Calexico - Hard Hat

There was a day in mid-August 2006 when I had a chance to venture out on I-8 opposite El-Centro into the desert. On my way to Tempe, AZ, I ran into an ecotone, a geographical anomaly where two different landscapes collide, right outside San Diego. Within five minutes of drive time into the twisting, turning mountains, the road entered into a vast expanse of yellow sand floor. That's where I saw the unsuspicious traffic-sign pointing at Calexico on the right of I-8. To drive in that desert among rocky hills looking at you sideways is to disturb the stasis, the radio dial whispering long faded out signals hovering above the summits and the sandstorms. The intrusion, the spirits dwelling in the air, silent evenings descending, shadows of crumbling walls, forgotten alleys exposing everything exposing you, that queasy feeling one associate with travel exhaustion.