We're in San Jose, California

     We have now traveled over 3,000 miles since leaving Puebla, Mexico on Monday morning. As we were heading into Gilroy, the garlic capital of the world and we could tell just by smelling the garlic. It was a good day of travel but everyone is ready for a break. We will be staying a few days in San Jose. Jim worked 29 years for his friend, Adrian, before we left to go to Mexico and we will be visiting him and his family as well as other friends.

     Today we started out in Arizona and soon crossed over into California. We traveled through some very hot areas as we went through the Mojave Desert. God has blessed us with very good weather this trip. Although we have run into some very heavy rains, the temperatures have been cool which is very good for traveling. We are so thankful!

     Our daughter, Kristen, is getting very excited for our return to Oregon. She plans on having her family there at the house when we arrive in the Portland area. Jim's mom is pretty excited also. She is already planning dinner for our arrival. We are getting very excited to see everyone also. I have grand babies that I am (we are) longing to hold and hug and kiss.
     It is wonderful to have had this opportunity to see the country by driving through it. We drove on the historic Route 66 today (and yesterday) and watched the movie Cars which was fun. After that, we'd go by semi-trucks and say, “We got ourselves a nodder.” If you haven't seen the movie, you might not understand that.
     While driving along I-5 in California, we came across a caravan of vans with the first one we saw had “Mexico or Bust” written on the back window. The vans farther up had “Honk if you Love Jesus” written on them. We were honking and giving them a thumbs up whenever we passed them. One of vehicles had a sign on it saying Covenant to Mexico Missions. With that, we came to the conclusion that they must have been returning from a mission trip to Mexico.
     Tonight, we are having dinner at Red Robin. We have not eaten there in over 15 months. Once we reach home, the eating our will be few and far between so we are eating at a couple of our favorite places along the way.   Next, it is off to the hotel and for a swim.  We'll keep updating you as we go.
      Again, we want to thank all of you for your prayers. I can't say enough that we have felt them along the way and throughout the last 15 months.

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This picture was from last night.  It was not the hotel we stayed at but it was cool that it was called Motel 66.

The scenery today was not as impressive but it was still pretty.

See the Route 66 sign?

And we entered California.

I liked the stair case look of this land scape.

We went through desert and then came to orchards.

San Luis Resevoir