A good day, not such a good late afternoon

I'm supposed to be in Los Angeles tomorrow at 2PM to meet members of a mixed 2x team for the Southern California RAAM Challenge. This morning I drove to Bakersfield (the closest "real" town) and got some last minute supplies.  I got back around noon and promptly took off on the fixie.   I've been down I-5 many times and taken the Buttonwillow exit on most of those trips, either for gas, or sometimes for lodging. With all those trips, I've never actually seen the town of Buttonwillow! I decided to fix that today. I took off down the road.

I again saw olive and almond trees, but not in the same place.

Almonds

Olives

After just a short distance, I was officially in Buttonwillow. The sign says Buttonwillow is the heart of California's agriculture. I presume that other areas may take exception to that statement.

It was a warm and windy day. As I rode toward Buttonwillow's "downtown" I had a warm crosswind.

Downtown Buttonwillow

I hate out and backs and usually like the front half of the ride to be more challenging than the back half.  I turned to the right, into the wind to make a loop.  My Furnace Creek 508 totem is Desert Coyote, and as such, I guess the Road Runner would have to qualify as my nemesis.  As I pedaled against the wind I saw this.

Beep Beep!

As I pedaled out of the north side of town I noted that on this end Buttonwillow is presented as the heart of cotton country.

Sure enough, the next field I biked by was cotton!

As I kept pedaling along into the pesky wind I passed a large field of something that baffled this farm boy.  These 6-7 ft trees were covered in red blossoms.  It took Google to find out that they were probably young pomegranate trees.

I rode a few miles into the wind then looped around and headed back south. I was having a blast riding with a good tailwind. Even on the fixed gear bike I was holding 20 mph!  I was going to stop my southbound travel when I got back to the Blue Star Hwy, the road I had biked to Buttonwillow on, but I was having so much fun I kept right on riding south.  I eventually got far enough south that I figured it would be worth the pedal to the Tule Elk Reserve again.  It didn't take long to get there.

As I approached I was surprised to see elk very near the fence.  They saw me coming and decided discretion would be the better part of valor.  By the time I got the bike stopped, the phone out, and activated the camera, they were out far enough that my phone's wimpy 4x zoom was at its limit.

I watched the elk for a bit, then pedaled back into the wind again.  I followed along an irrigation canal.  The road here was packed dirt, but just like yesterday's ride, the dirt road was pretty easy to ride.

There were a lot of frogs!  There was a constant splashing of frogs jumping into the water from their sunny perches.  It was another nice ride.

After I got back the day took a downturn.  As I said, I'm down here to support a 2x team.  This afternoon the female half of the team bailed out.  Really? Less than 48 hours to race inspection and you bail? That shows disrespect to the race, to your race partner, and those who crew for you.  No words that I can print.

............Road Bike........Rollers.............MTB..........Lifecycle......Total
Today ...........30................0....................0........................0...........30
Jan..............304...............15...................0......................31..........350
Feb................0..................0....................0.......................0..............0
March..........18.................0....................0........................0............18
April...........113.................0....................0........................0...........113
May..............131................0....................0........................0............131