THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGIN'

I used this title because we spent some time transitioning from living in hotel rooms to living in our new house.  Come to think of it though, this is one of the greatest protest songs ever written and it was written by one of the greatest songwriters that I know of.  And, I have to admit that Buster and I protest against injustice, inequality, and suppression of freedoms.  We have a (D) behind our names and we think that there are too many people right now who want to either keep things the way they are for white male cats or they want to turn back the clock. 

As Bob Dylan said, “Come senators, congressmen / please heed the call / Don’t stand in the doorway / Don’t block up the hall.”  For that matter, Buster and I want to point out that we all have some say in who those senators and congressmen are.  Be sure to vote for people who want to expand freedoms for humans and cats of all persuasions.  Don’t let these old geezers turn back the clock for women, gay people, people of color, and those of us cats who are deeply concerned about the issues facing us. 

Oops, Buster just told me that I need to get off the soap box.  Okay, back to what I came here to talk about.  You know that Buster and I went to Lake Havasu City in Arizona.  We went there to pick up our new house.  Then, we took a training course to help us know the ins and outs of pulling this big trailer all over the country in a safe manner.  We stayed in Arizona about a week and then traveled to Valencia, California by way of lovely Barstow, California.  If you’ve ever been to Barstow, you’ll pick up on the obvious sarcasm.  In Barstow, we parked in the lot of Peggy Sue’s 50s Diner.  The place is chock-full of Hollywood memorabilia.  The management makes the wait staff dress up in 50s costumes – ponytails and everything.

Valencia is a really interesting area.  It’s a community which is one of six distinct communities in Santa Clarita, which incorporated as a city in 1987.  Santa Clarita has a population of about 228,000, so if you want something, you can find it.  Santa Clarita is in Los Angeles County, even though it is about 30 miles northwest of downtown LA.  The other communities in Santa Clarita are Saugus, Castaic, Canyon Country, Stevenson Ranch, and Newhall.  Newhall is the home of Schiit Electronics, a company that designs and produces some of the best audio components on the market and sells them at affordable prices.  I’m getting this information from a reliable source who counts his headphones and his stack of Schitt among his most prized possessions.  I’m not schitting you, Schitt is the name of the company.

Human settlement, and I presume feline settlement, of the Santa Clarita Valley dates back to the arrival of the Chumash people, who were displaced by the Tataviam around 450 A.D.  So, the indigenous people were there way before any pale-skins showed up.  If you want to learn a bit more, you can read about how the Chumash and the Tatavium suffered high rates of fatalities due to infectious diseases brought by the Spanish.  What’s more, you can read about how the Spanish padres, in particular, Father Juniperro Serra, converted the indigenous people by force and utilized them as slave labor to build missions, grow crops, and maintain animals.  Okay, Buster, I’m getting down again.

We stayed in Valencia for about a week.  Why?  Well, there’s a company there called Elite Coaches and it’s the main go-to people for our folks at Living Vehicle.  Indeed, they came to the LV and worked on a few things that needed attention.

Bonus.  We met some really nice cats while we were there.  Larry, an engineer, loved our new house because the technology and design are very fetching to an engineer type.  Plus, it looks pretty bad-ass, too.  Larry and his wife travel the county in a huge Class A motorhome.  His home looks pretty bad-ass, too.  He bought it from a dude who was into NASCAR who added on fender flares and other little upgrades which made the thing pretty sweet.  We also met Pete, who is 80 years old and traveling around the country pulling his Airstream.  Oh, I don’t want to forget to mention that Pete is a former Navy Seal and still looks like he could go on some of those covert, hush-hush, cloak and dagger missions.  Good guy.

So, “Your old road is rapidly agin’ / Please get out of the new one / If you can’t lend a hand / For the times they are a-changin’.”  I’m honored to stretch Bob’s lyrics to our situation.  We spent some time in Valencia to get out of our old road of staying in hotels, get some of the bugs worked out of the new trailer, and we’re transitioning to traveling on our new road in the new house. 

More adventures to come,

Betty

Our sofa

Our kitchen

Buster and I sleep here when we want to

Home to a lot of Schitt