Our three week mission has concluded and we are safe at our home base. All of you who have traveled along with us are welcome to head home. Just clean up all those crumbs from those Oreo cookies you bought at that gas station in Baker, California. Baker is the first town, sort of, in California after you leave Nevada and pass through the fruit police stop just inside the California border. Had to scarf down that banana and apple I had in the car. None of the other states seemed to care. Also, where do all those people working at the fast food restaurants and gas stations in Baker live? I didn’t see any houses of consequence and it is miles before you reach anywhere with residences.
Baker is a unique little place. It is famous for its giant thermometer that stands about 10 stories tall. It only confirms what you already know if you are in Baker. It is freaking hot. My skin turning crispy tells me the same thing. I also noticed another interesting attraction in Baker as I tried to drive through as fast as I could. They have a building there that looks like a spaceship with flashing lights and statues of what look like aliens. Felt like I was in an X Files episode. The sign out front said Alien Jerky. That led to a few questions. Do Aliens sell jerky? Is it a business selling jerky made from Aliens? Are aliens harvesting unknowing travelers, stopping in Baker to gas up and take a bathroom break, to make jerky? Were Dana Scully and Fox Mulder a real couple both infected with Alien DNA? Just asking.
After getting gas and making one of my many age related bathroom stops, we exited Baker as fast as we could. It was now time for the most difficult and stress-filled portion of our long Trek (see how I worked that in), driving the freeways in Southern California. When I checked my GPS it said the final 120 miles of our trip would be as long as the last three days of our drive. I might be exaggerating but it seemed like it.
We’re home, unpacked and recovered after our 5,000 mile journey. We enjoyed almost everything about our trip, including the hundreds of miles of detour. I have to say that the beauty of our country is awe inspiring. We saw views that ranged from mountain valleys of Colorado, to the canyons of Utah and the inspiring beauty of the Ozarks. We drove through corn fields, grazing lands, and miles and miles of green forest. We don’t see much of that out here in California, even though our state is blessed with unbelievable beauty. We appreciated rain storms when we experienced them and enjoyed every second we were out on the water fishing, especially the vastness of Lake Michigan. My favorite part of our trip was seeing the sun rise at 5:30 in the morning over the tree line that surrounded the lake we spent a week on. I was blessed to see a bald eagle sitting on top of a long dead tree just waiting to demonstrate he was a much better fisherman than me. The orange skies and the glass like lake, surrounded by the beautiful green foliage and wind driven sand dunes has always been my favorite way of reducing stress. Hey, I caught a few fish while I was at it.
We see scientists working on faster ways of transporting us from place to place. Bullet trains, high flying aircraft and even Star Trek like transporting (though in theory only), but I think that would really steal peoples opportunity of driving through the beauty that is this great country of ours. You would never see the Rocky Mountains, experience the power of the Mississippi, or see the skylines of some of our great cities as you approach them. I like traveling at the “speed of sight seeing.”
Now back to an issue that really bothers me. Those folks who work in Baker. Maybe they’re all aliens who beam up to a mother ship after their day’s work. The truth is out there.
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