Day 11 - Bakersfield, California (or BUST)

California or Bust…

Day 11 – Bakersfield, CA

Tuesday, November 1^st, 2011

A beautiful warm, sunny morning here in Ehrenberg which sits on the border of Arizona and California separated by the Colorado River.  A covey of quail scurried by our site and we took our time packing up the RV thinking that we only had a short distance of 90 miles to drive to Joshua Tree National Park.  We would have the entire day to drive through the Park and then stay at a campground on the North side. 

Just across the road from where we stayed was an old Pioneer cemetery.  The gravesites had been well preserved… some dating back to the 1860’s.  Before leaving Arizona we made sure to top off the gas tank… the gas prices on the other side of the border in Blythe were at least 50 cents higher per gallon.  We then stopped at Albertsons and AutoZone in Blythe for a few supplies… we were in no hurry.

Ehrenberg Cemetary

Lots of "Daniels"

Now on the road, we started checking mileage and the weather forecast for Joshua Tree using an AccuWeather.com app on my smart phone.  There was a weather advisory for Southern California and the forecast was for strong Santa Ana winds to develop… that means 20-30 M.P.H. with gusts of up to 60mph.  We could stop in Joshua Tree National Park but we would not have been able to travel the next day due to the high winds… and that’s no good for driving in the high profile KeyZRV.  So after finding this out, we decided to change our plans and continue as far North and West of Los Angeles as possible.  Hopefully we could get ahead of the Santa Ana wind storm.  We can see that this area is already predominately windy and it’s evident by the huge “wind farm” near Palm Springs.
 

Palm Springs area...

Miles of "wind generators"

Sidebar:  At the same time that we learned about today’s weather advisory, we also learned that there had been a 4.1 earthquake in Ridgecrest, California which is north of L.A.  As we were planning our trip months ago, Drew made the comment that he was apprehensive to stay at Joshua Tree National Park because the San Andreas Fault runs right through it.  He suggested that we should remain on the East side of the fault…

Our concern now was that we had to drive through L.A. during rush hour… argh!  We hit the city limit at 3:30pm and drove on a bumpy, congested road with stop and go traffic for about an hour and a half... it bounced the drawers open in the RV.  We were on I-5 and wanted to make it to Bakersfield before Sunset.  What we didn’t know was how extreme the road was just out of L.A. through the Angeles National Forest and the rugged canyons of the Tehachapi Mountains complete with “high cross wind” warning signs.  In 52 miles we drove up and then down 4200 ft.  The semi-trucks were crawling up hill at 30mph.. and then… had to go down a steep 6% grade at no more than 35mph and had to worry about losing their brakes.  We were too!  Drew said that it was like the great divide between Southern California and the rest of California.  

We were so happy to see the San Joaquin Valley floor in the Bakersfield area… we stopped for gas and shared an “In-n-Out” burger.  We pushed so hard to get through L.A. and ahead of the wind that we had not eaten or stopped to use the bathroom.  It was a terribly anxious feeling. We had called ahead to the River Run RV Park in Bakersfield which was a very nice place on the Kern River even though it was quite close to the highway and city.  It took us a while to unwind from the day’s drive… both of us were taking deep breaths.  Looking back at today’s events, we were glad that we made the decision to drive on.  Bad news is that we unfortunately missed seeing and staying at Joshua Tree National Park… good news is that we are one day ahead on our itinerary and can now plan spending an extra day in wine country.

Mileage today... 337 hard fought miles.