Ontario, California, and a lot later than I'd planned.

Huh. My WheresGeorge report doesn't mention the most recent hit. I georged up some more bills anyway, for the trip.

The spam filter seems to be working. Sunday when we got back I had 113 messages in my inbox, 8 of which were spam, and 645 in the bulkmail. My box was only 53% full, from a start of 46%, unlike the 110% after Monterey. So there's hope for the trip.

We started off this morning a little later than we were shooting for, as Rich did some sleeping in. That's OK, though, there were no deadlines. At 8:30 we were out the door. I drove the first leg, because I want to be sure to do my share. I'd say, by the end of the day, that I certainly did do my bit!

The first stop was Santa Nella, where there's the Pea Soup Andersen restaurant. Unfortunately, this cache appeared to be missing. Naturally, we'd arrived just after a bus, so there was a line at the bathroom. This was a Roseville group from Sun City on their way to Palm Springs. I bought a can of soup. Perhaps I should have bought another for our house-sitters, who would have enjoyed the name.

Further down I-5 we spied "Wasco." We thought, with "Andersen" and "Wasco", maybe we were going north!

Rich build a little cup holder for the side so we can both carry a cup and use the cigarette lighter for the GPS. Almost the first thing I did was kick it and spill my coffee. Argh.

We finally broke the cache drought at noon at a McDonalds, where the cache was up inside a lightpost. It was harder to get it back than to find it, because a woman parked right next to it to feed her baby.

At a rest area, the GPSr began to act up, but we did get the cache there. Then the machine had a major bad hair day. "I can't do that, Dave." We ate lunch to give it a chance to calm down, but that didn't help.

Finally, out in the middle of absolutely nowhere, we drove off down tiny roads and found a nice cache. We saw lots of familiar names in the logbook. We took a Mr. Potato Head toy and left a puzzle pen and a deck of cards.

It was SO hot today! Records are falling. I had a saying I was going to use for today's entry till Rich suggested this one, so I'll use it tomorrow. There was a little one in a lightpost to keep us going along.

The next cache was called Grape of the Baseline. We pulled in and started along the fence, and suddenly there was this loud shriek and a killdeer started to tell us her wing was broken. Well, we knew what that meant, and we went along to the cache but kept an eye out behind us... sure enough, as we started back, she dashed off the nest and broke her wing again. I just wish I'd had the camera with me for that! However, at least we found her eggs and scared her good by coming back for a picture. At last we left the poor bird in peace!

Then, over the Grapevine, and then we were at Pyramid Lake, where there's a virtual. The funny thing is that we've been here twice before, so we blew off the exhibits and dashed off for the answer. Then I figured it was my turn to drive and I took over.

Then the fun began. I started at 351.1 miles at 4 PM and handed it over at 9:15, about 50 miles later. The first 20 miles went fine, and suddenly I was in the world's biggest traffic jam. Somewhere, I-5 at Calgrove, the freeway was entirely blocked, all lanes. We crawled along, 5 feet, stop, wait, wait, 5 feet, stop, wait... this is just really good for the transmission, and the mileage, and the nerves. It was still really really hot. I rode the clutch, 5 feet, took it out and kept it in neutral, then inched forward again. We crept past Magic Mountain. Rich was trying to make sense of the sketch map and/or the GPSr to come up with an escape, and when we got to Valencia Ave I took off. This was fine for about half a mile, but then it was even worse than the freeway. All the lights were out, and the cops were at the intersections but it didn't help much. On the radio, they kept saying I-5 was blocked at Calgrove and we were totally frustrated because we hadn't a clue where Calgrove was.

After 2.5 hours creeping down 126, I-5 eased up, and I was able to get on 14, then 5, then 210, FOUR hours after I should have been there. We headed east, but the older map we had didn't have some new construction, so I missed my turn to I-10 and had to come back a bit from I-15. It was a thrill to be back at speed, but there was one point where I signalled a lane change and was a little diffident to actually move over... and I heard a beep from a siren... scared me, but he was after someone else.

I got off in Ontario, after 5+ hours behind the wheel, shaky and on edge. Rich drove the last mile or so to a hotel. The good thing is it was a Comfort Inn so we'll be eligible for a free night. The guy kept hearing "HAY" when I told him "AJY" on my card number... but we finally got around that. Then he gave me the key and I went to the elevator... the door closed, but it went nowhere. I was too tired to deal with the claustrophobia, and even after I got out of it, I was still shaky and weepy. The toilet hadn't even been flushed.

But, at last, out of the car!

Syria and WMD and where did they get them, I wonder.

Women in Islamic society, yet the idjuts on Saturday think BUSH is the big threat.

WMD in Iraq.

This again...

One day it will not be necessary to sell ''These Colors Don't Run'' T-shirts. But it is as long as Byrd, Ted Kennedy, Michael Moore & Co. are twitching to add Iraq to the pockmarked pantheon of Vietnam, Iran and Somalia.

Highpoint: Killdeer feigning

Lowpoint: Traffic