Cabin Fever

Is in high gear around here. Between being sick for several days and having lousy weather, we've spent the better part of the last week inside. You may have seen this gigantic storm hitting the southwestern corner of the US. I guess in some ways it's only fair, since when we got here this was the one little bit of the country that wasn't below freezing and dealing with snow. At any rate, we're not in the worst of the weather. It's rained a lot, but nowhere near flooding. The worst is the winds-crazy steady winds of at least 20mph and gusts up to 60 they say. Glad we are in a big heavy 16000lb trailer, but even then it's rocking quite a bit.

The biggest challenge is that we're nestled in the San Joaquin Valley and there's no way to get out of here without going through snow right now. Tehachapi, 45 minutes east (and uphill) has 9" of snow. Flagstaff, AZ (where we were thinking of going!) is expecting 7 FEET of snow by the end of the day. South of here you have the grapevine pass on I-5 which is closing due to snow and 40mph winds. Can't really go west-just teeny weeny roads that go up through the other mountains. North of here we could avoid mountains, but it's colder and since we're trying to go to Phoenix next going west or north doesn't help a bit.

I'm beginning to wonder if we'll ever get out of Bakersfield. I mean, it's not a bad place, and it's one of our favorite RV parks. But Ian flips out when we go out in the wind and when it's raining we can't play outside, and there's only one museum here (been there 5 times now) and one mall (walked through; took us less than 10 minutes). I'm itching to get back to a more metro area, but who knows if the weather will clear for this weekend. We'd rather spend another week here in the wind than get stuck in some snowy mountain pass.

At least we'd still get donuts and oranges.

And now, here's a message from Ian:

IAN RINNAH MOMMY DADDY