After leaving the Bay area our first stop was in Orange county to pay a visit to our friends. We then continued to San Diego and spent the night in El Centro. Following I-10 , which roughly parallels the border with Mexico, a border fence can be seen in many places right from the interstate. Close to the border with Arizona the freeway cuts across Imperial Sand Dunes, a large sand dune field, which seems to attract OHV enhusiats from far away. It would have been nice to make a stop there and shoot some photos, but the weather did not cooperate and we had a long drive ahead of us. Next time. Just before the border with Arizona we saw another exit for Mexico, only one mile away ,and according to the map with a small town by the name of Algodones on the other side.
We were waved through the crossing without ever showing our passport or any IDs for that matter. We noticed there was no line from the other side, Or so we thought. We drove around a few busy commercial blocks right next to the border crossing and bought a few souvenirs. Dentistry and optometrics seemed to be the biggest industries in town though, at least by the size of the ads. After a while, we figured we saw enough and we could go back. We drove back to the crossing and found that the line starts there and continues around a sharp corner for about a half a mile on. So Radka listened to the music in the car and kids and I hopped around buying candy and enjoying street life.
We reached Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument late in the afternoon. The weather was uninspiring, but that did not detract from the beauty of the desert landscape.
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