Trainspotting

I was sitting on a hill this afternoon surrounded by trainspotters from Canada and Germany. They were so excited to watch the trains coming through the Tehachapi Loop which is unique in the world and an engineering marvel. As was Fred! In fact even I had fun….

Completed in the 1870's the line at the Loop climbs in a spiral over itself. It is a California Historical Landmark and the most heavily trafficked single track in the US.

The numbers: about 50 freight trains a day climb from 400' in the west and crest the summit at 4025' and then drop into Mojave at 2700'.

Tehachapi Loop

Aerial of the Tehachapi Loop thanks to Google Maps.

Encountering Giants

On the road through the Sequoia National Forest.
Within a few hundred miles we have driven a desert road and now a forest road….

This Sequoia beauty is 1500 years old and 245' tall

 Lyrical sounding names -  Ponderosa Pines, Sugar Pines, Incense Cedars, White Firs coexist with these giant Sequoias. I even glimpsed my first chipmunk for the trip, cute Alvin….

Wolf lichen adding vibrant color on the bark of a White Fir

Filtered light in the forest.

Exposed roots of a Sequoia that fell in the 1800's.

PS: I was in a coffee shop in Reno, and Alvin was looking down at me from the lintel. Asked him to join us and took a quick photo - what attitude.

Foodie Interlude - Yelp.com and biscuits

Cracked Egg Cafe, Kernville

A morning routine while my coffee is brewing, is to check what is trending on Yelp.com, a social media site with ratings and comments on local businesses, for top breakfast spots in towns that we are passing through.

Like this morning, we were driving mountain roads through the Sequoia National Forest and I picked Cracked Egg Cafe, a gem in Kernville, a diner with locals meeting for coffee, catching up on their news, waitress back and forth with coffee pot refilling my mug, local newspaper for soduku.

Classic counter chairs and an old black and white tiled floor. I could picture Jack Reacher sitting back to the wall and watching the door drinking his hot, black coffee.

Lovely.





Eating twice a day is a good strategy when faced with breakfast here in US. I decided to be a bit more adventurous this morning and ordered the biscuit side, as opposed to the standard sourdough bread.

It was a light and quite delicious scone.

Think I will pass on the gravy though.
Its good with marmalade.

And the O'Brien's turned out to be hash browns with bell peppers and onions, we learn.

A movie set of sorts

Red Rock Canyon State Park

These canyons on our drive this morning have been used in any number of cowboy movies…

Talking to Ramon, a painter enjoying the interplay of light and shapes

Worth standing in the hot sun to capture this image.

Finding Johannesburg and Randsburg in the Mojave Desert

An offbeat, quirky day indeed.

Driving the Mojave Desert, with purpose - Roadrunner. Still no hint of the bird, only Horned Larks.

But in the meantime going past the 'ghost towns' from the gold mining era in California - named Randsburg, Johannesburg, Rand Mine…over lunch Fred was story telling and the couple he was regaling live in Bulawayo Street, Johannesburg, California!

According to Wiki, towns named by miners from our part of the world.

A long lonely road to middle of nowhere, Mojave Desert

The Living Ghost Town of Randsburg

The 100 year old Soda Fountain Bar, the Jail and church, similar priorities a century later?

Fred loving all the JHB references, all junk to me!

Hiking Tehachapi Mountain Trail

Sunday back home is a walking day with a stop somewhere for breakfast.

So same here except early morning coffee on the deck has elk walking on the golf course…

And I had to take a deep breath and manage the challenge of the 3000' accent to the summit of Tehachapi Mountain over 5 miles, not the easy 8 km in Norwood.

The trailhead is at 6000' and the summit is 7978'.

Cool mountain air as we made our way up

Scrambling up...

The switchbacks give way to a steep scramble for the last 1 mile.

Hard on the knees both ways. Had to hold onto Fred to get down, its so steep and slippery.

I am so grateful that I am out on a trail, feeling well and strong, and Fred supporting me along the way.

Lovely views along the switchbacks.

Breathing deeply!

Views were special, at the summit stunted pines blocked the big vistas, so ate our dates and chatted to some youngsters who were climbing with us.

Foodie Interlude - foraging

Nothing quite as satisfying as popping into local farmers and picking up delicious foods for our week here in Stallion Springs. The timeshare is great, set in the Tehachapi Mountains with a view across the Horse Thief Golf Course.

Finished off with a wine tasting at Souza Family Vineyard, bought some of their award wining Primitivo Zinfandel. A White Zinfandel is chilling for this evening….

Historic Route 66

I am crazy for these post boxes seen on Route 66.

Our road trip took us from Sedona, Arizona back west to Tehachapi, California over 800 km mostly along the I-40. The historic Route 66 is still evident if you veer of the highway and potter along some of the sections that are still preserved, like quirky Cool Springs.

Mostly its tired, loved by passionate bikers of a certain age and the determined tourists….

Our trip in numbers….

Three weeks on the road in the USA.

•  travelled 2447 miles, (3938 km)

•  been in 2 US states – California, Arizona

•  explored 2 National Parks - Joshua Tree, Grand Canyon

•  visited 5 State Parks - Big Sur, Salton Sea, San Jacinto Mountain, Hearst Castle, Red Rock

•  slept in 8 beds; 2 hotels, 4 motels and 2 timeshare unit (make it 14 with Bahamas)

•  ate Ben & Jerry ice-cream, 2, Cherry Garcia, Chunky Monkey

•  added 30 birds to my US bird list which is now 194 and my world list is 1477

•  popped into 1 museum

•  relished organic extra virgin olive oil, 2 farms 

•  walked 44 miles; beach, mountain trail, coastal meadow, high altitude lake, golf course, climbing red rocks, canyon rim

•  walking 5 miles behind schedule, (for each 50 miles driven we want to walk 1 mile)

•  watched 7 episodes of Game of Thrones, season 4

•  got cold at the lowest temperature of 51 degrees F (10 degrees C)

•  was hot at the highest temperature of 102 degrees F (39 degrees C)

•  wine tasting, 1 at Tablas Winery, Paso Robles

•  1 new mode of transport, helicopter over the Grand Canyon

First elk for the trip

Paint by numbers, an elk seen a few meters from the road sign. A magnificent bull was lurking in the background with a rack as impressive as the sign.

Fierce fire and a helicopter over the canyon

A fire started on tuesday at Slide Rock State Park north of Sedona on the famous Oak Canyon Road. It is out of control and burning vast tracks of state forest between Sedona and Flagstaff - the road to the Grand Canyon. Its national news here and quite scary to experience.

The wind kept us grounded on tuesday and the fire nearly did so today. 

We did get to fly over the canyon even though the smoke from the fire was drifting across - over 150km from source.

Thrilling.

Quote from Powell, I am dipping into his seminal book on his expedition through the Grand Canyon:

'The landscape everywhere, away from the river, is of rock, cliffs of rock, tables of rock, plateaus of rock, terraces of rock, crags of rock, ten thousand strangely carved forms...cathedral shaped buttes, towering hundreds or thousands of feet, cliffs that cannot be scaled, and canyon walls that shrink the river into insignificance, with vast hollow domes and tall pinnacles and shafts set on the verge overhead; and all highly colored.'

…and it is just so, 'a land so strange, so wonderful, and so vast in its features'.

When grand is grand, there is nothing grander...

Nothing prepared me for the scale of the Grand Canyon. 

As a geography teacher at one time in my life, I remember giving the stats - a mile deep, 10 mile across from rim to rim, 250 miles in length and then you see it.

I looked and looked, until my eyes ached. Grand and glorious.

As Powell wrote 1869, '… the heights are made higher and the depths deeper by the glamour and witchery of light and shade.'