When we left Phoenix and headed on I-8 westbound to San Diego, there were impressive piles of clouds, and some intermittent rain. Not usual, we're told. That day was leisurely, with lunch at a rest area. We planned to stop around 3pm at a truckstop in Yuma. They had no room for RVs, so I frantically searched 3 books for somewhere in the area we could stay as we drove down the highway. We were lucky to find a space, not in Yuma, Arizona, but across the river in Winterhaven, California. On the phone she said to go through the old city, and they'd be on the left. And to look for a lot of palm trees.

As we crossed a high bridge into California, I looked down to my right and saw 2 old iron bridges. When we got to Sans End (Without End) RV park, we found not only palm trees—an oasis—but a few stories. One of them was about the old iron bridge. During the depression, the "law" occupied the bridge and forbid people to cross the bridge into California if they didn't have jobs.

The owner also talked about the skirted palm trees; he said they gave extra shade, even in high temperatures of 120 degrees. Last night it was on the cool side in Winterhaven. I cooked pork chops purchased in Sedona and made a coconut-lemon tapioca dessert with giant Phoenix lemons Russ picked for us from a tree in Paradise, and clementines from California purchased in Cottonwood, Arizona.

Today we had to stop at a check station on the road. There were border patrol cars all over, and at times we could see the fence at the border in the distance. We'd been stopped once already, questioned about where we'd started and stopped and planned to go, and were waved on.

This time the uniformed woman asked to enter our motorhome; we thought she was going to confiscate citrus. She looked in the fridge for citrus, while I told her all we had. She took nothing, but told us that a citrus virus had come up from Mexico and was killing citrus trees. It had done so in Florida already, and was now in California as far as San Diego. She asked us to use the lemons before we went beyond San Diego. We considered the implications of all that as we continued west again on I-80. We were relaxed, it was sunny, with mountains in the near distance and desert on both sides of us. We didn't know yet about the weather, or the road ahead.

Nor did we last night, as we settled in among the palms at Sans End. I took a walk with my camera. People sat in couples and groups outside their RVs, and the smell of charcoal grilled meat was in the air. Border patrol helicopters passed overhead. A large moon emerged. I feasted my eyes on the place. We rested in peace.