Bakersfield and Tehachapi

We're off to Scottsdale to cheer on the Giants at spring training where we'll be joined by Allison, Steve, Natalie and Steve's parents, Donna and Mike. We left a week early to do a little sightseeing along the way - and no trip through Bakersfield would be complete without a stop at the Big Shoe Repair Shop. Ahh, new architecture can be so boring compared with the great buildings of the past. We also visited the Cancer Survivors Gauntlet, a sculpture and garden dedicated to those who have fought, or are battling, cancer. The artwork shows eight individuals at various stages of their fight, negotiating the various treatments depicted by a series of portals through which they must pass. Not your typical picnic-type destination, but we found the time well spent. Leading up to the sculpture is a "positive mental attitude walk" with 14 placques suggesting lifestyle and mental approaches for battling the disease. Very inspirational.

Next stop, Tehachapi where we wanted to see the Avenue of Faces - spirit faces carved into trees over the last 20 years by local artist Kent Holmgren. Unfortunately we could only find these four. There were several stumps so we assumed that the trees either died or the carvings had been borrowed...