I didn't leave the house until 8pm on June 4th. I only took Sadie and Minnie, leaving Zeke behind simply because while he's great onleash and with other dogs, he does chase wildlife and I don't want him chasing bears in the wilderness. Maybe in a few years he will calm down and heel for me 100% of the time.
It had reached 100F in Hereford during the day, and even at night the drive through Tucson and then Phoenix on I-10 was hot. Traffic was good and I drove until I felt tired, right outside Buckeye on the west side of Phoenix. I pulled into a vast and well-lighted parking lot to a Holiday Inn Express and rested for four hours, getting up again at 4am when the temperatures had cooled down (!) to 88F. Minnie never stopped panting and looked uncomfortable.
I hate driving in the desert in the summer. I-10 through Arizona and eastern California can get very uncomfortable! The van just doesn't get cool enough when it's 100F outside and the AC is set to high. Minnie never stopped panting and my goal was to drive as far north toward Travis AFB, where Eric is now stationed. All the hillsides were dry and a light brown. Even the cows grazing on the hills off I-5 didn't look happy. "Happy Cows," going on an old ad slodan for California cheeses, "are California cows" but happy cows also prefer to munch on green grass and not dead grass.
There were also lots of signs about water use for agriculture, in light of Governor Brown's water rationing in this year's drought. Agriculture is California's #1 money maker and farmers need water, but apparently citizens who have their water rationed are complaining. Meanwhile, Trumps says California does not have a drought, but I see the dead grass everywhere. Normally the months of September and October are the dead grass months but now it's even earlier.
The interstate is very scenic once one gets past Desert Center, CA. The burned palm trees that once lined the edge of town have now all been topped clear and are mere stumps now. I stopped at Chiraco Summit, east of Indio, to walk around the outside of the General PAtton Desert Museum, where Patton trained US troops during the early start of WWII to get ready for our landing in North Africa in 1943. Old era tanks lay outside, there's a statue of Patton and his terrier dog up front (the dog has anatomically-correct testicles and an anus!) and much to my surprise, there's a free dry campground behind this museum; first-come, first served. I'll be using that site in future drives to CA as the site is 425 miles from Hereford and a nice way to break up the 1000-mile drive. I took the dogs out on a short romp in the desert to pee before resuming the hot drive west on I-10 and then north on I-5. The hills around us looked parched.
Temperatures never got cool. I could have taken the coastal route 101 but that is known to jam up on weekends. I kept the van cool like an ice truck, stopped at most rest areas to let the dogs pee, but even then we'd get slammed with that heat radiating off the asphalt and burning the dogs' paws. We made it to the Travis AFB area just shortly after 6pm, later than I had planned. After having to pull over to search for my wallet which had fallen behind some "stuff" in the van, (I had to take my wallet out to pay a $5 bridge fee crossing the Sacramento River while following the backroads route my GPS gave me off I-5)I was ready to enter the air base and meet Eric at the BX parking lot. (There's a Starbucks next to the BX main entrance with free wifi).
Minnie was excited to see Eric again. After a decent burger meal in town at the Monsoon burger place, we played fetch with the dogs in an empty lot before I dropped him back off at his new blue Honda Civic and departing for the night.
Strangely right after sun set, the winds set in and it got cool. I walked the dogs a bit near the RV park off the main gate entrance, but only walked half a mile. It was in the 60s and too cold for me, after several days of high 90s. I'm a wimp! I'll resume my standard four-mile walks once we get to the coast and start hiking for real. These next few days I'm just going to chill here in the area and enjoy Califorrnia. The state primary is tomorrow and it's going to be a close race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
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