The Road To San Diego

Yuma, AZ. A long way from Karori on a wet Wednesday.

Things in Yuma got a little rough after 3.10.

This town is baked to a brittle shell by the sun ..huge temperatures, by 10am it was around 100F and rising. We passed on the major tourist attraction - an historic prison..and hit the track across the very bottom of Arizona to Calexico and the Imperial Valley. Now New Zealanders over 40 should all recognise that name ..given we were taught the ins and outs of the Imperial Valley irrigation and hydro-electric schemes in the 1970's. It was strange to be there...

In its natural state, the Imperial Valley would be a blasted desert, too low and hot for even cacti, and sand would continue to blow into the desert at the eastern edge of the valley. In the early 20th Century, however, at tremendous cost, canals crossed the valley, and now it's one of the most important sources of year-round vegetables in the country. Chances are if you are eating lettuce here in January, it comes for the pesticide-laden land of the Imperial Valley. A hotbed of immigration trouble, poverty-ridden, and with one of the highest rates of endangered and threatened-species in the country, it's not a place that ranks high on a tourist's must-see list of America... so we of course had to go.

All that water.. even the shopping malls get in on the action.

And after some 3,250 miles we finally rolled into San Diego just after 4pm today , and with some

good navigation (and driving..ha!) we made our way through the highways to 8073 Caminito Mallorca. That's the bare fact to be noted in the travelogue. The longer term stuff will have to wait till we get over the trip.. The great expanse of the United States can sure get under your skin.

“Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?” - Jack Keroauc.

More soon, KGBH.