Hi, ‘blog fans.  Cactus Kate here, reporting live from sunny southern California.  I am here for quite a while this year, so I should be bothering you several times from my ‘blog.

Yesterday (July 29), I drove from Moab, UT to Santa Clarita, CA.  Chris and I crossed the hot Mojave desert in one day, in about a 12 hour drive.  I dropped him off at his mom’s house, and then drove another hour to Santa Clarita (Saugus), where my friend Barb lives, and where I am staying.

When we drove through Baker, CA, I had fully intended to take a picture of the ‘World’s Tallest Thermometer’ – but it seems this Guinness-certified landmark is BUSTED at the moment.  It was not telling the temperature.  I was disappointed.  I really WAS curious what the temperature was there, too.  It’s ALWAYS hot.

I arrived at Barb’s house at about 6:30pm, after battling one of my favorite traffic interchanges in the world…the westbound 210 freeway joining the northbound 5 freeway.  UGH.  This particular interchange is ugly at 3:00am on Sundays.  I have never driven into this one when it hasn’t been horrible.  Here is a picture I took with my phone, as I sat stopped in the crappy traffic:

After this harrowing experience (really, on a good day, you only spend about 10 minutes on the 5 en route to Barb’s house), I arrived, and we immediately went out for sushi.  Sushi is something that I seldom get, and I look forward to it IMMENSELY.  We went to Shogun sushi, which is less than a mile from Barb’s house.  Honestly, I have to say, I like Shogun sushi better than any others I have had there.  Here is Barb at Shogun:

We ordered the Red Dragon roll (2), which is a favorite.  We also got the Crunch Roll, a Mexican Roll, a Hawaiian Roll, and white tuna sushi.  Below are pictures of these, plus an inside look at the Red Dragon and Crunch Rolls.

After that, we went home, chatted for a while, and went to bed.  I was exhausted.

Today (July 30), I got up late, and went with Barb’s mom to the recycling place just outside of Ralph’s supermarket.  I had brought lots of crushed aluminum cans from Moab, just to see if it was monetarily worthwhile to do it.  It was.  The lady there informed me I had brought 78 lbs of cans in, and I got $114.30 for them.  That is quite a bit more money than I had hoped for, and I have decided it is definitely worthwhile to save cans.  BIG thanks to Todd & Dana, and to my mom and dad for saving cans for me!  I will definitely be doing it again!  Here are some pictures from the recycling effort:

I went to meet Barb for lunch.  We had lunch at Geisha sushi, which is just across the street from where she works.  Their sushi is good, but not as good as Shogun.  However, I do have to give Geisha an A for presentation. Today, we had a Geisha Roll (described in the menu as: Baked baby lobster with baby lobster on top, wrapped in soy paper), a Dynamite Roll (described in the menu as: Deep-fried crab, cucumber, avocado with sauteed vegetable, scallop, special sauce), a Roller Coaster Roll (desc. in the menu as: Spicy tuna with white tuna, avocado), Mushroom Special (Desc. in menu as: Deep-fried spicy tuna rolled on mushroom with Mozzarella cheese, chef’s special sauce), and a spicy shrimp and crab roll.  They were all good.  Also, there is a picture of a lemon garnish from one of the plates.  I took this picture for my mom.  I know she would have liked to see the lemon swan-thing.  Here they are:

That’s about it for today.  We just relaxed the rest of the day. Thanks for reading, and please come back soon!  There will be more SoCal fun, I promise!

P.S.  Only in California do you see GIANT healthy date palms on the backs of semis being transported to new homes.