The word "hot" is not sufficient

By the time I reached the small town of Mecca, at the southern end of the Coachella Valley, I was frantic for something cold to drink. I’d been driving across the Mojave for six hours, and the water I had with me was hot, matching the 112-degree air temperature. In a convenience store I gulped down a Naked Juice and felt better, at least for a little while.

I had meant to leave Las Vegas at four in the morning, to drive down to Borrego Springs, and should’ve left even earlier. But I didn’t drag myself from bed and get on the road until almost six; by eight the temperature had already risen above one hundred degrees.

The route from Vegas to Borrego leads through rugged and beautiful desert, descending gradually, over three hundred miles, towards the Coachella and the Salton Sea, which is nearly two hundred feet below sea level. I passed through wide valleys dotted with creosote and yucca, by the high sandy ridges of Kelso Dunes, alongside the jagged Coxcomb Mountains on the edge of Joshua Tree, through just two miniscule towns, Amboy and Desert Center, both nearly deserted. Near Mecca I came to the first signs of human activity, orange and date groves, watered by a canal from the Colorado River. In a large field of grape vines a scattering of big and variously colored umbrellas protected farm workers, who crouched beneath, pruning or picking.

I’ve made the same drive many times in the winter, usually taking two days because I stop so often to explore and hike. But on this day I impatiently ticked off the landmarks one by one, wanting to just get along, to get through. Unlike the Joads, who had to cross the same desert, I wasn’t carrying a dead grandmother in back, but I still felt anxious, watching the odometer, the temperature gauge. There were few other cars on the road, and not one without air-conditioning, like me. Listening to Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, especially the stories of his near starvation, added to the apocalyptic mood. Mecca was a great relief; I’d felt almost done for. My feet and hands were swollen up, my head was feverish and achy, and hot water was doing nothing for my substantial thirst.

From Mecca I had only another hour to Borrego Springs, where I’m visiting friends Larry and Sinda. Just after noon I pulled up at a mobile home trailer, in the Roadrunner Club, and hoped Larry had left the door open as promised (he and Sinda would be gone till later in the day). Luckily he had. I don’t know what I would’ve done otherwise; I had contemplated a stay at the small public library in town, if it was open. Inside the trailer the temperature was a cool and comfy ninety. An immense relief. By mid-afternoon the outside temperature had risen to 116, and a stiff wind only exacerbated the feeling of being oven baked.

Later, Larry showed up and we had a swim at the Roadrunner Club’s pool. I wore a hat and sunglasses and pasted myself in a corner just shaded by a palm tree.

Larry and Sinda have a house on the other side of town, and keep the trailer (which at one time had been Larry’s father’s) as an office and sometime guest lodge. After our swim we went over to the house, where first off I was introduced to Vargas, their new scorpion. I peered in the terrarium, but Vargas--named after the faux-Mexican character Charlton Heston plays in Touch of Evil--was hiding under a rock. It was the fourth in a series of scorpion companion pets, each named Vargas, one of who had lived for two years in captivity. Sinda had found the pale creature the day before at a local furniture store.

It was crawling across an open patch of floor, and Sinda grabbed a leather bowl and coaxed it inside. Leaving the scorpion safely confined, she thought, she went to the front of the store to ask for a bag. The salesperson’s eyes bulged apprehensively, and she was all for abandoning the premises. But she gave Sinda the bag. However, when Sinda returned to the back of the store the bowl was empty. After a little scouting about she re-discovered the scorpion and managed to bag it. She had planned to take it outside and let it go, but then decided to take it home, as she and Larry have both enjoyed the company of past Vargases. “But this time, Larry,” Sinda admonished, “you can’t over-feed it.” The last one Larry, mesmerized by its killing and eating technique, had plied with too many crickets, and it had died.

He agreed to be more careful this time, but told Sinda it would still need to feed. He turned to me, already with a plan, and said, “So Capper, we’ll go out a little later and see if we can capture some insects. Vargas will only eat then if they’re alive.”

Later we did manage to find a couple flying bugs, more wings than body, but Vargas would not come out to eat them, not at least while we watched.