July 1
When we planned these first five days (to get us from Oregon to Mexico pretty much ASAP), we knew that today was going to miserable. But in a physiological type of miserable - i.e., we were going to be hot and sweaty and riding on a straight and narrow sea of concrete. Or we thought it would be a figurative/hyperbole kind of miserable - like “oh my God today was the worst day EVER”. In fact, today was literally miserable. We got really sad over what existed betwen Sacramento and Los Angeles (really between Redding and LA, but lets just go with Sacramento to be conservative). There are three things on this stretch that suck hope for future generations.
1 - the cars. 50% SUV, 25% sedan, 25% pick ups or 18-wheelers. Sacramento to LA is ~400 miles, ~3600 feet in a mile = 1,440,000 feet. A car every 200 feet (again, conservative - we were like sheep for hundreds of miles so in many places it was more like 50 feet in between cars) = 7,200 cars per lane, 4 lanes means ~30K cars on the road just today (and perhaps over 100K cars). And these were not 4th of July peeps - they are easy to spot with coolers and bikes and crying kids in the back and pillows shoved against the windows. These were single driver, nicely dressed, bluetooth, bleach their teeth people. On personal or business travel through the I-5 CA corridor. 360 days a year, 30K cars a day, how much CO2 emission per car… ugh. Oh, and almost every car and SUV is sparkling clean and seemingly less than five years old.
2 - the agriculture. An ocean of hundreds of hundred+ acre farms - all of which need water, are draining water from the surrounding ecosystem, and are incessently advertising their right to do so every ~20 miles with signs like “No water no food” or “No water no jobs”. I get it - someone somewhere has to grow stuff to stuff US American faces with the mass amounts of food we eat. And yes, growing that stuff takes water - and a disporportionate amount of water now that we have altered the landscape to an unrecognizable state. With so many people in US America and beyond… Ernie and I were at a loss. Imagine driving across our beloved Oregon - the entire state - and the view was nothing but mass modified ag land. And imagine trying to communicate with our neighbors and having conversations that begin with “Every drop of water that makes it to the ocean is wasted”. Again, Ernie and I were at a loss.
3 - the power lines. Giants. No. Monsters. And the closer to LA, the more plentiful they became. So many. So big. So unsustainable. It felt like a forest of power lines. Coming from hundreds of miles away.
Collectively, these three sights, and for so many hundreds of miles, well it was literally miserabble and overwhelmingly sad.
Late afternoon, after a respit at a desolate natural gas gas station (because duh - no Californian on this stretch of I-5 was there), out of no where we got some topography and shrub land and a few tumbleweeds and our moods did a 180. Woooo hooooo!!!!!Turns out our campsite tonight is tucked up in the 4000’ hills/mountains north of LA. There is a large population of recreational Sea-Doo people here, and they sure do like their loud music and guffawing, but we are up on the hillside and there is a nice breeze. AND we took our first baths tonight. We brought a collapsible bucket that holds ~5 gallons. We filled it up when we got to camp, let it sit in the sun to get nice and warm, added Dr. Bronner’s (sp?), then just before sundown went to town with our washcloths - hoods and windshields and undercarriages -YES and thank you. The rest of our evening shall consist of enjoying those take-out tacos we got at the last town, a bit of reading, and using the last of the firewood we hauled from the last campsite. And hare watching! Lots of habituated lagomorphs.
Shout out to Misty - there was a road sign today that said “A taco a day keeps the hangry away”. Perfect!
Tara’s nightly “Ernie, would you like to add something to today’s journal?”
Ernie - “I have literally stooped to the level of using the word ‘literally’ to describe the day”
July 2
Another rough day of cars! Holy F snacks the cars!!! Who would live here?????????? I’d write about how stressful it was, but it’s over and we made it so who cares. And we are finally calm, finally at camp and body temps cooled. We had some most delicious and much needed barbacoa in Bonita, California. Last night of Ernie’s iPhone so we figured we had better make a few postings.
Tonight is planning for MEXICO. We cross in Tecate tomorrow - headed on Hwy 5 South, then meet up with Hwy 1, then
Highlight of the day was this random guy we met in a parking lot after we got gas - we were having snacks and he approached and we started chatting. He was physically excited about our upcoming adventure - shaking his arm enthusiastically. Made both Ernie and I grin from ear to ear.
Hopefully we’ll get to a wi-fi Baja cafe some time soon. At the very latest La Paz!
Ernie’s addition: “Rock On”. That’s what the guitar shop owner told us as we were leaving the shop (we stopped to buy guitar strings - Ernie brought a parlor guitar and we busted a string during a fouled attempt to strap it to the bike a “new” way
July 1
When we planned these first five days (to get us from Oregon to Mexico pretty much ASAP), we knew that today was going to miserable. But in a physiological type of miserable - i.e., we were going to be hot and sweaty and riding on a straight and narrow sea of concrete. Or we thought it would be a figurative/hyperbole kind of miserable - like “oh my God today was the worst day EVER”. In fact, today was literally miserable. We got really sad over what existed betwen Sacramento and Los Angeles (really between Redding and LA, but lets just go with Sacramento to be conservative). There are three things on this stretch that suck hope for future generations.
1 - the cars. 50% SUV, 25% sedan, 25% pick ups or 18-wheelers. Sacramento to LA is ~400 miles, ~3600 feet in a mile = 1,440,000 feet. A car every 200 feet (again, conservative - we were like sheep for hundreds of miles so in many places it was more like 50 feet in between cars) = 7,200 cars per lane, 4 lanes means ~30K cars on the road just today (and perhaps over 100K cars). And these were not 4th of July peeps - they are easy to spot with coolers and bikes and crying kids in the back and pillows shoved against the windows. These were single driver, nicely dressed, bluetooth, bleach their teeth people. On personal or business travel through the I-5 CA corridor. 360 days a year, 30K cars a day, how much CO2 emission per car… ugh. Oh, and almost every car and SUV is sparkling clean and seemingly less than five years old.
2 - the agriculture. An ocean of hundreds of hundred+ acre farms - all of which need water, are draining water from the surrounding ecosystem, and are incessently advertising their right to do so every ~20 miles with signs like “No water no food” or “No water no jobs”. I get it - someone somewhere has to grow stuff to stuff US American faces with the mass amounts of food we eat. And yes, growing that stuff takes water - and a disporportionate amount of water now that we have altered the landscape to an unrecognizable state. With so many people in US America and beyond… Ernie and I were at a loss. Imagine driving across our beloved Oregon - the entire state - and the view was nothing but mass modified ag land. And imagine trying to communicate with our neighbors and having conversations that begin with “Every drop of water that makes it to the ocean is wasted”. Again, Ernie and I were at a loss.
3 - the power lines. Giants. No. Monsters. And the closer to LA, the more plentiful they became. So many. So big. So unsustainable. It felt like a forest of power lines. Coming from hundreds of miles away.
Collectively, these three sights, and for so many hundreds of miles, well it was literally miserabble and overwhelmingly sad.
Late afternoon, after a respit at a desolate natural gas gas station (because duh - no Californian on this stretch of I-5 was there), out of no where we got some topography and shrub land and a few tumbleweeds and our moods did a 180. Woooo hooooo!!!!!Turns out our campsite tonight is tucked up in the 4000’ hills/mountains north of LA. There is a large population of recreational Sea-Doo people here, and they sure do like their loud music and guffawing, but we are up on the hillside and there is a nice breeze. AND we took our first baths tonight. We brought a collapsible bucket that holds ~5 gallons. We filled it up when we got to camp, let it sit in the sun to get nice and warm, added Dr. Bronner’s (sp?), then just before sundown went to town with our washcloths - hoods and windshields and undercarriages -YES and thank you. The rest of our evening shall consist of enjoying those take-out tacos we got at the last town, a bit of reading, and using the last of the firewood we hauled from the last campsite. And hare watching! Lots of habituated lagomorphs.
Shout out to Misty - there was a road sign today that said “A taco a day keeps the hangry away”. Perfect!
Tara’s nightly “Ernie, would you like to add something to today’s journal?”
Ernie - “I have literally stooped to the level of using the word ‘literally’ to describe the day”
July 2
Another rough day of cars! Holy F snacks the cars!!! Who would live here?????????? I’d write about how stressful it was, but it’s over and we made it so who cares. And we are finally calm, finally at camp and body temps cooled. We had some most delicious and much needed barbacoa in Bonita, California. Last night of Ernie’s iPhone so we figured we had better make a few postings.
Tonight is planning for MEXICO. We cross in Tecate tomorrow - headed on Hwy 5 South, then meet up with Hwy 1, then
Highlight of the day was this random guy we met in a parking lot after we got gas - we were having snacks and he approached and we started chatting. He was physically excited about our upcoming adventure - shaking his arm enthusiastically. Made both Ernie and I grin from ear to ear.
Hopefully we’ll get to a wi-fi Baja cafe some time soon. At the very latest La Paz!
Ernie’s addition: “Rock On”. That’s what the guitar shop owner told us as we were leaving the shop (we stopped to buy guitar strings - Ernie brought a parlor guitar and we busted a string during a fouled attempt to strap it to the bike a “new” way