was a holiday, including a large number of dune buggies taking part in some
kind of meet on the dunes near Winter Haven, California. The only people we
saw to talk to were the half-hearted border patrol officer mentioned earlier and
a KFC server when we got lunch. For the most part we just drove and
appreciated the views.
The landscape was impressive, however given the size of the country it
did become a little monotonous and the first whole day can be summarized
as: very deserted surroundings; first very rocky and mountainous; then wide
open plains, stretching away towards distant hills or mountains - a mixture of
desert and farms. It was reminiscent of Holland in terms of its flatness - minus
the windmills of course. The vegetation was increasingly restricted to cacti -
the huge ones with 'arms' that you see in cowboy films. This was highly
appropriate as we drove through the formerly Wild West, where some
wildness must still exist as at the Mohawk rest-station we found vending
machines that had to be kept behind bars. Although, given the additives and
calories, Twinkies everywhere should probably be locked up.
On day two we hardly drove anywhere, just the 71 miles to Tombstone. In fact
two of the six 'west to east' days were spent pottering round nearby towns,
meaning that most of the distance, and states that we covered were traversed
in just four days.
Tombstone was one of the very few places we wanted to take a detour to see
between California and the Deep South, and it proved well worth stopping for.
The story of this town has been immortalized in several films, most recently