Sequoia to Tehachapi

This was an interesting day, with a surprise or two.

Writing this blog reminds me of an old cartoon that came out when video cameras were especially popular. The cartoon shows a guy with a video camera at a party and he announces “OK, now we can watch the video from the first half of the party!”

That's how it is on this trip: we do stuff and then write about it. Two other things to note: What we choose to do is influenced by how it will affect the blog (“Gotta camp by the snow 'cause it will make a killer photo for the blog!”). The other thing is that when I wake up at night, I can't get back to sleep because I'm working on composing the entries in my head. These very sentences were composed at 3:17 AM.

Anyway, the day started at Oh-Dark-Hundred.

Remember to click on the photos, because they look better when larger.

The wood was quite damp, and had taken a while to light last night, so I thought I'd just use the Pepsi-can stove for breakfast. But I gave the fire a shot, and it took no time to get a good cooking fire going.


Lena woke refreshed and happy, which is always a good thing.

It was then time to pack up and continue on.


I got better at packing and filled every nook in the trunk:





The route out of King's Canyon and through Sequoia was fantastic.


This photo shows the road winding down from the mountains.



I kept thinking that I should be doing this part on my bike. Finally, about half way down, I couldn't take it anymore, and we pulled over.

We set a meet-up point, Lena drove ahead, and I got seven miles of free downhill riding. I didn't go wild – max speed was only 32 MPH. It was very nice, and when we met up, we'd transitioned from mountain forest to desert.

It was getting towards lunch time, and we passed this cafe.

From our 55 MPH microscan, we decided it had an overly “yuppie from LA” vibe to it, and we continued on, but after a mile or two, changed our minds and drove back. Turned out to be a great place with a wonderful breeze through the over-arching trees. Luckily, the bird poop landed on our table just before our omelet arrived.

After lunch, heading through the orange groves SE of Visalia, we were ready for some showers, so we asked Gunilla for the location of the closest community swimming pool. She found one just a few miles away, and gave us the phone number, but a quick call showed that the pool was closed on Sundays. It seems strange to me to have a pool closed on Sunday, when kids are off from school.

Speaking of Gunilla, here is one of the roads she suggested we take:

She has such a sense of humor. Sometimes she doesn't realize that two roads that are close to one another aren't necessarily connected. Another quirk is that she doesn't like U-turns. If you miss a turnoff, she'll take you a mile out of your way to get back on the route rather than suggest you make a U-turn and go to the best road.

We stocked up on groceries in Bakersfield, and filled up the gas tank. I was disappointed to find that with all the steep mountain driving and the loaded car, we'd only gotten 28 MPG. Normally on a trip we'll get over 40. Hopefully with flatter driving we'll do better.

We checked out another pool in Arvin, CA (a few miles from Bakersfield), but it was also closed. We gave up on pools and made the turn towards St. Louis. It was at this point that we started climbing out of the central valley towards the Tehachapi pass. These transitions are great: one minute your on pancake-flat, arrow-straight roads, and the next your climbing into the foothills, with the loaded Echo straining.

The weather was great with big clouds forming over the mountains. As we came to the exit for the town of Tehachapi, we saw a sign for “Indian Hill Campground,” and took the exit. After some searching, and a stop to get a phone book, we called and found out what I knew but had forgotten: “Campground” no longer means “campground.” It now means “RV Park.” As in “no tents allowed.”

So it was back to freeway where we discovered a sign that said “Entrance ramp closed.” It was indeed coned off. This was a surprise, and there was no explanation or suggested alternate route. This is an area where it may be 20 miles between entrance ramps. But our road atlas showed another ramp three miles to the east, and we headed to that one.

To set the scene, I'll note that the wind was screaming. I'd guess the windspeed was a steady 55 MPH from the west, with higher gusts.

We get down to the next entrance, and find that it is also closed. We also notice that there are no cars on the freeway – something's going on. We found out later that one of the wind turbines blew over onto the freeway. That gives you an idea of how hard it was blowing.

So we follow the traffic along a detour route through the hills. It's about 4 PM at this point, and Lena's keen eye picks out a sign for a Kern County campground. After eight miles of driving up some very small and steep roads, we came to this place:

We decided to stay despite not being able to cut on trees. Much of it was closed, but the rest was deserted, and we pulled into this great spot.

The wind was still howling, and much gustier here. There was no way to have any kind of cooking fire, so our dinner consisted of Goober PBJ sandwiches and raw vegetables with spray on salad dressing.

If you've seen video of tents pitched on Everest, that's what our tent looked like. This was one of the only times I've actually staked down the tent. Being inside, it felt as though a giant periodically grabbed it and shook it. It was cold also – colder than the site next to the snow.

The airbed has been terrific. We sleep in total comfort. This photo shows how cozy the tent is:

It inflates in a minute or two with the four-D-cell pump. The pump ran so much faster with the rechargeable NiMH AA batteries in D-cell converters than with the batteries that were in it (when we got it at the garage sale) that I worried that I was stressing the motor. So I'd purchased some new alkaline D-cells, and found that it runs just as fast.

Because the pump is so important (not inflatable by mouth), we treat it like the holy hand grenade (Monty Python). It has it's own box with ample protective padding.

The winds died down at 3 AM, but picked up again by 4:30.