon as I can. Also, I'm still on the hunt for a quilt shop, but that probably won't happen until we start driving home. Even then, I'm beginning to wonder.

So there you go. And off we go. I'll write when I get to the other side.