Thelma and Louise Do California Golden State Freeway

Okay, chicks, it wasn't pretty! I've giving you fair warning now.

We left Idaho for northern California on tuesday last. This is Oregon for those of you who think it's all lush and green. Au contraire! It was snowing, cold and windy through the eastern deserts of Oregon. And this is what we saw for about 200 miles: sand, sagebrush and horizon to the mountains.

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Update on son.

You can see this picture of him taken on 4/18, which was 2 weeks after his beating. While there I took him to emergency because his leg—the one operated on 3/9—was hurting him and they thought the "beaters" had re-injured his leg. He goes back to ortho on wednesday 4/22 to see if it is, in fact, injured more after the beating. His vision is still cloudy but the left eye has sustained some trauma. That eye pupil is now oval instead of round as it should be and makes him susceptible to detached retina and more susceptible to glaucoma in the future. His vision is like looking through a cloud and left eye is worse. This can go away and we're needing prayers that it does. His left eye isn't as wide open as his right. The bruising is subsiding but still visible after 2 weeks. He is still in pain in the head. Police haven't gotten the guys in custody yet. I know this takes a while so I'm not too concerned. Son still does not remember talking to me the day after this occurred. Most of his memory is vague on the beating and he would like to see the surveillance video but hasn't seen it yet.

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My daughter and I went to southern California on thursday last. It was Thelma and Louise (I've never seen the movie, but it's what I think the movie was about.) We've set the Golden State freeway (I-5) and a certain McDonalds back 50 years.

As usual we ate our way from northern Calif. through to southern Calif. Potty stop at McDs also caused a certain "stir" among the diners.

Daughter had to potty badly as she never stops drinking! We stop at a McDs and when we walk in running with our legs crossed there was a sign on the women's room door and door jamb saying it was out of order. Daughter, being the brat she is, opens the door to the men's room shouting "woman coming through!" A man yells that there are men in there but nuuuuuuuuu, DD didn't let that stop her. She told him he doesn't have anything she hasn't seen before and kind of shields her face with her hand to give the guy at the urinal a bit of privacy. (?) *Sigh*..............

She runs to the only stall, opens it, goes in, turns and puts her purse on the door hanger, turns around and there is a guy sitting on the toilet with his jeans around his ankles looking at her. (I'm on the outside of the door hearing all this and trying not to wet my pants.) She says "oops" and grabs purse and runs to the door and just about knocks me on my bottom. There is no way we would have made it to another rest stop so we ripped the "out of order" sign on the women's door and door jamb and go in. The floor is filthy with over run toilet "garbage" and the toilets are stopped up but we HAD to go and go THEN! We relieved ourselves and I washed my hands. I didn't even bother to flush as there .................. well, you can get the picture. I turned on the hand dryer and DD has a fit because then we can't hear if the men have left the men's room. We waited for it to turn off and then peeked out to see if they were there. Coast is clear so we march out of the women's room and RUN to the exit door before we get recognized and stopped. I got outta that place as fast as I could. Needless to say, we didn't trash the women's room any more than it was trashed. I felt filthy after that.

DD asked why any man would not lock the stall door and I said I doubt he thought a 5'11" woman was going to crash in on him! I think the poor guy is still traumatized at that experience.

It took us 6 1/2 hours to get from northern Calif. to my son's house in southern Calif. The drive back was 8 hours. *Sigh*.................

Okay, we have a GPS in my car and hubby spend the better part of an hour setting it for me and DD to not lose our way.............. We lost our way back!! We ended up in the desert northeast of Riverside. I told DD that this was looking vaguely familiar to where we lived 40 years ago—the Calif. desert. When I saw the "Hesperia" exit sign I knew we were waaaaaaay off track. I had a sneaking suspicion before that but DD said Nuuuuuuuuuu, we're on target. She's lucky to be alive but I'm gonna shoot the voice in the GPS for not telling us to turn off of the 215 onto the 210. I can't repeat what DD said she was going to do to the 'Ho' in the GPS! Her words, not mine. I don't use that kind of language.

Anyway, I thought you'd like to see some roses blooming in her yard. Her hubby picked this one and brought it in for her. The pink ones are blooming on the bush on her deck as you can see from the last picture.

Hubs was glad to see we made it back when we arrived at her house. He was at a convention and couldn't go down with us and son didn't want him to miss the convention so it was just the two of us: Thelma and Louise. Only we survived! *Sigh*...................

I think I'm still traumatized from the trip so I'll go rest now. *Sigh*................