Well, let's start this correctly. What started out as a good morning, good coffee, early start, progressed to almost impossible as I managed to get my trailer into a jam trying to get it out of storage. They'd parked another, bigger, longer trailer next to it and in the process of trying to get around it, I ended up getting it closer.
I ended up having to hitch up the trailer next to me to pull it forward, move a boat trailer on the other side across the way, and spend another half an hour backing and filling until I could get far enough away to miss the fat-ass trailer next to me and the fifth wheel across from me that left me the length of my truck and about five feet. I was hot, sweaty, dehydrated, and exhausted by the time I got it out, but I managed to hit the road about 12:30 instead of 10:00.
One of the guiding principles of my trip has been to not be bound by plans when something different offers itself. In this case, my plan was to leave Palm Springs and retrace the 110 miles through the desert to Blythe, CA and pick up my journey down U.S. Hwy 95. But as I looked at the maps, I realized that I was missing a great opportunity. I was just a hundred miles north of El Centro, CA where my grandfather lived until his death in 1973. And on top of that, I could drive the entire length of the Salton Sea. I headed south.
I had no idea that the drive would take me through the heart of California's date-raising land. I don't think I'd ever seen dates growing on the palm trees, but here, indeed, I saw them. The dates are bagged on the tree, apparently to keep pests away from them, but possibly for other reasons that I know not of.
Apparently, it is not yet, or is already past the tourist season here. On the entire drive south, doing the car/trailer limit of 55 while everyone else could go 65, I was only passed once or twice. The campgrounds were empty. But the Salton Sea was beautiful, including the flock of what I believe were storks or something similar floating on the water.
The Salton Sea is a saltwater body about 15 miles wide by 35 miles long. It has higher salinity than the Pacific, but lower than the Great Salt Lake. I'm told it's only about a hundred plus years old, having been created in 1905 by a massive flood of the Colorado River. Its surface is 295 feet below sea level and it sits directly on top of the San Andreas Fault. It was pretty amazing, even after I left the sea behind to see a silo with Sea Level marked on it.
That, by the way is not a grain elevator. It's Spreckles Sugar Company. One of the main crops along here is sugar beets.
I had a bunch of messages with my sister this weekend during which we did some research. I found a living uncle (my namesake) listed and mentioned finding out that my cousin Bobby had died a few years ago. Sister read my last post and mentioned that she was pretty sure Grandpa Boyden had died in '73. She looked it up and found he was buried at Evergreen Cemetery in El Centro. I decided to go find the marker.
Of course, by the time I finished following Maggie's (Magellan) stupid GPS instructions, It was 4:30 by the time I got there, just half an hour after the information and caretakers quit for the day. The cemetery didn't close until sunset, though, so I went out to see if I could make sense of the arrangement of markers.
Up until about 1950, there were predominantly normal headstones as you can see in the far background of this image. But since then, nearly everything is a flat plaque on the ground. Thousands of them. I wandered through the cemetery to see if I could figure out a likely place for 1973 and then literally went up and down every row of markers in that section.
Don't ask me how, but I actually found it. It is six rows west of Palm Street and the fifth stone south of First Street.
And that's what set me off on my overly sentimental journey this evening. I spent about an hour and a half wandering through the cemetery, almost ready to give up as the sun was nearing the horizon. My grandfather had seen me when I was too young to remember, but along about my 12th birthday (possibly while my next older sister had been living with him) we began a correspondence that continued through my college years. In 1968, just before I started college, I convinced my parents that I was unlikely to be able to vacation with them any more and we should do something as a family. We drove from Indiana to El Centro to visit Grandfather. It was the first time I remembered meeting him. I also remember coming back through Albuquerque, NM and meeting with my mother's brother and family. Cousins B & B took little sister and me out to a movie--Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. We had a great time. Cousin Bobby, a couple years younger than me, had an accident the year or so before and was paralyzed from the waist down. He was getting along fine in his wheelchair, but that was the last time I saw him. He passed away December 28, 2006. I found this out as I was attempting to see what relatives I had left in the Southwest. I plan to contact a few.
I saw Grandfather one more time. In the winter of 1972, just after Christmas, PJ and I drove out west in our rickety Renault. After being stranded on the freeway and towed fifty miles into Tulsa to have a wheel bearing replaced, we made it to my sister's house in Texas, then cursed Texas drivers as we headed across southern New Mexico and discovered our route took us through a ski resort and snowstorm. The Texas drivers in question, simply stopped in the middle of the road to put chains on their cars. We spent New Year's Eve with Grandfather and Eloise and I had my first experience of oyster stew on New Year's Day. PJ and I continued to San Diego and then up to LA to go to Disneyland. It was also my first sight of the Pacific Ocean. On the way back to Indiana, we decided that when we replaced the Renault (which was going to be very soon) it would be with anything other than a Toyota as those were the only make of car that we ever were able to pass on the drive back.
In the fall or winter of 1973, I came home from work and PJ had me sit down to tell me that my Grandfather had passed away. Our trip to California and her care and love in telling me about my grandfather are among my fondest memories of my time married to PJ. I am always hopeful that she is doing well and hold her in high regard.
By the way, if you follow any of my stories, the Grandfather in The Gutenberg Rubric and his location near Superstition Mountain was based on Bert Boyden, though he was not a printer. He was a constant inspiration and source of encouragement for me to establish a writing career, though, and was a published author of several volumes of poetry. In an earlier work that I am currently serializing, Uncle Bert Parker is also a tribute to my grandfather.
So, tonight, I'm sitting in the trailer--home sweet home--in a Walmart parking lot in Calexico, CA, having one more glass of wine and being a little maudlin. Tomorrow, on to Yuma, AZ.
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