Santa Nella, CA

Last week I went north up I-5 to Seattle, and now I'm headed back south almost to San Diego. I'm speding the weekend about 100 miles south of Sacramento in the little oasis of Santa Nella, CA. 5-6 hotels, a bunch of fast food joints and 3 truck stops all within a 1/4 mile of I-5. I went for a walk yesterday to see if there was any town here. There were two parts to it, and it was a little secluded from the main road, each part the size of a city block. One was obviously a planned development with identical houses, attached garages, pools, and fences. The otehr section was nothing but trailer homes. Interesting.

I stopped at a fruit stand to see if I could find something good. The girl there apparently spoke almost no english and spanish instead. While I was walking around another guy came in and started looking around he asked about some oranges (in spanish) and she cut one open for him to try. She offered me a piece "naranja?" It was great so I took a bunch and some strawberries. I wanted to speak to her in spanish, but no words would come out. It was almost as if because I knew she didn't expect me to be able to speak spanish I could not break that expectation. I deal with so many hispanic people on a daily basis, yet I never speak to any of them in spanish. Quite a bit different from those of you currently residing in Espana. One of these days I'll bust out, dammit I will.

Hopefully I won't have to run right back up I-5 again. It's not so much a bad road as the fact that CA has a 55mph truck speed limit, and so does OR. I hate that 55 mph speed limit.