With a name like the Arizona Cafe, we had to stop and have a bite. There are many great Mexican food restaurants in Bakersfield with the large Hispanic population. Wish we could try them all. 🙂
Bakersfield
Bikes, Blossoms, and Bees
Charlene found a large bike path in Bakersfield, so we decided to make that our big activity today. We were going to start at one end of the path, but had trouble finding it, so we headed into town and started at a community park. It was beautiful and very smooth and level. We stopped several times along the way to see various sites. We rode about 10 miles round trip.
We could not get enough of the local fruits, vegetables, and jams. After our bike ride, we stopped at two different family farm vendors. Ed loved the taste of the sweet Valencia Oranges, so we bought a 10 pound bag of oranges!
We were also amazed at the size of the Pummelo grapefruit!
Chocolate covered bacon soda – no thanks!
However, Charlene found a chocolate covered bacon soda that did not seem too nice. We decided not to try it.
Local redness and swelling from bee sting
We also learned the downside of staying in an orange grove beginning to blossom. The blossoms attract bees and sometimes the bees get scared from rapid movement. A bee landed on Ed’s arm and when he moved, he was stung. There is no shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, but locally there is plenty of redness, swelling, and itching. Charlene was able to pull out the stinger with tweezers. After being stung by the bee, we made sure to buy some honey.
On to Bakersfield!
We used to live on Orange Grove Road, now we are staying in an actual orange grove!
We left Barstow and headed west toward Bakersfield. Ed had a conference call at 11:00 am and originally we had hoped to be in Bakersfield before the call. However, we did not make it all the way to Bakersfield, so we pulled into a family-owned farm store pullout. Ed set up his laptop for the call and Charlene went into the store to buy some yummy strawberries, oranges, and fresh cherry and strawberry turnovers.
After the conference call was over, we headed into Bakersfield and pulled into our RV park that was built right in the middle of an orange grove! With the trees beginning to blossom, it smelled fantastic! The sites were nice and wide and long, so we had quite a bit of room all around us.
There are orange groves all around the RV park and a vineyard right across the road. It is sort of strange, but there are also oil rigs interspersed between the orchards. This is a very fertile area of the country and it is apparent that almost everything grows very well here.
Right next to the grove behind us is a shop that specializes in selling oranges, dates, and nuts. Charlene bought all kinds of things in their store including avocados, apple butter, several kinds of dried fruit including kiwi, and dates. They also gave us some navel oranges for free because the manager said Charlene looked just like the manager’s sister.
When we got back to the motorhome, Ed headed out on his bike to explore the area and get some exercise. Charlene started planning places to visit nearby. Stay tuned to see what she comes up with!
Fiesta on Wheels 