Trapped by an invisible force

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I

But when semis tip over on I-10

The wind is blowing like a mother…

My friend LaVonne is in Palm Springs before heading off on a cross-country trek. She flew in from Washington state last night to pick up a van from other friends. I hadn’t seen LaVonne in a few years and wanted to say hi/bye. 

So yesterday I drove from Quartzsite (where I had been taking care of some business) to the camping area at the south entrance to Joshua Tree. Hey, wasn’t I here just last week?

During the night the wind started blowing. Hard. Probably the hardest I’ve experienced in the Rolling Steel Tent. It got so bad I had to get up at about 2:45 AM to face the van more into the wind. Even then it was a bouncy ride all night.

You can see I-10 from the campsite. The lights of vehicles passed both directions during the night. “Okay,” I thought, “It’s still not too windy to drive. At least not for the pros and the foolish.” 

But when daylight came and I finally dragged my sleep-deprived self out of bed I saw traffic was now totally stopped. Semis lined up as far as I could see in the eastbound lanes, no vehicles passing in the westbound lanes. And the wind was still howling. I checked Google Maps and it showed the dreaded red line stretching about 5 miles in each direction from Chiriaco Summit. And patches of yellow all the way to Desert Center in the east and Indio in the west.

So I notified LaVonne I’m staying put at least for a few hours.

I suppose, if I really wanted to, I could take the longer route through the park to Highway 62 and down Morongo Valley to Palm Springs. Or through Box Canyon to Mecca then north to Indio and onward to Palm Springs without getting on the freeway. I’ll see how conditions change. The wind has lessened a wee bit in the past hour, so the original plan might be on once the backed up traffic clears.

Yay life on the road! Yay desert!

UPDATE: News reports said one semi was blocking all eastbound lanes, and a second rig was partially blocking one of the westbound lanes. Driver injuries were minor. While returning to Quartzsite to pick up a package at my mail forwarder I passed the scene where crews were still working on the trailer that had been blocking westbound traffic. Eastbound was totally clear.