G.A.S.P.

I left Bakersfield the next morning (11-24), but not without wondering what was originally planted in Baker’s field.  I may never know, but I do know what is planted there now, and what is beneath the field.  Beneath the field is oil – apparently a lot of it.  The northeast side of Bakersfield is just crammed full of oil wells – the kind that look like big grasshoppers with their heads bobbing up and down. The fields today are full of fruit.  I passed numerous large orange groves, many vineyards and some lemon and olive groves. 

I don’t believe that I had ever seen an olive tree before.  The olives grow on single stems, a lot like cherries.  I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that they are considered a fruit.  Some were growing right along the road with no protective fence, so I sampled one left over on a tree that had already been picked.  Big mistake.   It was very “pithy” tasting, and I nearly broke a tooth.  It must have been on the tree too long, as the little red thing inside had turned hard as stone.

Since I was trying to ride about 75 miles today to Lemon Cove, I needed an early start and a good weather day.  I got both.  Since I was staying in a motel, I arranged a wake-up call for 5:30am local time.  That allowed me to do a telephone interview with the Cleveland Plain Dealer and still be on the road before 8:00am.  As for the weather, my chances were real good.  In their tourism brochure, Bakersfield claims to have an average of 330 sunny days per year.  Wow, it takes six years in Akron to get that many.  So I got one of the 330, and not much wind, and easily made it to Lemon Cove.