On the road again

Part Four: The Clothed Ride Home

Saturday - 30 November 2002: Bakersfield, California - Happy Hanukkah! I didn't want to say goodbye to my folks - we had such a fun visit - but they are leaving for Mexico on Monday, driving down to the Gulf of California with a caravan of fellow-campers. Safety in numbers. We left Yuma around 9:30 a.m., and drove back to I-8, passing miles and miles of lettuce fields. The lettuce is being harvested like mad in Yuma. Buses from Mexico arrive to the fields every day and workers follow behind the wide harvesting trucks, cutting lettuce all day. The lettuce is trimmed, wrapped in plastic and boxed right in the field. The boxes are then loaded on trucks and shipped off to you, within minutes of being cut. There is also a huge plant in Yuma where the ready-to-eat lettuce-in-a-bag is processed. Eat Your Greens!

We followed I-8 into California, where we were waved-through the Border Patrol inspection station. All along this section of freeway are huge dunes, and where there are dunes there are ATVs and 4x4ers. In one area, there are RVs as far as the eye can see. But not your usual RVs, but the new type that is a trailer in the front and a "hauler" in the back - meaning the back is a garage for your ATV. I can't even imagine how much beer could be found in that dune area!

We left the freeway and went up to Palm Springs, merged onto I-10 and followed it to Los Angeles, where we took 210 to I-5. Whew! We only stopped three times all day and drove for 8 hours! Snickers was so good. I guess Grandma gave him so much turkey, and took him on such a long walk this morning that he was pooped! Also, we entered the Pacific Time Zone (meaning my cell phone and computer clocks are now back on track!), but Snickers' tummy was still on Arizona time. Poor Boy had his dinner late tonight - as did we. Traffic was very heavy through L.A. and there was a horrible thunderstorm, lightning and rain. The sky was black at 2 p.m. By the time we came off The Grape Vine, we were both exhausted, Snickers was ready for another walk and Dave was ready for dinner. We found a convenient pull-through campsite - nearly on Highway 99. Dave watched USC beat up on the Irish and I made a nice dinner.

RV Park: Smoke Tree in Bakersfield, California