Blahg #2: Roadtrip – Day Won…

[Note: The author indulges in drive-by photography –take your Dramamine!]

South on I-5 south through some vasty agribusiness. I detest what’s going on with the food supply (the majority of our food coming from less than 10 companies – can anyone say bio-diversity?). Yet when you’re driving through Central Valley its sheer scale of the landscape and man’s engagement with it impresses. The one human artifact in that Valley that I just LOVE is the California Aqueduct built to the tune of “Food Grows Where Water Flows.” I couldn’t get a good shot of it myself so here’s a link with some history and GREAT pix: www.spillwaynews.net/Water/CalifWater3.html

As you cruise along I-5 at whatever speed limit multiple your vehicle allows (the hottie can go pretty fast) when you come up over a rise in the land it’s Ka-Bang! You see this huge blue strip of water and think “is that REAL?” This was not the age of the micro-chip.

When we got down to I-40 and turned east we went through Tehachapi and saw these mega wind farms (another human artifact I love).

and all these cute baby Joshua trees right by the road.

By now we were sick from the crappy fast food Mex we’d chowed but the sounds of Cold Blood from twenty years ago and more current Boz Scaggs soothe us a little . And wouldn’t ya’ know, we quickly passed a signpost for the Twenty Mule Team Road right outside of Boron, where where they mine Borax, of early TV western sponsorship fame and now a "green" cleaning agent. Being originally from NJ I had to snap the exit:

The bug smears show that we’ve been on the road for awhile now. We’re just trying to make it to Needles for the night. As we come into the border area I realize we’re basically paralleling Route 66 – the first interstate to cross the US along a "scenic" route (opened 1926). I've left California!