May 13, 2012. The Hawthornes Drive From Sunnyvale To Bakersfield, California. And We Get Treated To A Parade In Gilroy.

 Today is a travel/on-the-road day for the Hawthornes.

We left Sunnyvale this morning

and were driving through Gilroy, California,

the Garlic Capital of the World,

when we had to take a detour because a PARADE 

was just beginning.

Now, Rosie HATES a PARADE,

but she made Mr. Hawthorne pull over on the side street

so she could shoot pictures for her readers.

What I do for you -

all in the name of LOVE.

 I have NO idea what this parade is about.

 But it looks like it's a PRINCESS PARADE.

I just thought the parade was in honor of the Hawthornes.

 Mr. Hawthorne asked around

and a disgruntled storefront owner

explained to him that it was the

 annual one-day Portuguese Parade

that inconvenienced him every year

since his customers couldn't get to his store.

 First marching band.

 Rosie wants to be a princess

and wear a gown.

Rosie wants to be the MIDDLE PRINCESS

so she can have a TRAIN.

Rosie wants to wear a tiara.

NAY!

She wants to wear a CROWN!!

Rosie wants a faboo TRAIN.

Second marching band.

After the parade,
the Hawthornes continued on their merry way
to Bakersfield, California.

 Pretty rolling countryside.

 I love the splashes of yellow.

 Shot through Mr. Hawthorne's window,

on the fly.

 This is the San Luis Reservoir.

Constructed as a storage reservoir,

it stores runoff water that would otherwise flow into the ocean.

 Long before the dams and canals were built,

this land was the home of the Northern Valley Yokuts,

Native Americans who harvested seeds, acorns, 

and the roots of  tules, a large bulrush that grew in the marshes.

There were also fish, geese, and ducks, 

as well as large herds of antelope and elk on the plains.

With the coming of the Spanish,

this way of life disappeared.

 Many of the valley people were taken to missions around 1805,

and an epidemic, possibly malaria,

decimated the human population of this area in 1833.

In the 1850s, the survivors 

were killed or driven off by American settlers.

You GO, Manifest Destiny!

Wind surfers!