September 2, 2010 - Day 1
On
the first day of our trip home, we drove from Modesto to Barstow,
California
through the San Joaquin Valley. Soon as we reached I-40 we
noticed a sign that looked like someone was trying to play a
joke. Wilmington, NC? Were they kidding?
It turns out Barstow is the beginning of I-40 and Wilmington is the end. They post the length of the interstate at both ends.
(And obviously I lifted both these photos from the internet. All others are our own)
So we've driven from Cochran to Corcoran...
"... Tehachapi to Tonopah." Hmmm, when he wrote that song, was Lowell George thinking about Tonopah, Nevada or Tonopah, Arizona?
In San Joaquin Valley they take their agriculture VERY seriously. They grow wine, raisin, and table grapes, all kinds of citrus, almonds, pistachios), peaches, plums, tomatoes, kiwis, olives. The largest cotton farm on earth (40,000 acres) is in King's county. Most of the nation's domestic asparagus is raised around Stockton, most of our raisins near Fresno.
I read in a local farm paper where one county had produced over 200,000 tons of grapes so far this season. Yep, I said "tons." California grows 91% of the 700,000 tons of grapes grown in the U.S. every year. Below is a truck load of oranges behing hauled to market.
Coming down from the high Sierras, you'd have to be blind to miss the miles and miles of fruit trees and vinyards being grown all over the valley.
I've tried growing grapes for years. You train the vines to wires set up as two strands of fencing. The rows look like the photo below except that the Californians hang an irrigation pipe below the lowest wire. How smart!
But I noticed most California grapes growing on "Y" shaped or "T" shaped arbors instead of the usual fence row style configurations. Methods like this can almost double the production per grapevine.
Of course there's more to see than agriculture. There are these cool looking train tunnels. The Central Pacific RR built many of these tunnels in the 1860s using thousands of Chinese laborers. They tunneled at the rate of only 8 inches per day using hand chisels and black powder for blasting. Imagine the energy they expended.
Speaking of energy, these folks really like to capitalize on all methods of energy production. I never saw so many wind powered electric generators in one place.
But wind wasn't the only method harnessed. They also had some huge solar energy farms.
Out here in the desert there's lots of sun to go around for things like that.
Another thing I noticed near the Mojave Desert were all these black rocks. I think it was basalt but I'm not sure. Definetly looks like some sort of volcanic rock.
One thing you miss in the desert are the frequent rest stops you get used to elsewhere around the U.S. The sign below says if you miss this rest stop you have to drive 79 miles to the next one.
And wouldn't you know it'd be closed!
Thank goodness the next one said it was open. I'm not sure I could last another 56 miles!
People used the black rocks to write in teh while sand of the desert. There were several of these "initials" created by laying the rocks in a pattern in the ditches.
Of course, the old Route 66 parallels I-40.
You can see it here winding it's way near the interstate.
And that's not all that's winding it's way across the desert. This train seems to go on forever, doesn't it? We saw lots of these things.
But I'm glad we didn't have to see this thing go on forever. Looks like a mirror. It almost is. It's a bright, shiny semi-tractor trailer truck covered in polished stainless steel. I doubt he realized just how blinding his trailer was to fellow travelers.
But the sun was setting on another day. Within an hour after we saw this it was dark and we didn't have to deal with it any more.
That's it for today's show. Tune in again, same time, same station kiddies. Until then, "Happy Trails to you... until we meet again!