Ay, carumba!

Lunch in Jacumba!
Had a great sandwich and many pleasant conversations in Jacumba (today; and Alpine and Pine Valley yesterday). The problem with stopping for food, rather than eating what we are carrying in our panniers in some county park, is that it takes so long. Lots of nice people want to talk. And invariably they say "Be safe. Good luck." And then we rush off, "behind schedule."

Thus we were "late" when we rounded a bend in the old highway and Heidi was kinda shocked to see the big metal fence between the U S of A and Mexico, which we rode right beside for a large part of the day.

We've gone pretty quickly from gated mansions overlooking the Pacific ocean, to poor towns just inland, to 4,000' mountains and high desert - and now enough Border Patrol to wipe out most small nations.
We were surprised to go through a checkpoint, on our bikes, on the old highway, pretty early on yesterday. Then more white BP vehicles, then "Volunteer patrols" checkin' us out at the Forest Service campground, then huge BP compounds with dozens of white SUVs and Jeeps "inside the wire" - plus all the ones passing us out on the road every mile or so. We passed 4 guys in BP uniforms, with 2 Jeeps, lookin' for evidence of "wetbacks" in a dirt poor farmer's field. Kinda surreal, out there in the blinding sun and building heat of the day. Trying to imagine the poor folks who may or may not have hopped the huge fence - and made those footprints in the sand around the corner of that fencepost?

We rode through the Yuha Desert after refilling our water bottles in Ocotillo - and getting a liter of cold orange juice and an ice cream, of course. It felt hot, to us. Then once we were smoked from the surprising amount of climbing today, the headwind, the heat, the sun, and the brutally rough farm road for the last 8 miles (on our 70 mile, 2,000' vertical day) - we were taken in at the Sunbeam Lake RV Park, with matching American and Canadian flags out front. Turns out a lot of "snow birds" come here in the winter. So we felt welcome right away.
We didn't completely understand the "Excuse our noise - that's the sound of freedom" sign until later. There are Border Patrol helicopters going over every couple minutes, looking for our NAFTA neighbors trying to come here for dirt poor wages workin' in the agricultural fields all over this part of the country. They want the work, the corporations want their labor - but the politicians, and a small, loud slice of supporters make hay out of "keepin' 'em out". Weird. "Free" market? "Free" trade agreement? "Mobile labor force, just like capital"? Nope.

So after riding through miles of hay fields in the Imperial Valley, we found out it WAS hot. It was in the 90's today. I had that Genesis song stuck in my head, as Heidi and I two-person team time trialed into the headwind over the last 30 miles: "And they can't refresh me those hot winds of the south". I just didn't know what number to attribute to them yet.

But, as the cool kids say, the long and short of it is that "the Border Patrol around here is off the hook!"

And it's hot.
The desert is hot.
Imagine that?