Journey to California, Day 6

[dragoness_e]

Bakersfield was much cooler the next morning. I got an early start; I wanted to get the drive done with before very late in the day. It turned out to be a bit too early to get breakfast most places, so I put off breakfast until further down the road.

Cutting across to I-5, I passed through lots of very large orchards and vineyards.

Large block of orchard


Vineyard on the other side of the same road


These fields are irrigated; under each tree is a drip or spray irrigation tap. The dark spots under the trees in the following picture aren't deep shade--they're mud from irrigation.

Irrigated orchard


I can well believe that California is the breadbasket of America--okay, the fruit and vegetable basket. Kansas is where they grow the wheat, and the Mid-West grows corn and soybeans. Everything else grows in California. I passed orchards of all kinds, from almonds to oranges; fields of leafy green veggies; countless vineyards--either we drink a lot of wine or eat a lot of raisins, or both--onion and garlic fields, which you can smell well down the road, even fields of flowers. Gilroy, CA has a Garlic Festival near the end of this month.

They also run cattle on the non-irrigated land. The same land, without irrigation, looks like the same dry, prairie grass and scrub I saw just west of the Mojave--the interior of California is still quite arid. Without irrigation, it would be nothing but sheep and cattle ranches. (I saw some sheep, too).

Going up I-5, besides lots more farmland and ranches, I passed lots of trucks carrying vegetables. I couldn't identify them clearly, my vision isn't that good--there were green round things, red round things, and white round things.

Crossing the hills over to US101, I found myself mixed in with about a jillion bikers on big Harleys, mostly. I kept having to be careful not to run them down, because this section of the drive was long, long downhill grades winding through mountains again. (That was after the long, long uphill grade on the backside of the mountains). At restroom stop, I asked one of the guys what was going on, figuring there was a rally somewhere. I was right, there's a rally in Hollister, which route overlapped my route across the mountains.

Bikes at the Casa de Frutas


San Jose was much longer to drive across than I expected. Also, the directions printed out on my reservation page were terrible; I found the hotel in spite of them. So here I am, really tired, need to unpack my stuff, pick up a few things, and find out where I'm supposed to be Monday morning.

Other than that, the trip is done.

Oh, and my Seeker flock made it in fine shape.

Comments

[flybystardancer.livejournal.com]

Yay for getting here! *pets the Seeker flock* I totally didn't know the rally in Hollister was today. But then again, the cousins normally go to it, not me. And there are farms EVERYWHERE in CA. At least, everywhere across about the center half of the state. We get water for irrigation from out east, in the major rivers. We have too--don't get enough rain here on our own. But other than that, everything else here is good for farming (weather, soil, etc).

[wrongly-amused.livejournal.com]

I just caught up with your LJ a bit after a long pause, and I wanted to say congrats on the new job! :-D CA certainly looks like a beautiful place, even for a scenic drive.

Your seekers seem to have one unlucky soul surrounded. Is there a particular reason for the aggression? ;-)

[dragoness-e.livejournal.com]

They're in "fleet display formation", like so. (http://www1.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/Fleet/Small/EC93-41012-3.jpg). The guy in the center is Midnight the Headless Seeker; he'd be in formation, except that he can't tranform, so he's stuck as the centerpiece.

Cool!