California or Bust

Saturday morning started with breakfast in Lordsburg, New Mexico. I stopped in, and found, probably the most laid-back cafe joint on this whole trip. Huevos Rancheros were on the menu with hot green or red sauce! Yeow! I had to order it. For the un-initiated, we're talking about Mexican style eggs. It's three eggs on top of a type of bar-b-qued beef with salsa and tortilla chips. I pounce like a leopard when I come across this dish. The waitress was friendly and accommodating, but the service was painfully slow. In my line of work, you get used to a slam it down, jack me up and shoot it down the highway type of pace. You forget what laid back is. You forget how to act. By the time the plate came, I was starting to grow an unruly attitude. But, when I stuck a fork in the immaculate arrangement of huevos beef and salsa combination, the crummy "I'm going to walk out of here" feeling disappeared quickly. Poof, gone! This was the best Huevos Rancheros plate I've ever had. All was forgiven. Time to sing the Eagles and Peaceful, Easy Feeling and ease Miss Freightliner down the road. I'll be dreaming of those Huevos Rancheros for some time.

The I-10 route doesn't give you much of New Mexico. You pass Las Cruces and before you know it, you're in Arizona. This part of the "Land of Enchantment" is a little different than the northern part of the state I remember from my Scout back-packin' days. It's a little more desert-like, but you still get the rolling brown mountains.

There it was, Arizona appeared, and I crossed in. A new state to add to my collection! Somehow, I managed to travel all around the dry one, but never set foot in the Grand Canyon State. I really enjoyed the desert side and the unusual mountain formations along the way. Tucson was the prize on this leg of the trip. What a nice little city. There is such color everywhere you look and even the bridge abutments are decorated with cement castings and color. Perfect southwestern landscaping dominates this gem. You'll find little to no grass here...the climate is not kind to anything of the Fescue or Zoysia ilk. Constant irrigation would be necessary and water has got to go for a premium price in a bone dry place like this.

My last stop in Arizona was a toasty one. Yuma is next to the California border and seems to be a bustling place. My friend Frank, who lives in Phoenix, says it has grown exponentially in the past decade. I'm not surprised, given the high cost of living and natural disasters that seem to always plague Cali. There certainly is a price to be paid for paradise. There are retirement mobile home parks all over the place. I saw a Taco place and had to stop and pop some down. When I got out of the truck, I thought I had stuck my head in an oven. Literally. I jumped back up and hit the outside temp button on the dash and it read 119. Yikes! That's a century plus nineteen for fun. Time to skip over to Senor Taco and skip back to the truck...real quick. I thought to myself, isn't this how we move when it's bitter cold? I must have looked like an idiot to the locals. Everyone here just kind of moves around like it's no big deal. Such is a native habitat.

Here we go, back out on I-8 over the Colorado River and into California. I was kind of disappointed with the California welcome sign. It looked like something New Jersey would put up. Small, Spartan and way too plain for what was once, the Mecca of America. Even their license plates are quite boring. They give out one with a white background with blue letters, numbers and the state name in script. No creativity, no state slogan or even a website. They probably don't need one, too many people here anyway. With that in mind, If I recall correctly, I do believe California has become a population minus state. That means more people are moving out than moving in. California hasn't had a net loss in many years. It's sort of sad to see a place price it's citizenry right out. The natural disasters don't help either. The earthquakes, wildfires and mudslides have got to keep people on a certain edge. Insurance has got to be ridiculously expensive. Then, there are the famous high-speed police chases. Maybe I'd get to see one, in person on a trip up to LA!

The sun was making its way down and I had one big pile of rocks to ride over before cruising into San Diego. That's what this mountain looked like. Imagine a bunch of river rock in a pile, and you can picture what I drove over. It was only 4000 feet, but the heat sent the temp up on the engine and I had to shut the air off. Drat. Time to pant like a dog. As I neared the top, the sun went down and the patron saint of cool appeared and waved his scepter and the temperature magically plunged 34 degrees! I like this guy!

I knew I was in San Diego by the aggressive traffic that suddenly appeared on what was now a muli-lane free for all. Having recently been in Texas, and driving a truck, the "Don't Mess With Texas" mantra entered my mind. I found myself fumbling for my cowboy hat. Wish I had long horns on the grill of this truck.

I easily found a nice Pilot Travel Center to hole up in until delivery on Monday. Cool air would be my comfort for the night. Throw open the windows and let the easy breezy coastal night air in. California, being the environmentally prominent state that it is, has a "no idle" rule. You can't run your truck for more than 5 minutes at a time. It's the law! So, now, I've got all this nice, cool, Cali air...and it's quiet! What a refreshing change, to be in a large truck stop with maybe a hundred trucks and there be no diesel drone all night and day! Had I have been a little more limber, you might have found me in a cross-legged yoga position doing the "hummmmmmm". I like this place.