Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

High Desert Weekend Trip-log #3
Grapevine, CA - Sat, 26 Mar 2022, 9:30am

🎵 I bet you're wondering how I knew
About your plans to make me blue
With some other guy that you knew before
Between the two of us guys you know I loved you more
It took me by surprise I must say
When I found out the other day
Oo-ooh, I heard it through the grapevine 🎵

...Haha, no, not that grapevine. Instead, not long after leaving Bakersfield and continuing our drive south in California, we've reached "The Grapevine".



"The Grapevine" is a popular if also inaccurate name for a steep mountain grade along Interstate 5 where the road quickly ascends from the flat San Joaquin Valley into the Tehachapi Mountains. In the course of only 10 miles it climbs from near sea level to over 4,000' at the Tejon Pass.

I mention that "The Grapevine" is an inaccurate name. The mountains are the Tehachapi, the pass is the Tejon.... Grapevine is actually the name of a tiny, tiny town, little more than just a dot on a map, at the base of the mountains. But because that roadsign that says Grapevine— the one you can see in the picture— is the only indicator there, millions of Californians for generations have come to know these mountains as The Grapevine.

Why does it matter what these mountains are called? From a perspective of naming, it doesn't matter a lot. Place names change as new people rename them. Often a place is known by 2 or more names at the same time. The mountain's the mountain whether you call it Tehachapi, Tejon, The Grapevine, or Shirley.

But whether you call it Tehachapi, Tejon, The Grapevine, or Shirley (don't call it Shirley), it's an important landmark for millions of Californians and visitors. The Grapevine is not just an inspiring sight, especially now early in the Spring with green grass covering its flanks and riots of wildflowers clinging to the canyon walls higher up, but also a geographical and cultural boundary. North of the Grapevine you're in the Central Valley. Once in the Grapevine, and especially once south of the first pass, you're in Southern California.

Up next: Poppies!

We wrapped up our car shopping weekend with a drive home Sunday afternoon. I wish I could say we drove how in our new car but I cannot. There is no new car yet. We suffered busts Saturday and Sunday in our shopping foray. Both days, though, we did at least learn something about what we want— or don't want. We can focus our search more tightly from now on.

Musings at Burbank Airport

What was amusing about it? Well, many times when I've traveled between home and southern California I've considered the tradeoffs of flying vs. driving. Flying is always faster, way faster, when you look at just the flying time. BUR-SJC is usually scheduled at about 1:20 gate to gate. Meanwhile my maps app informed me it would be an estimated 5:01 to drive home from the restaurant located 1/2 block from the airport car rental return.

The thing about flying vs. driving is the gate-to-gate time is misleading. It's really about the door-to-door time. Figure door-to-door from the restaurant would've been 1:20 for the flight, at least an hour for security and waiting at the gate, add 30 minutes for fueling and returning a rental car, then 30-40 minutes on the other end to exit the plane, exit the airport, meet a Lyft/Uber, and get home. Those times add up to 3:30. Yeah, that's still faster than 5:01 but not compellingly so, which is why I weigh the tradeoffs pretty much every trip.

The Journey Home

So, we're driving. It's a beautiful day, and we've got a drop-top sports car. What could be finer? Well, even open-top driving becomes a chore after a while. And we had 339 miles and an estimated 5 hours to go.

I divide this northbound trip into 3 legs. The first leg is getting out of LA and through the mountains. The Transverse Range north of LA is beautiful. Even the 8 lane superhighway carving through it doesn't diminish its beauty. In fact it's largely because of those 8 lanes— and their ability to carry copious volumes of traffic without significant jams— that I appreciate the natural beauty around the road. The road reaches a high point of 4,144' in the Tejon Pass as mountains on either side soar ever higher. Early in the spring there are wildflowers here. In the winter there's often at least a dusting of snow.

The second leg begins after I-5 descends the Tejon Pass into the Central Valley. For the next 200+ miles it's Flatland. Nothing to see. And after US-99 splits off just past the mountains I-5 narrows to 2 lanes in each direction, leading to frequent traffic slowdowns. For this stretch of the drive we put the top back up— it was a punishing 95° (35° C) out anyway— and drove 80-85mph whenever traffic permitted.

The third leg I think of as "almost home". It begins when we turn off I-5 onto CA-152 near Los Banos. From here it's about 80 miles home. Thus the "almost" part. But exiting at this junction also brings a welcome change of pace. We leave behind the boring, hot flatland of the Central Valley and climb into another mountain range, beginning by winding around the edge of the massive San Luis Reservoir. It's not as scenic as the mountains north of LA but it's a world apart from the Central Valley.

Wait, Isn't This Car Dead?

We arrived home around 6:30pm. We made decent time, hitting only minor slowdowns and making two short stops for gas, snacks, and a stretch. Some of that time we made up for by blazing through the Central Valley at 85mph.

All in all for the weekend trip we logged 775 miles of driving... in the car I've been saying is kaput. Ol' Hawkgirl clearly still has some fight left in her. The engine trouble light only came on twice during the whole trip. Both times we cleared it by stopping and power-cycling. While that worked fine for this trip, we know it's only a matter of time until it's not fine. That's why we're shopping a replacement.