calherewecome

A couple more things to write. The drive south takes us through the NW corner of Arizona for about 20-25 miles. This has to be one the most beautiful sections of interstate highway. I don’t have any pictures because no place to stop safely.

The section of roadway winds through multiple S curves through massive red canyons. There are signs “Watch for Rocks”. Of course, what they mean is watch for rocks on the roadway.

As we get into Nevada, we are descending from the high plateaus of Utah. At Salt Lake city we start at about 4000′ ASL. Eventually we get to about 6000′ ASL. But when we get to Nevada we get down to about 1500-2000′ ASL. One first notice by change in pressure on your ears. Then you notice that by gum it’s getting a bit hotter. Once we were in Nevada, the outside temp was about 103. We stopped for gas at a truck stop. Damn that’s hot. Don’t tell me it’s dry heat. hot is hot. Like stepping into an oven.

The section of highway in NV north of Vegas is one of the most desolate landscapes I’ve ever seen.

On Tuesday, we will be driving through parts of the Mojave Desert, then into Barstow then San Bernardino.

Interesting factoid about Barstow. FAA’s Los Angeles Center (The enroute center if you will) is located in Barstow. LA Center was one of the first Air Traffic control facilities built back in the 60’s. It was built in Barstow, because of fears of nuclear war. FAA figured that Barstow was far enough away from ground zero.

At any rate, today we are off to LA. BTW, this blog will continue once we get to LA.

TTFN

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Jean, NV

This entry was posted on August 21, 2012 at 9:33 am and is filed under Travel. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: travel, trip