Sunday, February 23
When we making our final plans for the weekend that my brother's family would be coming to visit us, I realized that the next week would be my birthday week so an idea was hatched. Val and I usually plan a trip to Las Vegas for my birthday so I had the idea to combine our trip to Las Vegas and my brother's drive home with a trip to the Central Valley of California and follow the Blossom Trail.
The Blossom Trail is a route laid out through the nut and fruit orchards of the area south of Fresno that bloom every year typically starting around the middle of February and lasting until mid March. Val and I had done it once before as a surprise weekend after my retirement that included a surprise visit from my best friend, Jack. Here is a link to that original post.
We were all up early on Sunday morning as we had a long day ahead and wanted to get a good start. It didn't go quite as planned as we lingered over breakfast talking, but we finally got on the road by 9:30 and had a two hour drive to the start of the Blossom Trail.
The Blossom Trail loop runs by many of the blooming orchards and also some of the small towns of the San Joaquin Valley south of Fresno. We picked up the route in Kingsburg and started our drive through the orchards. The first thing we noticed was that we were probably about a week early as many of the trees, particularly those with pink and red blossoms, weren't quite ready to bloom. That's always the chance you take as it is just like looking for fall color, it's all dependent on the weather.
Even though we were early, there were still many orchards in bloom and we spent several hours driving the loop, stopping often to take pictures.
After finally calling it a day by mid-afternoon, we all said our good-byes and Doug, Janis, Becky and Mandy started their three hour drive home, and Val and I started our two hour drive to Tehachapi. We had a fun weekend with my brother's family and really enjoyed our visit to Sensorio and the Blossom Trail.
It's about a seven hour drive for Val and I from our home to Las Vegas so it's pretty doable in one day, but we prefer split it up, and spend the night in Tehachapi for two reasons. First off, we have a much shorter drive to Las Vegas from Tehachapi and end up in Las Vegas by early or mid-afternoon giving us an extra half day there, but mostly because there is a BBQ place in Tehachapi that we both love to eat at.
We arrived in Tehachapi just before 6:00 and immediately made our way to The Red House BBQ Restaurant for a great dinner of barbecued ribs. After we had eaten our fill, we returned to the hotel and relaxed until it was time to call it a night. It was a great weekend with my brother and his family, but now we are looking forward to five days in Las Vegas.
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