Tehachapi is Behind Us --- More Traffic, Stalls, Construction

"I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once."

I left off on my update Wednesday night or was it Thursday morning.  Obviously, we have a few travel days still in our future but we are getting closer to the destination.  We pulled out a little earlier Thursday than we did Wednesday.  Wednesday we pulled out a little earlier than we did Tuesday.  I hope that isn’t setting a pattern.

 

We were still on I5 when we pulled out of our overnight park Thursday morning.  When we went to bed the night before we had definitely decided that Thursday would be a measly 170 miles landing us at the Orange Grove RV Park east of Bakersfield..   This is what happened.

Knowing that Highway 58 was the one we needed to be on, we exited I5 heading towards Bakersfield at the sign for that road.  I’m amazed that there isn’t a 4-lane straight highway between I5 and Bakersfield. This was a two-lane road that turns left and turns right and eventually drops you about 25 miles later on another freeway, Highway 99.  We made that just fine knowing in about 2 miles we would be exiting to follow 58 all the way to just about Barstow.  The exit off of the freeway was a 2-lane exit around a curve and up a hill. 

We didn’t make that exit as planned!  Oh, sure we got off but right in the middle of curve while going uphill, my car engine DIED!  It went DEAD and all the lights came on!!  It took me a few seconds to figure out I needed to get over to the shoulder while the vehicle still had a little momentum.  Actually, I wasn’t the one that made that decision.  I panicked.  There was a lot of other traffic that came off the freeway right behind us!!  However, we do have little walkie talkies and that was Terry’s suggestion  --- Get off to the shoulder if you can!!  You should have seen all those semi-trucks trying to get around the motorhome on the curve!  Believe me … it wasn’t a pretty sight with me and the trailer halfway in the road on the curve and Big Brother right behind still in the lane.  No, it wasn't a pretty sight at all. 

Where’s Coach-net when you need them?  Actually, we were thankful we didn’t need them.  We think it might have been a vapor lock or something like that. The car started up for Terry about a minute or two later and that was about it.    It seemed we were there forever but it was only a few minutes.  Obviously, this is going into the shop and getting taken care of as soon as we can.

I bet you can imagine how I felt about driving the Jeep and pulling the trailer up the huge climb at Tehachapi.   That’s no sissy mountain, you know.  It’s a biggie!  

We were trying to decide what to do and thought maybe we should just spend the night in Bakersfield and get it fixed the next day.  I still had the Orange Grove RV Park in the GPS.  We drove by it and stopped in front for a minute or two.  Okay, so we actually checked it out.  Now I can say been there, done that .... and we decided we were going on.  I wanted to get Tehachapi behind me.  I knew if we didn’t, I wouldn’t sleep at all that night so back on the freeway we went.

The climb was uneventful and I was once again a white knuckle driver but was also very relieved when it was finally behind us.  However, no sooner had we reached the top that we got stuck in a lineup of vehicles.  Two lanes went into one and the traffic was lined up for miles and miles.  By the time we got down to the working area, we were amazed to see there wasn’t any work but just cones and a couple trucks.  For well over a hour we creeped along.  It took us that long to move about 4 miles down the road.

 

We stopped in Barstow at the Desert Rat RV Park -- 308 miles from where we started that morning.  It was a long day and we were beat. It was also another RV park.  I had called for availability 45 miles down the road.  At that time there was one spot left.  It took us an  hour and 45 minutes to get there with the construction.  Thank goodness the spot was still available. 

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At this point I don’t even want to tell you what our plans for Friday might be.  We have an idea but the ideas so far haven’t worked out as planned.  I can tell you that we will know on Saturday what we did on Friday.  That's the best I can promise.