Yuma bound: Skirting the southern border

Roadside rockpiles in the Laguna Mountains

Clear skies on a flight west leave ample time for navigation. It’s been a pastime since I first discovered the wonder of the window seat. From the flight, I could see every mile I had to cross to reach Yuma and a lot more.

After flying seven miles above El Paso and Juarez, the latter’s metal roofs reflecting the midway sun, I plotted the route to San Diego. Further into New Mexico, I traced the border fence into the hills of Nogales then all the way to Yuma, where the All-American Canal branches awkwardly from the Colorado River. To the south gleamed the Gulf of California, where the Colorado River previously fanned into the ocean.

Gulf of California in the distance

Agricultural geometry spans the Imperial Valley, ending abruptly as the Laguna Mountains rise then move into the Cuyamaca Mountains (I could not tell you where one range ends and the next begins).

The bone-dry desert did not continue into the mountains; winter prevailed at those elevations. Trucks traversed lanes while fresh snow whitened the high plains and peaks. Weather might not cooperate, but I wouldn’t have to contend with rush hour in those highlands.

Once the mountains passed the plane descended quickly into the former Lindbergh Field, the airport plotted in the center of San Diego. Few cities can boast such a dramatic entrance. The downtown skyline buzzes by, landing seconds away.

Time constraints left no margin for San Diego; I had no flavor for the city, needing to move easy immediately. Driving off in a rental car would take another hour, but the first acceleration onto the roads of California infused in me the same excitement the West Coast always would.

About 110 miles separate sea level at San Diego International to sea level from sea level near El Centro in the Imperial Valley. Between those lows, the interstate cruises atop a mountain range.

The road first rolls with landscape through San Diego and its suburbs then ascends as it reaches the appropriately named Alpine, home to one of the best small-town breweries anywhere. Wedged into the rolling hills, Alpine immediately shed the gloss of San Diego. Barely an hour after landing, I stopped here for a snack, a hoppy beer and some provisions for the road.

Must-stop brewery

The climb does not stop at Alpine. The highway demands attention, swinging around mountain ridges and crossing steep valleys that host only small streams. I gawked as much as the road allowed.

A tough veneer coated the towns that comprised the Mountain Empire – Pine Valley, Boulevard, Jacumba Hot Springs. Several reservations for the Kumeyaay Indians lie between the large expanses of national forest, with the requisite casinos nearby the highway. Sandy soils and desert foliage to the left, pines and snow cover on the right. At times, the hilltops and peaks resembled piles of boulders more than actual mountains, reminding me of the boulder-piled desert of Joshua Tree National Park with different flora. I never shook the feeling that I drove atop a huge mass of mountains, because I was.

Sand and snow in the same frame

One hundred miles atop the mountains zips along. After a relatively intense 11-mile descent (4,000 feet of elevation), the rest of the drive traverses the cutting-board-flat Imperial Valley. An obligatory wind farm blurred at the base of the mountains. Aside from El Centro, the road skips around the few border towns. If you want a taste of Calexico, you will need to leave the highway for the border. The same goes almost any name on the signs, otherwise you will forget them as quickly as I have.

Tempted to visit the town name adopted by one of my favorite bands, I had to beat the sunset to Yuma. After nightfall, the Imperial Valley would turn painfully dark. In the mountains, night arrives in phases; on the plains of the Imperial Valley, sunset and twilight intertwine into a rapid finale to day.

Only at the Imperial Dunes – filming site for the original Flight of the Phoenix, the desert scenes from Return of the Jedi and scores of other films – does the landscape rumple again, then only briefly. Some lonesome, treeless mountains loom to the north, but nothing compares to the jagged wall of the Lagunas slowly creeping out of the rearview mirror. Flat or mountainous, the land was mostly treeless but green. The Colorado River assured the desert could not creep in.

The desert could impose some will. Fierce winds kicked up clouds of sand and dust, pelting the roads and crops south of Yuma. A few miles later, the highway takes an innocuous bridge above a placid river. California meets Arizona, and former Territorial Prison looms on a bluff overlooking the once-mighty Colorado. In few hundred feet of river plain, Yuma steps in.

Blurry Yuma sunset

However, I exited too late. Exit in California at Winterhaven and another bridge will ferry you across the Colorado. My friend Jon awaited me and quickly we reached his townhouse in a neighborhood of single-story homes with abode facades. Lantana sprouted from the flower bed by his front door. I had a room in Yuma for four nights, a quiet space in the desert – wherever I actually was. I had no sense for Yuma and nighttime cloaked us too quickly for me to gain more than glimpses.

After briefly catching up we drove into the borderless night, not venturing far. Jon’s friends Bob and Joe live off a dirt road in a former auto garage converted into a house. They remodeled the space into a modern, spacious home with two underground wings. Their acreage backs onto a canal, which provides irrigation for Joe’s organic farm, which he sells in Phoenix and Yuma farmers markets.

After the introductions and some Italian sausage soup, Jon and I revived an old imbibing tradition – gin & tonics with Corsair gin from Nashville while talking about life, journalism and politics. Since I worked at the Nashville wine store, I always bring Jon a bottle of that gin, my favorite. Since their introduction, it’s been among his favorites too. We toasted with Corsair in Bozeman Omaha, Little Rock and now Yuma. The location changes, the gin and camaraderie stay the same.