The motel we love to hate and hate to love: California Inn in Ontario. First and foremost, it is cheap. Second, it is close to where my father lives. Third, it seems the TV is nearly always tuned to their free porno channel when we turn it on. Other than the sketchy people who stay here (except us, of course) and the yelling, random beating on the door looking for someone we are not, the questionable cleanliness, and the dated rooms, we actually kind of really like this motel.

This is the kind of vehicle Caroline is highly qualified to drive; it is exactly her speed. We came back to the San Gabriel Nursery this morning to pick up some plants we were looking at yesterday, seeing we’ll be driving back to Arizona this afternoon and don’t need to worry about them getting too hot in the car. Caroline packed up Salvia Divinorum, aromatic Cleveland sage (Salvia sp.), red tea hibiscus, chocolate mint, a tiny lavender, a plumeria cutting, and sweet woodruff.

The next stop is the Huntington Library, Art Collection, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California. This used to be a private residence in the early 1900s but is now home to 150 acres of various themed gardens and several art galleries.

Italian 17th-century statuary chilling in the California Sun.

The Japanese Gardens also feature a Tea Room that was originally the gardener’s quarters in a small part of a garden house built for Mrs. Huntington. More than a few of the bonsai trees are priceless in their perfection and age, and due to that value, they are chained down to discourage theft.

Like the statuary above, this giant red specimen of Dragonfly remained motionless as I was afforded the opportunity for a close approach to snap my photo.

While we spent a few hours in the garden we weren’t able to visit the museum and library on this day, so we have to make a note to return. The other thing we should pay attention to is the progress of their Chinese Garden, which is intended to be the largest outside of China.

Maybe we got a little too much sun?

After leaving the garden, we headed east, stopping for lunch at Mix Bowl Cafe. Today, we discovered the pleasures of Thai pearl iced tea, also known as boba tea, and fried morning glory in oyster sauce. The pearls in the tea are made of tapioca and have practically no flavor but are fun to slurp out of the cup with the help of the extra-wide straw. Add to our lunch some steamed Koo chai dumplings and an order of pad kee mow (spicy rice noodles with mint leaves and deep-fried tofu), and we were ready to go visit my father around the corner.

Unfortunately, we missed Diana, but chatted with my dad for a couple of hours before hitting the long road home shortly before 5:00 p.m. We managed to stop only once in California – at the Starbucks in Banning – reaching the Arizona state line before Sunset.