LA to Tucson

It was a very, very wet drive from Los Angeles to ... Tucson.  I had to take the southern route - via the 10 - which is much longer than the 40 - because it was dumping snow on Flagstaff, and that quickly gets impassable.  But the rain, the rain ... whole sections of the 210, and then, especially, once I was back on the 10 after a Phoenix-avoiding loop to Gila Bend and heading towards Tucson, were like driving through the worse monsoon rains - cars aquaplaning, semis jackknifing into boggy central reservations, and so on.  But I just kept on keeping on - what else could I have done?  The clouds were dramatic - I wish I could have pulled over near Gila Bend to take more pictures, and at one point there was a rainbow - but not much that one can do when one's just determined to arrive safely.

The most chilling site was near Blythe.  Here there was a big traffic tailback because of road works, and La Migra clearly had decided to take advantage of very slow moving cars, and had pulled this one over, and were clearly interrogating whoever (I couldn't see) was in the passenger seat. But I'll never - and I hope I never - be able to forget the sight of the face of the woman who had been driving: one of fear, and horror, and desperation.  What can one do?  Half a mile down the road, I was thinking - should I have asked ¿Hay alguien a quien pueda llamar por ti? but even if so - and if I hadn't been arrested myself - to say what?  Or is there an ICE/BP hotline to give a tip off so that help can be offered by them?  Or or or?  I kept wondering (it was about 2 p.m.) if she had kids to pick up from school, and if she'd ever get there. 

And in any case, I had passengers.