Road Trip 1: The Central Valley

California's Central Valley is BIG.  You can drive for hours and see nothing but road and fields, stretching away in all directions.

It is one of the most productive agricultural areas in the world.  It contains 1% of the total farmland in the US, but accounts for 8% of the country's agricultural output.

And it desperately needs water.  Driving south, I saw many fields that were not cultivated, and had returned to dust. There were signs posted everywhere:

No Water = No Jobs

Congress is Creating Another Dustbowl

Build Reservoirs, not Railroads

I don't understand all the political issues, but it's clear that there is a lot of pain.

* * * * * * * *

I arrived in Bakersfield hot and tired...  I suppose everyone arrives that way.  I noticed right away that I had a flat tire, and pull off the road in a sketchy looking warehouse area.  I called AAA, and waited for the tow truck in the 95 degree heat.

I watched as a man walked slowly up to me.  He looked at the flat tire and asked if I needed help.  I told him a tow truck was on the way.

He said he was out walking because he was out of work, and he pointed up the road to his house.  He said if the tow truck didn't show up I should come and get him.

We chatted for a couple of minutes, and then he looked at me and said, "I've been in prison.  I raped and killed my stepdaughter.  I'm not proud of it, but I did my time."

He said that after prison he got a job working for a local auto parts store, but had to quit because the owner had two teenage girls that were just too much temptation for him.

I didn't know what to say.  I told him something else would probably come along for him.  I think he just needed to talk to someone...  a stranger.

The tow truck came and I sat in the air conditioned cab as the driver loaded my car.  

The man walked away down the road, toward his house.

* * * * * * * *

I was in my hotel room in Bakersfield, lying in bed.  Someone knocked at the door.  I looked at the clock and it was 12:15.  

I went to the door and looked out the peephole.  There was a girl standing outside wearing tiny shorts and a crop top, showing lots of skin.  Through the door, I asked her what she wanted.  She said that she had just talked to me on the phone, and I had given her my room number.

I told her she had the wrong room, and I went back to bed.