Mile 6755

It's another early morning for me, I don't bother to adjust to the new time zone anymore, as I will be heading East soon again, so why upsetting my inner clock.  I leave Oceanside outside of San Diego, CA at about 4:30 AM and hit Santa Ana, CA at about quarter past five.  If you have seven (7) highway lanes and you have crawling traffic at 5:30 AM, than I don't want to know what it is at 8 AM.  I'm happy that I'm that early, even though the temperatures are quite nippy at about mid fifties, I better should have put my hoodie on.  Too late, I don't want to encounter the morning commute traffic in Long Beach or Los Angeles and move on.  I pass my former place of action in Long Beach and Burbank, in both places I built some HRSG when we lived in California, and see some heavy mist hanging over the city of angels.  I continue my way to Pasadena and Glendale, and move into the Santa Monica Mountains and the San Fernando Valley.  Once passing Santa Clarita, CA I climb into the mountains again over the Tejon Pass and into the valley, or the dust bowl as the locals call it.  Drooping into the valley I leave the mist behind me and temperatures start immediately to rise.  With Bakersfield, CA on my right, and Streets of Bakersfield from Dwight Yoakam & Buck Ownes on my lips (having lived in Bakersfield you must know this song by heart), I pass another two places I know very well from my HRSG days then, Buttonwillow, and McKittrick.  Not very much has changed, except Buttonwillow has a Starbucks now, besides all the cotton bails.  This is really the country John Steinbeck was writing about, dust and more dust, thats all what exists here, unless you bring water to it.  And that's one of the big differences I see today, many of the aqueduct canals are dry, and so is the land.  Very much to the enjoyment when you like to see dirt devils build up and run over the barren land.

That's what it is all about since the creation of this State, 

or perhaps even before than, water, and who gets it

  I continue North and pass places I know very well like Wasco, CA, Coalinga, CA or the bigger places like Fresno, CA or San Jose, CA.  At about Modesto, CA I start to fight gusty winds which make me and some big rigs make use of the full width of the Interstate.  This is an exercise for Arnold S., but not for me.  I make my way through Sacramento, CA and have of course another song in my head, remember Middle of the Road, the good day when we where young, ....  After Sacramento I enter the Sacramento Valley with more gusty winds (thank you Lorraine for your wishes, but the sailor is fighting heavily to stay on course), I finally make it to Redding and into the mountains again.  Temperatures have risen already to the 100's in the valley, so the mountains are very welcome.  I climb up to the Shasta mountain, pass, lake, and the scenery is just breath taking.  I like this place, if there weren't those big black clouds moving in from the West.  And sure enough, descending to Mount Shasta, CA those clouds are unloading all they carried over the mountains.  This only means one thing, ride farther to get dry again.  But before I got drenched I had a marvelous view of the Castle Crags, a mountain formation I have not seen before, or perhaps only in the Dolomites in Italy.  Spectacular is only poorly describing this view.  

That range is something to come back for.  I continue further North on this spectacular, winding up and down Interstate, climbing to 4,000 ft, dropping down to 3,000 ft, climbing up again and dropping again to 1,800 ft, and up and down, left and right, it is just plain fun to ride this road in such a nice setting, and especially with the evening sun illuminating the mountains.  I will add this section to my America's Best Roads.  Nevertheless in Roseburg, OR I have finally enough, I'm tiered from fighting the gusty winds, feeling somehow cold now, and looking forward to a hardy meal.  So I call it quit, when I see again a motel at a rate cheaper than a tent site would cost me for the night.  A no brainer for me, the old bones say thank you.

"What good is the warmth of the summer, without the cold of the winter to give it sweetness." - John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America