On our road trip up to Oregon we stopped for a snack in Corning, California which proclaimed itself as the olive capital. I am a huge olive fan so I pulled off at a tourist shop full of olives of every kind. I was a kid in a candy shop…  olive shop.

They even had a huge sample bar for all kinds of olives from Cajun spiced, Texas hot, garlic, Kalamata, and smoked. First note, Texas spicy green olives were definitely the best, I had many, many samples of it. The woman kept eyeing me, I guess I wasn’t sneaky enough. Second note, smoked olives are disgusting. I won’t make that mistake again. They had really cool little scoopers to pick the olives out, it was quite the experience.

That was about it for the beginning of our trip. There was a lot of rain but it cleared up after a bit leaving behind remnants of beautiful storm clouds. When the sun set I was dying to take a picture but I was driving. That put me in a bit of a bad mood, I always get a little peeved when I see a shot and miss it. Let me tell you what it would have been: Big cumulous clouds, some light and some very dark, framed in orange and pink, hanging over an orchard. Do you understand now why I was upset?

We have stopped for the night in Redding. Tomorrow, University of Oregon and hopefully Willamette.