RIDE HOME!

It was a relaxing but long drive home with not a lot of scenery (see 2 photos). We filled the time with 70’s and 80’s music and the kickoff of a live new course “Encountering Our Spiritual Center” (so far very interesting Kabbalah intro), a short “detour” to Newport Beach to visit the eye doctor, a Central Synagogue Music Event on Irvine Berlin and then home! The only “highlight” was our crossing of the Colorado River. Not the best view for the mighty Colorado but still fun to cross over it from Arizona to California. This stretch of the river is bordered by valleys and low desert hills, not very mighty. The other 2 photos are of the Julian Hinds Pumping Plant, a major facility on the Colorado River Aqueduct in the Mojave Desert as we drove through near Chiriaco Summit where we have made it a “habit” of stopping for a rest in both directions. Great trip.

Note: This was interesting about the Pumping Plant. The lower structure houses massive, high-powered pumps with the white pipes running straight up the side of the mountain are penstocks. Instead of using gravity to flow downward like traditional aqueduct sections, this facility actively pumps water up and over the mountain. The Julian Hinds plant is responsible for the highest vertical lift in the entire system, boosting the water roughly 440 feet uphill. Once the water reaches the intake structure at the top of the ridge, it flows into a gravity-fed tunnel carved through the mountain to continue its 242-mile journey toward coastal Southern California cities.Read more