Southern California and Colorado River

This last week we headed south from San Jose on Hwy 101 to visit family and friends. The weather was wonderful again although some rain would be good. California is headed for another year of drought, though, it looks, at times if the farmers have not got the message and we witnessed many fields being watered with overhead sprinklers in the morning sun. They could save a lot of water by irrigating later in the day.
Our first stop was in Santa Barbara and then on through LA at night. All I can say is that I am glad not to live and drive in this city. Everyone drives very fast with an apparent need to tailgate and change lanes for a possible 50ft gain on the journey. Makes this country boy a little tense.
After another short stop we were off to Calimesa to visit a long time friend of Diane's, Kris and her husband Tom.
We met at Bob's Big Boy which has some significance in their pasts!

Our visit included a get together of a couple of Kris and Diane's high school friends, a lot of fun was had by all.

Tom and I paid a visit to the air museum in Palm Springs where his dad had been a docent. He had also flown B24's during WWII.

We saw a lot of aircraft from WWII, though difficult to photograph as they are all close together.

This MIG 21 we were told was part of the film "Top Gun".

A B24 that is being restored and does fly.

 A British Spitfire which, the docent informed us, was the only plane in the collection that had fired its guns in WWII.

Kris and Tom have a place on the Colorado river near Blythe, CA, and this is what you can see from a hill nearby. I spent quite a while as the sun went down to see if I could get a good sunset image here, not sure what I captured, that will have to wait a while!

There were lots of humming birds at the feeder, so it was fun to try and capture some shots as they zoomed around and rapidly emptied the feeder. These birds are tough to photograph, but with the camera set at 1/800 sec and on rapid fire it helps. I also got a lot of images of an empty feeder as they all had flown away!

As the weather was too windy to go boating on the river, we took a drive to Parker, AZ just across the river. Lunch at the Thirsty Pirate was great as the dining area looks out over the river.

Return via Parker dam behind which is Lake Havasu. It was interesting that we were not allowed to walk on the roadway on the dam and there were road barriers as well.
That is it so far, next stop Scottsdale, AZ, stay tuned.