canyonwalker: My old '98 M3 convertible (cars)
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".

Approaching 'The Grapevine' in California (Mar 2022)

"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!

canyonwalker: My old '98 M3 convertible (cars)
Well, it took a trip of 500 miles, and some unexpected waiting at the last moment (the car needed a repair hours before we bought it... maybe we should have bought that extended warranty! 😅), but by mid-afternoon Saturday the car was ours!

We finally see the car in person... and buy it! [Jul 2021]

Next would come the other 500 mile trip: the drive home!

The Long Road Home

Our first decision about driving home was which route to take. The fastest route, mostly Interstate 5, would be dull. A diversion to US 101 would be slower but more scenic. A diversion to Highway 1 then US 101 would even slower but way more scenic. Included in our options was splitting the driving overnight. We'd actually packed a smaller overnight bag with changes of clothes just in case! Ultimately we decided, Let's just get home, and took the shortest, dullest route.

The drive turned out to be anything but short. We hit various traffic slowdowns driving through Orange County and into the Los Angeles basin. Compounding the problem seemed to be the car's navigation system, which includes real-time traffic and route planning. It started suggesting time-saving detours. We branched off Interstate 5 onto Highway 1 and then crossed back via local streets. We branched off again on highways 605, 710, 105, 22, 128... I lost count, frankly... and saw many more recommendations that we take city street detours. Most of the detours were ruinous. It seemed like everyone was getting the same recommendations from their nav systems and jamming whichever road we turned onto.

We left Encinitas at about 3:30. It wasn't until after 7 that we left the LA basin, climbing the pass toward Santa Clarita. Route mapping showed none of those delays before we started. The first 2 hours of the trip had already telescoped to 3½. Thankfully that was it. Traffic flowed freely after that. And there were no more crazy detour recommendations for which we had to ponder, "Is this really a time-saver, or does the computer just think it's a time-saver because it thinks city streets have zero traffic?"

Hot, Hot, Hot!

Saturday was another day of high temperatures across much of California. It was nice along the very souther coast, in San Diego and Encinitas, with highs in the low 80s. OC and LA were warmer, around 90. In the Central Valley is where it was really blazing. The forecast high was over 110° there.

We drove through the Central Valley with the top up and the AC on. Thanks to traffic earlier it was already after sunset when we entered the heat zone. That took the edge off the heat... though it was still oppressive. When we stopped for gas at 9:40pm the temperature was still 100° F (38° C)... and the whole place smelled like a toilet. A stinky, overheated toilet. 🥵

We piled back into the car after a brief leg-stretch and hammered through the last 2½ hours of driving. We pulled into our garage at about 12:20am. That was an hour and a half later than I hoped, but at least we were home and sleeping in our own bed for the night so we could do other things on Sunday.

canyonwalker: My old '98 M3 convertible (cars)
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.
canyonwalker: My old '98 M3 convertible (cars)
The plan— our revised plan— for Friday night was simple. We'd repack our bags after Hawk got home from work, load them up in our convertible (instead of the SUV, which is our park-it-at-the-airport vehicle), and drive to Valencia, California, in the northern reaches of the Los Angeles metro area. That would set us up well for starting our LA car shopping at a dealer right there in Valencia that has some cars we're interested in. But then holiday weekend traffic hit.

It's a drive of about 320 miles. Sans traffic it would take less than 5 hours. When we left the house at 6:30pm map apps were already showing an estimated time over 5:30. Adding a stop for dinner we'd get in after midnight. While not ideal that's not bad. But reality was worse.

Traffic ground to a halt leaving Gilroy. Like, come to a full stop and sit for 30 seconds at a time. Roll forward 1-2 car length, stop again. FWIW this area is always a problem on Friday nights. At the start of holiday weekends it's routinely terrible. And this weekend, experts say, is supposed to be the biggest travel weekend in 2 years.

After spending 20 minutes to drive ½ mile we bailed out and tried another route. It wasn't as bad but was still... bad. By the time we reached I-5 we were almost an hour behind schedule.

I-5 through the San Joaquin Valley is become more of a shit-show on weekends. Traffic slowdowns happen every few miles because of heavy traffic and slow trucks trying to pass each other. Then there were additional jams behind accidents. One had traffic down slowed down to the basically "parked" situation we experienced in Gilroy. By midnight, when we were hoping to be at the hotel, we were still 120 miles away!

Ultimately it was almost 2:30am when we arrived at our hotel off Magic Mountain Parkway in Valencia, so named because it's near the Magic Mountain amusement park. We checked in, wound down, and got to sleep sometime after 3am. Thankfully the blackout shades in the room work well because I was not ready to get up with my 8am alarm. We slept in 'til 9:30am and still didn't feel refreshed. Ah, well, time to start the day anyway. We've got shopping to do!

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