Goodbye desert, it's been fun

We had tossed around the idea of staying in the desert for a while longer.  It is winter, after all.  We were very tempted to head south again to some hot springs and stay for a month.  After much thought, we decided to continue west.  On the last day of December, we left the desert behind and headed for the greener side of California.

Not very far into our six hour drive, we passed Dumont Dunes.  I never knew there were SO MANY inland sand dunes.  Just down the road we came to some small dunes.  The name?  Little Dunes!  Haha!  They were so cute, the perfect size for kids.

A few more hours driving took us to the Tehachapi Pass.  We had heard that the weather in the pass can be bad, but it was all good the day we went through.  Judging by the very large number of windmills, the wind must blow pretty hard through there at times.

see all the windmills?

Going through the pass, the terrain was beautiful.  The middle of the pass looked similar to some areas near Red Lodge, Montana.  Then, driving through the western side of the pass were the most beautiful rolling GREEN hills.  One of the kids remarked that this must be what Ireland looks like :).  I wish we could have stopped to take some pictures, but this pitiful cell phone shot through the window is all we got...

The hills of the pass ended and the farms began.  We were immediately surrounded by groves of citrus and nuts.  Acres upon acres.....

Our final destination for the day was Visalia, California.  We had reservations for the next three nights and plans to go visit the giant trees!