The food was more Yucka than Yuma in the end, but it’s the thought that counts.
An Australian mate told me he loves the UK so much because you can travel only a few miles and end up in a totally different landscape.
The Sonoran Desert is the complete opposite of that – a bit like the Aussie bush in that there’s almost nothing to report for mile after mile.
‘Big RV park at Fortuna Foothills’ reads one of my notes from the road. I will never speak ill of the M6 again.
When crossing into California, it looks like the Sahara for a while, and there are some checkpoints, due to the proximity to Mexico, to add a bit of jeopardy. You can spy Trump’s big fence here, too.
About five hours in, the desert ends, you cross the Laguna Mountains, climb up and then descend into San Diego – a quite peculiar place that seems largely deserted, save for a massive cordoned-off street that resembles Albufeira in Portugal, with bar after massive bar offering happy hour deals. Yet to whom?
This all sounds a bit po-faced for a Why I love column, but that’s not the intention: these sorts of journeys become addictions, the banal becoming brilliant.
Within about 30 minutes of being parked up in San Diego, I was ready to open another pack of dates and do it all again.
