Orange you glad you came to Bakersfield?

Yesterday we drove from Fresno to Bakersfield. This is a very diverse area as far as agriculture and industry.  We saw huge feed lots of cattle, grapes as far as the eye can see, orange trees, nut trees and even cotton.  This area (Kern County) also leads the state in oil and natural gas production.

Really fun to see the pump jacks right in with the grapes and the mountains in the background. Seems like it should be one of those games where they stick things in that don't belong and you have to figure out which ones.

http://www.bakersfieldchamber.org/section.asp/csasp/DepartmentID.537/cs/SectionID.1172/csasp.html

Cotton field.

 Kraft cheese plant.

 The campground we are in is called "Orange Grove" and it is actually in a orange orchard. It is a beautiful place, the grounds are immaculate and they have a cute club house for events as well as a pool and exercise area.  This is also a self portrait - ha ha.

Now this . . .

is what I call a drive through!













The weather is very nice - supposed to be in the 70's with a chance of 80+ on Thurs. The nights are chilly around the 38-45 ish area.

When we first checked in I could not believe my luck seeing all these beautiful oranges, imagine my disappointment when they said the oranges are not ready.  Luckily there was one right on the ground by our spot that looked perfectly good to me - must have just fallen.   So I cut it to see what it was like, looked like an orange to me and smelled amazing.  I cut out a little section and soon had juice running down my chin and onto my shirt.  They say they will be perfect in Dec or Jan but they tasted like heaven to me.  I can't imagine how good they will be when they are "perfectly ripe" and sweet.  I think they just don't want people to pick a bunch while they are not ripe.  Oranges do not ripen after they are picked.

This morning I had 2 for breakfast. Yummy!!  Then we went to the market beside us and they grow different types of oranges as well as dates and grapefruits.  I bought one of the earlier ripening oranges as well as a couple of satsuma because they just looked so pretty.  The dates taste so amazing as well.

We went to a Camping World store and looked at some $300,000 to $400,000 motorhomes  - WOW 
We also went to a huge mall - just looking.  Was a nice quiet couple of days.  Tonight we have to try to plan what to see in the next few days.