GETTING CAUGHT UP

Day 21

A Mighty Wind

Not at all what I expected, this desert wind
That howled down the valleys between the San Jacinto
And Santa Rosa Mountains, kicking up dust-storms thicker
than any blizzards I've experienced. Welcome to Palm Springs.

Day 22

A Mighty Wind Part II

The small silver rental shook so violently
I was sure we would join the other airborne flotsam
at any moment; we watched, amazed as agent palm-trees
shook and shed their bark like hula-skirts.

Day 23

A Mighty Wind - The Aftermath

Driving through affluent neighbourhood after gated
community,then occasionally hitting a poorer section
of this up-scale part of the country, one thing typified
all of them - the carnage. In addition to mounds of
palm fronds and bark, there were many old-growth
trees totally uprooted and laid out as if plucked out
and laid out as if plucked casually by some careless
giant, then tossed aside ...

Day 24

Growing Windmills

Driving Interstate 10, you're on them before you quite
know what they are and might be forgiven for thinking
all these white sticks leaning every which way (from one
direction that's certainly how they appear at ground level)
are an odd game of Pick-Up-Sticks. It's not until viewed
from the air that the dead-straight rows testify to the
veracity of the sight, "The Windmill Growing Farm" - not
at all difficult to believe someone's devised a way to
harvest all that wind.

Day 25

Desert View

For years he's been telling me how beautiful the desert is,
how he can't wait for me to see it. Now, today - we are
driving from Palm Springs to Mesa and back - ten hours of
nothing but desert and I see what he means - it is a scene
from an old western - the highway and the cars look out of
place. Everything else - the endless sand, the scrub-brush,
the rounded mountains shimmering in the distance - they're all
perfect under a blue sky that's surreal ... no habitation, no houses,
no animals... this is the desert.