Day 34 - California Here We Come!

We were up at 5:30 with a "pull out" time of 6:45.  But, we were ahead of schedule, for we left our campsites at 6:35.  It was a 1.1 mile drive from our sites to the main highway and then 8 miles to get on Interstate 40.

Ken was rather concerned about this drive, for there was a 6% grade soon after getting on Interstate 40 that went on for 11 miles.  He had done some research on the internet about how to "work with" a Ford V10 engine when going up and down these kind of grades.  He must have "learned well" because he did a great job. He may have had "white knuckles" some of the time, but all in all it went well. As we have been saying this whole trip, "you must go up to go down and vice versa.  We got our fill of that early today!

We are starting to climb!

Now we stay on the level for just a short time!

Ken is intense and maybe a little "white knuckled"!

Which way should we go????  I think towards Los Angeles!

Wow, we got up very, very high!!!!!!

But, what goes up must come down!  Sorry Ken!

.......and down....

.....and down....

...and even further down! 

But, it is beautiful!

....and we go down even more!!!

Crossing the Colorado River!

The scenery in Arizona continued to be beautiful, but I must say that the 1st miles in California were not too impressive!  It was rather desolate along Interstate 40.  But, that improved as we got further into California and so did the steep grades both up and down. We had a 6% grade for about 11 miles. Ken got much more comfortable with his driving as the trip continued.  Waldo did very well and so did the driver. I was uncomfortable at one point when it got so windy with really strong gusts.  When tractor trailers passed us it really was hard to keep Waldo on the road.  I thought we should stop for the night about 1 hour from our destination.  But, then the highway become 4 lanes and the drive was much better.

We have arrived!  Maybe we have to go searching for Gold!!!

After we had driven in CA for awhile, it get very
scenic!

This is a Joshua Tree.  Not overly pretty!

A few additional Joshua Trees!

While on Highway 58, we noticed numerous turbines crowding the hills of the Tehachapi-Mojave area.  This is one of the world's greatest creators of wind powered electricity.  Operated by private companies, the Tehachapi Wind Farm produces 800 million kilowatt hours of electricity, enough to power the residential needs of 350,000 people every year.  The Tehachapi Region of California is considered to be the birthplace of wind power in North America.  The open spaces, along with winds averaging 14 to 20 miles per hour, made it ideal for a renewable and clean energy center.  While the first turbines installed in the 1980's stood at between 45 and 60 feet high, they now stretch up to between 400 and 500 feet high and can produce from 1 to 2.4 megawatts of power. There are over 15,000 turbines in California, generating 1% of the state's energy.

Hard to tell from here, but we are getting close to the huge
windmill farm!

The windmills are coming into view!

There were hundreds of windmills on the hillside!  It is one of
the 1st large windmill farms in the USA!

...and they are still adding this one on a much larger base!

In this area the hillside was gorgeous and so rolling!

Everything looked so brown and then this area of beautiful
irrigated grass!

Next we come to the fruit orchards that are "immaculately" kept!

There were huge groves on the right....

....and on the left!

Right along the edge of the fruit groves were oil rigs!

We stopped 2x for gas and at one rest stop to go thru the gears in our CRV's.   I made lunch and we both ate while we were driving.  We arrived at Orange Grove CG in Bakersfield, CA at 5:15 after driving 532 miles.  It was a lot of driving, but tomorrow we only have to drive about 235 miles to reach our destination of Groveland, CA and being close to Yosemite National Park. 

I don't know who trimmed the trees at the entrance to
the Campground, but they are a crazy design!

After dinner, the 4 of us played games in Waldo, but it was a bit crowded.  We kept the CRV hooked up and only put out the Bedroom Slide since we will be leaving 1st thing tomorrow morning!  Also as soon as we got the electric plugged in and Waldo leveled it really started to rain.  A real surprise for the people of California.  It doesn't rain here this time of year!!!!!