The Middle of Nowhere

April Fools! It's actually right next to Interstate 5, taken from from the car at 80 mph.

We left our house at first light, headed for my brother's house near San Diego. Sporadic rain and a fatal accident forced us to take a different route and it seemed to take forever to get through the Bay Area during the morning commute. By the time we reached the I-5 we were feeling like we ought to be there, but were actually just beginning.

It's amazing what people haul around with them on long haul drives like this. The 5 is the main corridor between north and south down the Central Valley of California. There were lots of U-Hauls, and lots of huge trucks carrying mail, food, furniture, cars, boats or bearing incomprehensible logos of things having to do with "logistics". A little later in the year there will be huge loads of tomatoes and cows, melons and sheep. Just to keep everyone on their toes are the yahoos who race up behind a truck then jam themselves into the fast lane just before hitting the back of the truck. It gets really interesting when OilMan joins in the fun by speeding up so they can't get in. He just isn't ready to admit that an elderly man in an aging Beemer is no match for a young jerk in a huge pick-up.

At the rest stops there are families with kids, dogs older people with walkers and wheel chairs, local farmers and college students all buying junk food out of the vending machines, waiting in line to use the inadequate number of facilities in the rest rooms, sitting around picnic tables, walking dogs or taking catnap on the lawn.

The rolling hills in the north give way to the arid dust patches in the south. Water is a huge issue in California where the melting snows of the Sierra Nevada are piped south through the California aqueduct to irrigate the desert in the south. We finally cross over the Tehachipi range, the border between the rural Central Valley and the greater Loa Angeles metropolitan area. Everybody has a memory of an "incident" on the Grapevine, as the road is called--overheated cars, trucks without brakes, snow closures or fires. When I was a child we drove frequently from Pasadena to Santa Cruz where we spent vacations. I can still remember the debates between my parents over the best route to take to avoid the heat of the valley. This often involved making the entire back seat into a bed where my brother and I would sleep while they drove through the night.

Now the old curvy road is a multi lane highway, cars are air conditioned, and kids must be strapped into carseats or seat belts--takes all the romance out of the trip....

We have now arrived, after 9hrs on the road, at my brother's house and are looking forward to a relaxing week. Ozzie is trying to figure out how to get into the swimming pool, or at least how to snag some pre-dinner cheese off the coffee table.