From the Border to Lake Moreno, April 8th

I found a trail marker 50 feet away, and set off through the scrub...  

There was a mile marker at mile 1, but I haven't seen one since.

The trail soon wound through Campo, a tiny settlement that seemed home mainly to border guards and their families.  The high walls and large, white vehicles reminded me of American embassies abroad.   

Campo, CA

The U.S. pursues a policy of isolation in this arena, building huge, heavily guarded compounds on the outskirts of even the friendliest cities.  I thought back to the last time I’d had my passport renewed abroad.  The U.S. embassy on the edge of Tbilisi has two entrances.  The taxi driver had dropped me off at the larger one, where the parking lot is, as I had given him no more specific instructions.  Told by the guards that for consular affairs I had to enter through the smaller entrance facing the highway, I’d set out walking along the edge of the compound.  Upon reaching the highway I’d started to turn left along the compound wall, and heard guards yelling behind me.  I’d waited for them to get closer, and understood that I wasn’t allowed to walk along the compound wall, but was supposed to go out onto the highway, walk down to the entrance for consular affairs, and then come back onto embassy property.  I’d looked at the four lanes of traffic screaming by on the highway, with no shoulder to walk on, and looked back at the guards before continuing along the compound wall.  They had yelled, and I had thought that while there was a chance they might shoot me in the back as I walked, on the highway I was almost certain to die.  They hadn’t shot or even pursued me, and I’d soon reached the consular affairs entrance.  At security the guards had taken almost everything out of my purse, beginning with my phone and ending with my dental floss.  They had moved the restricted items into a small safe and returned my purse, empty save for my wallet.  Worried that something might get lost, I’d asked if I could just leave the entire purse in the safe.  The guard had said no, because I might return to collect the purse and claim that something was missing from it.  Pondering the logic of this, I’d started from security towards the actual embassy, but the guards had yelled for me to wait.  A young, armed guard had escorted me the 50 feet from the compound wall to the entrance to entrance to the consular affairs office, his face deadly serious.  Inside the consular affairs office, I had spoken to an employee through inches of bullet proof glass.  This was my own embassy.

Campo reminded me of the embassy and the nearby “diplomatic village” where the embassy staff lived on the edge of Tbilisi, although rather than being bordered by a vibrant city full of food, music, and dancing, it was surrounded by miles of chaparral in all directions.  I wondered if the residents of the diplomatic village imagined their surroundings as a desert, and whether the residents of Campo wished themselves surrounded by miles of Georgian food and music. 

It was too soon to stop for any reason and Campo didn’t have services for hikers anyways, so I didn’t experience the town in any meaningful way.  The trail did wind through it and I lost it at one point, so I flagged down a border patrol vehicle to ask for directions.  The young man was friendly, and told me to continue on the road for a half-mile and then I’d see the trail on the left, but this was my only interaction with anyone in Campo.   

I hiked up out of the town into the foothills...

The remnants of an illegal immigrant's camp.  I never saw any people, only discarded clothes like these.

These gates are common on the trail, as much of it in this part of the state goes through grazing land.

After a few hours I came upon a bearded man of maybe 50 sitting on the trail, his military-issue pack, canteen, and boots spread around him and across the trail.  He introduced himself as John from Maine, and said that he’d stopped to rearrange his pack because something was jabbing him in the back.  I looked at this gear. 

“Military?”

“No, my dad was.” 

I wonder whether the pack was from World War Two, but I didn’t think to ask while I was talking to him.  The gear looked as though it could be that old, and I did not envy John from Maine.  I didn’t think he would make it very far, but he would make it into Lake Moreno late that night, escorting a frightened day hiker who had bitten off a little more than he could chew, and we would chat again the next morning.  He would tell me that he’d spent the winter in Arizona to prepare for the hike, mainly to avoid ice fishing with his brother.  He would say that ice fishing wasn’t really fishing, but rather an excuse to sit in a small shack drinking beer.  

I'm curious how these are formed - maybe this rock was formed with rocks of other types inside it?  I regret never haven taken a geology class...

Another place that someone likely stopped while trying to reach Interstate 8

This day was long enough and cold enough that I stopped here to cook a hot meal during the day.

My first hot meal on the trail

I'm curious what this yellow stuff attacking this plant is - I didn't see a lot of it...

 About 15 miles in I reached the point where the trail joined a dirt road for a short stretch before breaking off from it again.  Bob had warned me not to camp there, saying that the Border Patrol would tear up and down the road in their trucks all night and I’d get no sleep.  I was curious to experience that, but I was also bent on reaching Lake Moreno.  

 The weather changed so many times that I had used almost every item of clothing in my pack before midday, when it finally made up it’s mind and a cold wind blew the light rain sideways until I descended into Lake Moreno.  

I'm also curious about this scat full of berries that was all over the trail - I never saw the berries, just the scat, but it was everywhere...

I'm assuming that this is a sign warning illegal immigrants of the dangers of trying to cross the desert.

By the last few miles one of my knees was screaming and so stiff that I literally dragged one let using the other, but by that time I was cold and damp and close to the warm showers at Lake Moreno, so I stupidly kept on.  

Coming down to Lake Moreno

At the campground I pitched my tent near that of a hiker named Tom who was in bed by the time I’d showered and eaten.  My guidebook claimed a small generals store a five minute walk away, and I dragged my left leg up to see if I could have a nightcap.  I saw small plastic fifths of Fireball. 

“Ooh, Fireball – I’m having a nightcap!”  The owner was a friendly young man named Sony who spoke with a light accent.

“What you really want is this – it’s higher in proof!”  He gestured to the bottles of Sinfire, and liked him immediately.  I asked where he was from.  He asked if I’d heard of Chaldeans. 

“Are you the Iraqi Christians?”

“Yes!”

“You’re the second Chaldean to sell me alcohol in two days,” I said, laughing. 

“Where was the first?” 

“It was all the way back in San Diego.”  Upon arriving at Bob’s house I had taken a walk to stretch my legs, and had grabbed a can of Pabst at a local store to drink as I walked.  I’m always curious where immigrants are from, so I had asked the man behind the counter there where he was from as well.  Sony laughed too. 

“A lot of us are in the liquor business.”  The next day I would return to the store, curious about the Chaldean liquor business and wanting to learn more.  I would ask the morning cashier if he was also Chaldean; he would said no, that he only worked for Sony.  I would explain how it would be interesting to write an article about the Chaldeans the liquor business, and the young man would tell me about two large families who had moved out to California from Michigan[i].  He would list the towns in Southern California where they owned the liquor stores, and it would sound like there were about fifteen of them. 

I dragged my leg back to the campground and sat in the women’s bathroom so that my phone could charge on the outlet there.  I celebrated my first day in that cold bathroom with three shots of Sinfire, chased by the three stale chocolate-caramel turtles in the little package I’d bought from Sony, and then crawled into my tent.        

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[i] Someone later told me that the largest Chaldean settlement in the U.S. is in Detroit, Michigan.  The Wikipedia page on the ethnic group has mainly historical information:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaldean_Christians