Trader Joe's is Heaven

LEFT: Michelle spends the day hard at work sucking down margaritas while we all shop and pack. Note brazillian pool boy running over with another round in background










The day before a big adventure is always filled with nervousness and errands. Today in Fresno was no different, except for the fact that it was ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE DEGREES OUTSIDE!!! And, that's just ambient temperature. It was probably 130 on the blacktop. Luckily we had an open-top Jeep with no air conditioning.

I stopped in the motel office to check on some things, and found the funniest sight. There was a mexican couple checking in, and getting a room for two. About 10 minutes later, 3 pickup truck loads of mexican kids pulled up to the motel, and went with them to the pool, where they proceeded to spend about 8 hours owning the place. I guess that's the mexican equivalent of a theme park - adults pay $60, kids get in free. Cute kids though; they even came with their own battery powered margarita mixer.

We spent the day shopping for food and gear. Karen, had purchased a pair of $200 sunglasses (can you say too much disposable income?) on her last day in Boston. Unfortunately for her, she placed them on the TSA security belt at the airport, where they were confiscated for looking "to arabic". They did however look nice on the TSA screener. So, Karen had to go buy a new pair Fresno, which involved 4 shops, trying on about 150 pair, one salesperson who had heat stroke from going in the stockroom so many times, and us sitting in the jeep at 130 degrees waiting on her for 4 hours. But, in the end, they did look nice on her, and should help her marketly in her quest for the perfect Brazilian pool boy.

My favorite store of the day was Trader Joes. If you're unfortunate enough to live in a city without them, think the Armani of Food. Everything top notch, but 6 times the price of regular groceries, with hairy legged women working the registers, and earthy-crunchy, teva-wearing shoppers. I barely got out alive with my Buffalo jerky (the animal, not the city), and chocolate covered expresso beans. NOTE TO SELF: Taking chocolate covered express bean on a hike when it's 130 degrees was not my smartest move. Took me hours to wipe the chocolate out of the pack...

We're leaving at 4am for the drive up the mountain to Roads End (the real name), so I'm off to beddy-by with visions of bears eating my chocolate-covered express bean coated backpack.

Lumpy out