Travel Journals: Retirement Road Trip

California, at last! Winter vines lie in what looks like desert to us.

Somewhere ahead lies San Luis Obispo.

Our friend, Sue Keator, asked us if we knew the translation of "La Quinta." No, we told her. She said it means, "Right next to IHOP." We laughed out loud when we came to this intersection in Bakersfield, CA.

"Look here. AAA has routed us north out of Bakersfield to Route 46, which brings us to Rte. 101 north of San Luis Obispo. But the map shows Rte. 58 goes straight from Bakersfield to San Luis Obispo."

"Let's take 58 then." And we do, along with plenty of company. A few miles past Bakersfield, Rte. 58 takes a ninety degree left turn. The RAV4 turns left, the only vehicle to do so. We are suddenly alone on the road. We are about to enter the Twilight Zone.

A white California DOT truck passes going in the opposite direction. Then a second and a third pass us. It's 3:45, near quitting time. A fourth truck passes. It's as if they were fleeing something.

Ten miles on, we stop briefly in McKettrick, California, to stretch our legs and get a snack. No gas station. Two markets, both with shelves half empty. Mangy dogs roam the street, eyeing the city dog with suspicion. The few people about ignore us. Do they even see us?

We enter the Twilight Zone.

We drive on. "No services next 70 miles," reads the sign. We have almost half a tank of gas; we're fine. We are alone. The road climbs. More white work trucks pass us heading in the opposite direction. There is nothing out here. Where have all these trucks been? What have they been doing?

We continue to climb. The road becomes a series of switchbacks. We poke along at about fifteen miles per hour, climbing steeply. We round a curve and... A Stop sign? And a barricade? And... A white truck parked by the side of the road. A young man with a walkie talkie approaches us. It'll just be a few minutes he tells us. "We got twenty-two trucks coming through." A minute later, a convoy of large semi trailers snakes downhill toward us. They are unmarked. Are we in the middle of some clandestine government operation?

The trucks pass. He waves us on. The switchbacks come one after another; there are no straightaways. Five mph is now a comfortable pace, with an occasional burst of speed to ten mph. "It's like the back roads of Italy." How in the world did those monster semis make it through? Why did they come this way?

Somewhere during the climb, Rowdie, who has been content in her own den in the wayback of the RAV4 for five days and two thousand miles, tries to climb into the middle seat, piled high with our suitcases. She gets twisted in one of the seat belts. We find a turnout, and pull over to extricate her. She has practically chewed through the seat belt.

We start off again, and again she tries and succeeds to stretch herself over the suitcases, where she remains the rest of the journey, her head inches from mine. What is driving her to be close to us?

Soon we are on the downhill, and then out of the mountain range. On our right we pass a "wind farm," surrounded by endless fence. No development, no buildings, no windmills are visible. Is this where the semis came from? What was in those trucks? I look in the rear view mirror, no reason. No white trucks. Good.

We've seen no signs of development in fifty miles. Finally, a ranch here, a farm there. Another twenty miles lies the town of Santa Margarita. And then, after almost six days, Highway 101 somehow surprises us. Fifteen minutes, Siri guides us to 581 Lawrence Drive, San Luis Obispo - our home for the next four weeks.