California Aqueduct

This water flowed down out of the beautiful Sierra Nevada Mountains of Northern California, and through the Central Valley (roughly paralleling the I-5). Here it is being pumped over the Tehachipi Mountains and into the Los Angeles basin. As a long time Sierra backpacker I find the contrast of pristine Sierra lakes and this industrial looking conduit depressing. The water wars of California are fascinating--read The Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner if you are interested in stories of graft, corruption and bloodshed associated with an element many of us think should be free. When a desert is developed into a home for several million souls, water becomes a necessary, valuable commodity--especially when it travels through the agricultural heart of the state.

If you look at the top of the hills, you can make out the dark cloud which cloaked the Tejon Pass in dense, impenetrable fog. Whenever anything couses people to slow down on this pass, clearly it is a force to be reckoned with. Fortunately, it didn't last very long, because it was nerve wracking to share a four lane highway with cars, trucks, runaway truck ramps, and a vivid imagination.

What did last a long time was what turned out to be a fatal accident which all but closed the road in the bleakest portion of the Central Valley. The only official information we were given was a notice on the overhead sign that said, congested traffic 10 miles ahead. As OilMan was the co=pilot when we hit the wall of stopped traffic, he got on the smart phone and found out about the two hour delay part. If he weren't OilMan, he would be MapMan because he consulted our dog-eared map of California and directed me on a one hour bypass through the lovely metropolis of Firebaugh, where we rejoined the I-5 just about the same time as the people who had been crawling along without the detour got there. When we saw the queue leaving the highway at the first sign of food and bathrooms, we elected to soldier on even though we were in need of both.

Two hours later we gratefully drove up our driveway, pleased with our family visit and happy to be home with a loo without a queue....