Purple Mountains Majesty

This past weekend I attended Official Visits in Bishop and Victorville.

Until I became a Grand Officer, I never knew that there was such a thing as Eastern California.  Now that I have managed to watch episodes of How The States Got Their Shapes on the digital TV thingy, I know that we have an Eastern California because we wanted both sides of the mountains with the nice, pretty metals in them.  I can see that only greed would have led to such weird geography, but at least I get to see the beautiful scenery as you drive up 395.

Of course, I do wish that it wasn't quite so far since I don't do long car rides well, but I have discovered that if you sit across the back seat of a nice wide car and you have a filled jacket to cushion the door and a travel pillow for your head, you can make the ride go a lot better.  You fall asleep in one place and wake up somewhere else.  Better than a red eye, even, because you can put your feet across the back seat.  Have I mentioned lately how much I appreciate my Associate Grand Patron's willingness to do the driving?  Boy is he awesome! :-)

But I didn't sleep the whole way because I wanted to appreciate the scenery.  Even in years that don't have really weird weather like this year, there is usually still a fair amount of snow on the mountain peaks in April and the plains are just beautiful.  Mind you, I couldn't live there - no way, no how!  But it is great to visit!

This year, as in year's past, the Grand Officers were given a lovely gift of honey from one of our members whose family has been keeping bees for four generations.  This time we got a great write up about the family and the business that laid out this long history and had all sorts of very interesting honey facts in it.  I had always been told that the type of flowers used by the bees makes a difference in the flavor and color of the honey, but wow was it apparent when you put a bottle of the clover honey next to a bottle of the wildflower honey.  Boy!  The clover honey is a lot lighter in color and taste.  I think I am set for the next year, but after that I might have to buy honey again.  Oh well!

It was also fun to re-visit places I have been before in my travels and re-connect with old friends.  I very much enjoy that District, tucked up in between the mountain ranges.  Less fun was driving up there and back in a day, but we endure what we must!

The next day we were attending an Official Visit in Victorville, but we knew that right afterwards we would have to take off because we had planes to catch that were earlier than usual.  Many of the Arizona Grand Officers were attending that visit and because we knew we couldn't stay to socialize afterwards, we had brunch with some of our Arizona friends, who we've known for years.  We had a wonderful time and it was very fun to have visitors.  One of the interesting parts is that each state does their escort and introductions a bit differently, so when you are visiting out of state or have out of state visitors, you have to make sure to help them or get help, so you go to the right place at the right time.  Luckily, I could answer some of the Arizona officers' questions because I had been to a Hands Across the Border in Lake Havasu City, so I knew what Arizona escort looked like and could explain the difference in what we were going to do.

Next weekend, I am in Yorba Linda.