I might have a pressure sore from sitting in the car for so long.
After a day’s driving TO Death Valley (5 hours from Orange County), in and around Death Valley National Park, and then out of Death Valley by about 3 p.m., (about 550 miles) we thought we were making good time. Having seen the park highlights, we decided to try to make the haul all of the way back to Sacramento (another 9 or 10 hours). Despite the long journey ahead of us, I was excited to show Kelvin the very scenic route home (one of the prettiest drives in California), which would take us north on US-395, past the portals to Mt. Whitney (outside of Lone Pine), north to Mammoth Lakes (one of my favorite spots in California!), and then through Tahoe Back home. Despite being pretty thoughtful people and generally good planners, we forgot something major which was abruptly brought to our attention when we reached Bishop, CA.
After driving about 1.5 hours north on US-395, we saw a flashing sign which read, “Snow/Ice; chains required 40 miles ahead. High winds, caution.”
We drove another few blocks before the implication of the words sunk in.
It snows on mountains, even in April.
California has lots of mountains.
We have had a TON of precipitation this year.
We had to drive home through the mountains.
We had Kelvin’s car and did not have tire chains.
Our comments:
“Did that just say chains are required?!”
“Where would that be? Mammoth? Tahoe is too far away. But we still have to drive through Tahoe.”
“What should we do?!?!”
We had just passed an office of the CA State Department of Transportation, so we thought about stopping to inquire about our options. However, it was 5:18 p.m. While it was the weekday, they were closed.
We realized that, had we stayed overnight in Death Valley, we would have been realizing this tomorrow and without the extra cushion of time. Yikes.
So, alternate route planning was in order. But, as I wrote earlier, parts of (eastern) California are with difficult road access, as there are very few roads that travel over Sierra Nevada mountains.
What were our options?
K (studying the map): “Can we continue up and cut across Yosemite?” (which was north of us at the time).
Me: “That is still north of Mammoth, so I think we're still up a creek. Besides, I don’t think the main road is open yet for the summer. That would also take forever.”
K: (thinking...)
Me: "Can we somehow drive east to Nevada and go around all of the mountains??"
K: "don't think so."
Me: (jokingly) "Maybe we can spend the night in Vegas after all!" (LV was probably 8-9 hours away)
K (after many minutes of silence and map review): "Hmm. I think we are stuck then. I don’t see any other options to go in the same direction."
After much map-scrutinizing by both of us and playing with the GPS for distances/times, we realized that yes, indeed, we had no other options to get over from the eastern to the middle part of California without completely backtracking.
When you’ve already driven 550 miles in one day, what’s another 500? (even if half of it is is the same direction from where you came, albeit on a scenic road with mostly views like this:
Lone Pine, CA
This reminded us both of times when we, independently, inadvertently drove the WRONG way on I-5 towards Bakersfield, me (making good time) with Amy coming back from Big Sur, and K going about 80 miles before realizing he was going south, not north.
But this was different in that we HAD to backtrack. There was no other way. What really hurt the most was not the extra many hours that we were sort of "wasting," but that gas was averaging us about $4.20 per gallon, and we did NOT have the Prius (which would have had chains in the trunk and would have obviated this whole predicament.)
Anyway, we headed back south for about 3 hours to get back to where we started—the meeting point of the Hwy 190 to Death Valley NP and 395. And then we kept driving south.
More decisions (as the sun was setting)
- Could we make it to Sac (driving until 3 a.m.) this same day? Would that be ridiculous?? That would be a near 24 hours awake!
- Do we just drive back (and backtrack completely) south to Orange County to K's parents' house (another 4.5 hours), rest, then haul it tomorrow north on major highways to Sacramento (6 hours, hoping to avoid traffic)?
- Do we hit up Vegas??
- Do we try to get to Bakersfield, which is on the main Hwy 99, just stay overnight, and then drive tomorrow the ~5 hours to Sac?
- Do we drive until we're tired and find a ghetto motel off the highway?
- [Me] Could we stop somewhere near something fun and see something new tomorrow?
We ended up doing option #4, staying overnight in Bakersfield at a really delightful inn which was very comfortable. While listening to the news, we were shocked at the strange weather that was hitting California. We had actually driven through SNOW (yes, snow, although it did not stick after hitting the ground) on Highway 58 to Bakersfield, which is in central (on the east-west axis), southern CA ! Undoubtedly there is snow (LOTS of it) in the mountains, including Big Bear (favorite ski resort for LA residents) and many eastern CA mountain towns. We learned that, indeed as we suspected, Mammoth Lakes had a huge snowstorm, necessitating the closing of some ski resorts, and leading to the projection that people may be able to ski there until the fourth of July (a weekend that I went there to hike, in shorts and t-shifts, just 2 years ago!).
How weird.
In any Case, we left Bakersfield the next morning around 9 a.m. (without any sightseeing :( -- apparently Lonely Planet even had some Bakersfield highlights, believe it or not, but we just wanted to GET HOME!) and were back in Sacramento before 2 p.m.-- one national park, one thousand miles (about half of California!), 22 hours of driving, and one night in Bakersfield later. THAT is what I call a road trip :) (We need to get an RV!)
