Monochrome

We reluctantly took our leave of Matt and Amy and the giant blowup pink flamingo floating in their back yard, and hit the road for home this morning.
The first hour, as we drove over the Grapevine, the pass over the Tehachapi Mountains, we spent discussing the wonderful dinner we had together last night…nice drive via Laurel Canyon, Rodeo Drive and Sunset Blvd to get there and a fun and delicious small plate meal. We staggered out of the restaurant, drove home and sat outside talking until 10:30 when it was still 88ºF.

Even though we do it once or twice a year, the drive on Interstate 5 between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area was a bit of a shocker this time. "About one-sixth of the irrigated land in the U.S. is in the Central Valley, which covers about 22,500 square miles.It is the primary source for a number of food products throughout the United States, including tomatoes, grapes, cotton, apricots, olives, asparagus and nuts. it is also the largest dairy producer, with over 20% of the nation's dairy."

I gleaned those random facts from a quick Google search, but  after four years of drought and significant water cuts to Central Valley agriculture, the landscape has changed. We drove through miles of dead almond trees,   acres of dead tomato plants and field after field of dust instead of cotton  or asparagus. They are all peppered with signs that say things like Congress created dust bowl, and Is growing food wasting water? Good question. I'd rather let my lawn die. Dust, heat, smoke and pollutants collect in the air and, trapped by the surrounding hills, create an unhealthy, visible smog.

The California Aqueduct still flows with water but much of it is bound for Southern California from the Sacramento River Delta and the Sierra Nevada. The Harris Ranch, marking the half way point between LA and the Bay Area is a huge feed lot which produces 150,000,000 pounds of beef a year. The cows are still there, (see extra) crowded into treeless expanses of dirt amidst a powerful stench of cowshit which has been raked into enormous mounds. It's enough to make one a vegetarian.

The picture I took from the car tells the story…nothing but crisp gold hills, tumbleweeds and dead tomato plants (the pinkish stripe in the distance), but I thought it had a certain hazy, polluted beauty of its own.