Santa Cruz-on the way

We left Monterey and headed to Santa Cruz. Along the way we passed fields of artichokes, strawberries, cabbage, lettuce, cherries and a whole host of other vegetable. My husband had never been through this part of California..the central valley. It was interesting for him to see these fields and how the workers picked these crops. Now I know why artichokes are so expensive. The farm workers walk the fields with large baskets on their backs and cut the artichoke and throw it in the basket. When the basket is full they go dump it and start all over again. Can you imagine doing that all day? We saw workers picking something, I'm not sure if it was cabbage or a head lettuce. There were workers on a truck like machine and workers walking along side of it. It appeared that the workers walking along side the machine were picking or cutting and throwing it up to the people on the machine. It was hard to tell since we were driving. I told my husband they should make it mandatory in school that all students should go out for one day and work in the fields. They would appreciate the work that goes into the food they take for granted plus it might encourage them to study harder and go to college if this isn't the type of work they want to aspire to. I told this to my G-daughter and got a "yeah yeah".
I wish we could have pulled off at some of the fields just so I could run out there and see what it was that was growing. To me all these fields of vegetables were more interesting than the aquarium. One huge farmers market.