Day 5: Yuma to Dateland

Slept in a Parks and Recreation facility in Yuma and although we were in a huge room lined with our mattresses  it was remarkably pleasant.  You can see that John was very comfortable.  We had a taco dinner that was a big hit but more on that later.  After dinner the local historian came and gave a very interesting slide show about the history of Yuma.  In the morning it became known that several people were ill-- John had had a terrible night throwing up and etc.  He wanted to ride despite feeling bad but got a slow start so I spent the first several miles (horrible road, heavy traffic) in a state of some anxiety about him.  He finally caught up and we had the only nice miles of the trip-- through the "salad bowl" of the U.S.  Ninety % of all lettuce grown in the country is grown in Yuma-- lots of other veggies as well-- Unfortunately that was only twelve miles of the seventy some I rode--and John was so weak and miserable that he had to SAG starting at mile 24.  So I was really on my own through fifty miles of uninspiring country.  I managed it with the help of my iTouch and John Irving's "Prayer for Owen Meany" -- it kept me going for a long time until we had to get on Interstate 8 and I decided that I should quit listening to the book and start listening for trucks that threatened to run me off the road.  Finally we arrived at "Dateland" which is really just a highway interchange where they sell "world famous" date shakes.  Our campground was sandwiched between the Interstate and a heavily used freight train line but such is our exhaustion that we slept very well.

These guys were cutting iceberg lettuce and taking off the outer leaves with a machete.  The heads were tossed onto the conveyor belt where a woman came along and put them into plastic bags, then into cartons.  The whole huge machine was slowly moving along the field.