Time has come to say adios to my first real Destee-Home, San Diego. All told, it’s been a great ride here in the land of sun and surf.  I’ve found great local t-shirts, met some people I’ll never forget and even baked my driver’s-side arm Jimmy Smitz-brown, betraying my Viking roots. I’ve learned to respect The Streaker, revere the big-slab and love the message of another man’s desert mountain. I’ve also come to accept a world where beauty is often purchased on credit, and the color beige is worshiped as its own rainbow.

I’d like to tell you that all here is ending on a high note, but truth be told, the winds of freedom that brought me to Trailer Rancho have turned sour and are now spreading the Fear. Which is why I find myself running dark and silent through a pre-flight check at four am, awaiting the rumble of the 5 o’clock train and my chance to run. Read on…

While I was waiting for HQ to get the latest round of t-shirts into production, I decided to take a little time to catch up on the news. Economic collapse? Swine Flu pandemic? Murderous drug cartels running amok at the border? Oh dear… In trying times like these it sometimes helps to look to the future for a little chuck under the chin. And you know, the only thing better than thinking about the future is actually visiting it. Lucky for me the city of tomorrow just happens to be thirty miles south of Trailer Rancho. That’s right kids, welcome to Tijuana.

I don’t know what all the bad press is about. Tijuana is a treat. The kind of treat that confuses and shamefully delights. Like a long awkward hug from a disoriented relative who has to register with the authorities. I have to be honest, sometimes in the U.S. I feel like a zero, but in Tijuana, I’m everyone’s hero. People I’ve never met follow me wherever I go and offer me all sorts of free advice. Kids try to give me candy, women make silly noises at me when I walk by and jolly men with blood-shot eyes and funny mustaches pop out of nowhere and just start playing music in my face. It’s downright magical. Read on…

Things have been groovy in San Diego. I can’t complain. But my system can’t take the sustained exposure to fake blond hair, BMWs and strip malls without the occasional infusion of reality. So to that end, Sue and I decided to head east, over the mountains and through the great Palm Canyon to edge of the Salton Sea.

The Salton Sea is an inland, saline, endorheic rift lake in the Sonoran Desert of extreme southeastern California that governs an area of zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….

The Salton Sea is an aquatic birth defect that languishes 250 ft below sea level and directly atop the San Andreas fault in the middle of a bloody desert. The rumor at the Salton City Chamber of Commerce is that it is the only locale in the Northern Hemisphere that Starbucks never considered for a store. Since the eighties, the Salton Sea has experienced massive bird and fish die-offs, and residents are strongly advised to limit their consumption of anything that still boldly lurks beneath its surface. The area was also a water-target missile testing facility for the Sandia National Labs in the 1950s, the glory days of bigger and better bombs. If someone with regular access to a laser pointer were to spend a few minutes with these data points, I’m sure it would lead to several class action law suits and at least one black SUV with Virginia plates. Read on…