A break from the desert

Although I'm not ready to go to Baja (and I'm having second thoughts about it) I am ready to be by the ocean again. It's not amazing beach weather, but it's pretty good for the middle of December.

I spent last night camped just outside Borrego Springs, on the western edge of the desert. It got down to freezing overnight. Brrrrr. Then I cruised up and over the coastal mountains on nice and mostly deserted two-lane roads. The last few miles had some annoying traffic and badly timed lights, but it's a small and temporary price to pay for time at the beach.

Rerouted

I hadn’t been to Los Algodones since last winter. There have been a few changes since then.

First, the tribal parking lot has upped its price from $6 to $10. And now there’s a machine that accepts cards and spits out a receipt, although there’s an attendant who takes your card and does business with the machine for you. If you want to pay cash they no longer give change.

Second, they’ve changed traffic flow a bit. You used to make a right turn and then a left after paying. Now you just continue straight.

On the Mexican side of the border they’ve changed the entry point. Now, instead of continuing more or less straight, weaving around a couple of buildings, and ending up on Calle 2 (yellow line), you follow a new walkway along the border fence to Calle 3. (pink line) I had to reorient myself a little. However, as a helpful local informed me, you cross back into the US the old way, off Calle 2. (green line)

The line at Customs & Immigration still trails back along the shaded sidewalk on Ave. Mariano Maria Lee, and there are the usual vendors (perhaps more of them). There’s still an agent at the first gate checking to see if you have your passport, and there’s still the turnstile. But now there’s only one door into the building being used, and they ring a doorbell when the next person may enter. Mmmm, okay. There have been as many as four agents on duty, but at this time there were only two.

I know the best time to get in and out of Los Algodones is early in the morning or in the evening, but I went at about noon anyway, when the line is usually the longest. It wasn’t the worst line I had been in, but it was still 47 minutes until I was out the door. I timed it.

So it was one of those familiar-but-different situations. But isn’t that pretty much the way life unfolds anyway.

The new you

Kurt Vonnegut wrote a short story about a hardware store owner who always got the leading roll in his small town’s theater productions. Although he was a quiet man, on stage he totally became the characters he played. It was made into a movie entitled "Who Am I This Time?"

I saw a brief video today where a psychologist talked about what we might do if we’ve gone through a rough experience that has left our life in shambles. We could think of it as an opportunity to start over with a clean slate. Who do you want to become? What do you want your life to be?

I’ve never loved my given name, and I’ve never felt any attachment to my family name. There have been times I considered changing it. When I married, my wife, who also didn’t like her name, and I considered both of us changing our names. We never went through with it, though.

When I became a nomad I realized I’d be meeting new people and making new friends. These people wouldn’t know anything about me except what I told them. I could use any name. I could fabricate my entire history if I wanted to. I had a clean slate.

I didn’t do it. I’m not good at deception or keeping my stories straight. But I still became a different person. It’s inevitable when one lives this life. I think the new me is better. I feel better.