Day 37..."it's a dry heat"

Day 37...16 July 2014 Wednesday (day 2 of week 6)

Today was a day on the interstate system since there aren't really any good west to east highways that run along the southern border of the US.  And hot.  Really hot.  Like OMG! it's hot!  I love the southwest though... heat and all.  It's full of the kind of history I like.  So to commemorate being in Arizona, today let's listen to Johnny Cash.  Yuma!

Since leaving home over 6 weeks ago I've had he great good fortune to drive through some of the greenest places in the US.  I've thoroughly enjoyed the green grass, crops, towers, and trees.  Finally, though, today I left all that behind me and entered the Great American Desert.  In my life I've lived in Southern California, Arizona, and West Texas.  I have come to love the dry heat, the creosote bushes, sage, and the views unobscured by trees.  It's cowboy country.  Zane Gray, Louis L'Amour, Gunfight at the OK Corral, and The 3:10 to Yuma.  One of the three best smells in the world is the high desert after a rain shower (FYI, the other two smells at the top of the chart  are the aroma of a once fired paper shotgun shell and puppy breath).

From Camp Pendleton I jogged south to San Diego so I could say that I started from the southwest corner.  Then I turned the corner, twisted the throttle and headed east.  As I rode I began to notice the changes in vegetation.  At first the vegetation was every bit as thick as the temperate rain forest... just shorter and much more "stickerier" by nature.

But if you find a flat spot, plow it, throw down some seeds, and then pour water on it, this can be some of the most productive crop land to be found anywhere.  Today I saw lots and lots of hay fields growing, being cut, and being baled.

There is more than one kind of field.   A field of dreams comes to mind.  But there are also fields of rocks, stones, and boulders.  The harsh climate breeds a harsh terrain of rugged boulders, plants with thorns, and who knows how many lizards and snakes.

Eventually you come to the part of the desert so dry it won't even grow rocks.  The vegetation gets thinner and thinner and the sand gets dryer and finer.  In this section of the ride if you look left you see Arizona... if you look right you see Mexico.  The 'fence' along our border is in clear sight and there is a definite presence of Border Patrol along the highway.

less shrubbery, more sand and rock

even less vegetation (and you can see the border fence in the background)

at its driest it can look remarkably like areas of the middle east

 



 

Heat.  The heat is a physical presence that you can't ignore.  My thermos on the handle bar was so hot I couldn't pick it up with my bare hands.  The handgrips on the bike were so hot that I could feel the heat coming up through my leather palmed gloves.  At a gas station along the interstate I bought a scarf to tie around my face to keep the blast furnace-like wind from baking my exposed face.  By wetting the scarf and my gloves I actually got about 15 minutes of 'air conditioning' before the water all evaporated.  But just wearing the scarf made a big difference.  When I paused at a roadside rest area I noticed that the birds in the trees were panting.  THAT is hot.

 

460+ miles after I started I decided to pull into yet another military installation for the evening.  Today I stopped at Davis-Monthan AFB, home of the A-10 Warthog airplane and the USAF boneyard.  Visiting bases could become a hobby I really enjoy.