Rolling past Imperial and El Centro

My bike segments are fairly short these weekdays. 22.5 miles added to my total. I'm still going through heavily irrigated agricultural land. I've passed just to the east of Imperial and El Centro, California, and I've turned east again on a small road paralleling Interstate 8. I'll be shadowing I-8 for quite a while now, but trying to stick to the small sideroads to avoid the blast of the enormous eighteen-wheelers.

Near Imperial, tomorrow is the 67th Annual Niland Tomato Festival!! And in Imperial, they're having stock car racing on Sunday. Another event that I will miss, since I'll be pedaling eastward.

Despite the presence of the town of Imperial next door, El Centro is actually the county seat of Imperial County with a population of about 38,000. They have recently adopted Howdy the Owl as their town mascot.

El Centro, starting in the 1940s, was the shipping center for vegetables in the south end of the Imperial Valley. The principal industries revolved around agriculture – fruit and vegetable packing and shipping, ice plants, a flax fiber plant, box factories, and concrete pipe and brick yards. Imperial County became one of the most agriculturally productive areas in the country and today more than 35 growers and shippers still operate in El Centro.

Finally, toward the end of the day, I passed through Holtville, a town of about 6000 population. In summer it has an average daily temperature of 105*F, so I'm glad I'm going through in the winter when the temperatures are comfortably in the 70s and 80s. On the next leg I'll pass out of the green irrigated areas into the starkly contrasting desert.