The Hazel Project

Hello everyone.

Herb and I approached the desert last Thursday.

I tried posting Thursday night but a glitch occurred and the post vanished.

So I’ll try to reconstruct it here.

The Mojave desert was the defining moment of this trip due to the fact the VW lacks an air conditioner.

It was important, out of respect for the terrain, the VW and ourselves, we time our crossing just right.

Our timing was perfect, making use of what I’ll refer to as the “Clark Griswold” effect.

Herb and I got to the desert a little after 12:00 pm. We stopped in Needles, CA and had lunch at the best resturaunt in town; Denny’s.

We stayed there several hours and waited for the heat to begin dropping from the projected peak of 108 degrees. Herb made phone calls, and I performed a ridiculous ‘car ballet’ chasing the shade of the only palm tree for the entire Denny’s parking lot.

We stayed so long at Denny’s our table had 2 waitresses.

Herb suggested we get some water for the trip and found a grocery store nearby. We shoved 24 bottles of water in every nook we could find.

It was still stifing outside.

I loaded the cd player with Tom Waits and we were off.

People were flying by us at least 90mph. With both windows down, Herb and I cruised at 70mph watching the temperature gauge on the VW like a hawk. I began to feel this creeping dry heat. Fortunately, I had slathered the left side of my body with spf30 and was beginning to feel the stuff working hard, keeping me from being scorched.

The Tom Waits song “hang on st. christopher” played on and was perfect. Bone dry music for a piece of land that must be met with ultimate respect.

I looked over at Herb and he was dousing clean handkerchiefs to put around our necks. I thought I’m going to look silly wearing this thing.

Then a honda passed us and the cat driving was wearing his doused handkerchief on his head. So I tried putting the thing around my neck and it made a huge difference. The water evaporated within 10 minutes of application.

I looked over one time and Herb, in addition to the handerkerchief, was splashing water on his face as if he were at a sink.

Even in the shade of the car shadows, the heat was relentless.

The driest, hottest heat I’ve ever felt. It made me gulp hard, hoping the next swallow or breath of air would have a little humidity behind it.

We were pounding the water, and had to stop every 40minutes for a break.

Tom Waits, barking through the bullhorn, seemed to be irritating Herb a little so I switched the music over to America’s greatest hits. Much more pallatble and still had a desert vibe to it. Made me want to drive faster.

Herb was impressed with the VW. It was holding its’ own in a part of the country where I saw little sign of life and many signs of danger.

I saw 1 large lizard and 1 scorpion cross the road; at different times of course.

We also saw several charred rectangle shapes burned into the asphalt where cars didn’t make it.

On the other side of I40 We saw one semi truck on fire, smoke billowing out of the top of the cab and the trailer. The trailer was all caved in and gray from the smoke. A gaping hole revealed crates of fruit at risk of rotting in the desert. Traffic was at a standstill on that side of the road.
Herb and I commented how glad we were to be moving.

The desert equivalent to roadkill is the car tire. More than I could count. They lay strewn on both sides of the roads. Some pieces in the middle of the road.

We made another stop at a dairy queen for 2 cups of ice and eventually began our descent from 5000 ft. The high desert. We found a little town to eat an enchillada and by the time we were through it had cooled down outside considerably. It was downhill all the way to San Bernadino then Tustin and then finally Orange after a couple of toll roads.

It was night.

It was finally nice and cool.

All we could see were lights, all the way down.
Every plateau we came to was freeway and lights as far as the eye could see.

As we approached San Bernadino, traffic picked up in density and speed. We found our way to the Best Western in Orange, CA, and gave ourselves and the VW a good rest for the night.

Thanks for checking in.

Stephen A. Thomas