Ch. 43
Where There Is Smoke There is Fire
Finally I received the call over my cell
saying the Road Warrior was done. Darla and I were able to check out of the
hotel and stopped at Enterprise Car rental and picked up a salesman to return
the rental car and soon we were at Big Dan’s RV outlet and there was the Road Warrior
all shined up and ready to go. Darla and I unloaded the luggage and as I approached
the Road Warrior and clicked the keys to unlock the door, the step came out to
greet us on command. What an amazing invention I said to myself. Thank god that
is still working, I say to myself as load our luggage inside.
The Service Manager appeared and soon we were
all checked out with a bill for fifteen thousand in repairs which is almost the
cost for a new cheap car, I thought to myself. I handed it to Darla who produced
a credit card and soon we were ready to go. I never owned a credit card with that
much of a credit balance and if I had I am sure I would have screwed it up, so
this kind of dealing was all new to me. In fact since I left Ohio I have been
on a whirlwind of high financing thanks to Ann and Darla that I have never
experienced before. I have money in my bank account , more than enough to last
my lifetime and leave me comfortable , and now I can travel the country doing what
want , and yet I long to be back home and have my dog Babe go with me.
This I will do after I finish my trip and my
immediate obligation to Ann and Lee and Darla also. That is to make it to the Sequoia
National park and the General Sherman tree at noon on Labor Day. We had been
receiving reports of more fires in the area of the Sequoia National Park.
Not wanting
to go through another firestorm with Darla I asked if our route was open to Sequoia
after I started heading the Road Warrior out of town to our final destination. We
only had a couple of days to Labor Day and needed to get there. Lee and Ann was
already there according to Darla and were staying at a lodge there.
They had encountered no problems with
fires on their trip there but conditions change rapidly and Darla was checking out
our route on the computer as we decided to head south through San Jose and Fresno
across the Central Valley headed for the Sierra Nevada Mountains. there is no
chance of fires along the route through Fresno as it mostly farmland that is utilized
at hundred percent of its potential till it encounters a city where gradual
urban creep replaces farmland with housing developments as an ample water
supply and somewhat of rural life offers homeowners their chance at owning a little
piece of earth that they can call their own, much the same as anywhere else in
the United States. Water from the mountains charges the aquifers and the competition
between home owners and agriculture pit one against the other in competition
for this vital resource, which with the drought raises the stakes higher. Without
crops one can’t eat. But at same time
one cannot survive just on water , if the crops wither and die due to lack of
water it raises the cost of securing food from outside sources to replace the
food lost from locally grown sources. There is a fine line being drawn in the sand,
so to speak when it comes to living in this area as well as in the area of the San
Fernando Valley in California as both areas struggle to find a way to live harmoniously
during drought events which happen more frequently.
Now the drought is starting to threaten
the mountainous areas of the Sierra Nevada Mountains where the majority of the
water is coming from, and where ample water supplies, temperatures and humidity
created the ideal conditions that allowed the massive Sequoia to survive for
3500 years. But even now they’re threatened as weather patterns are changing creating
drought conditions as global warming now is encroaching on these massive
giants. Tinderbox conditions are being created in these forests and wild fires
are beginning to now threaten these giants. There is no immediate solution to
the problem except hope that they can survive.
As Darla and I head on toward Fresno we see
farming areas where it is ditch to ditch farming and massive irrigation techniques
being employed to turn desert areas into farm land which wouldn’t exist
normally under average conditions. This widespread use of irrigation requires
enormous usage of resources of water. The alternative of using the land for building
also requires an enormous use of resources of water to provide families with
water for irrigation of lawns and bathing and etc.. One is just as bad as the
other. The land is overpriced and would be of no functional use without a water
source to back it up and that is strained under normal conditions, let alone
under drought conditions.
Agreeably with water, excellent quality
crops could be produced but can this be done in other parts of the country and
the answer is yes it can. Without a water source from the mountains this area
will dry up quick and farming and the people will move to greener pastures so
to speak. This whole area is threated especially by global warming. Much the
same as our coastal areas as ocean levels rise due to ice melt from our polar
caps.
Our glaciers are melting and Greenland will
see soon a twenty five percent reduction in size as massive ice sheets have melted.
Global warming is upon us threatening those things we hold dear and it is
thanks to humans we now threaten every living creature on this planet. If I sound
like a broken record playing the same tune over and over again then pay
attention to those subtle changes in your own environment as you find the
summers hotter than you have ever remembered and violent storms become the norm
as these are all part of the cause and effect of global warming.
Darla and I decided to camp at the base of
the Sierra Nevada’s leaving the final climb into the mountains the next day and
finally into the Sequoia National Park. Mile after mile of farmland stretched
out before us and just before night fall we pulled into Low Water , California and
the Lake Kaweah region where we found the Lake Kaweah RV club and to spend the night before climbing up into the
mountains. This area is normally an arid region of desert but thanks to irrigation
techniques it allows agriculture and housing interests to flourish together.
Darla and I soon had the Road Warrior set
up in the park and I cooked us up a nice dinner of spiced turkey sausages and
green peppers served over a bed of rice Darla prepared. We had a nice dinner as
Darla enjoyed a glass of California wine from a winery we visited on our way
here. As the sun sank low we enjoyed smoking a doobie and relaxing. I was tired
and finally I was able to share the bed in the bedroom with Darla as I was no
longer confined to the damn sofa bed with the bar stuck in the middle of my
back and I slept good as I crooked Darla’s body under my arm and it felt good having
encouraged her to shed the flannel and lay naked next to me.
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