Monday, May 30, 2011

Bakersfield, CA

Today was a travel day.
We hit the road at 0730 this morning and drove 460 miles to Bakersfield, CA.
This puts us just 3 1/2 hours from our next object of interest - Sequoia National Park.  We will make the drive to there tomorrow.

Today we drove thru Sandstone deserts that gave way to white sand desert - interrupted only for a short while by the surreal "splendor" of Las Vegas.

We finished the day coming over Tehachapi Pass and descending into the San Joachim Valley - one of the most productive farm areas on the planet.

The Tehachapi pass is famous for the Tehachapi Loop.

The Tehachapi Loop is a .73 mi long 'spiral', or helix, on The Union Pacific Railroad through Tehachapi Pass, in south central California. The railroad line connects Bakersfield in the San Joaquin Valley to Mojave in the Antelope Valley. The loop takes its name from the circuitous route it takes, in which the track passes over itself, a design which lessens the angle of the grade. The loop gains a total of 77 feet in elevation as the track ascends at a sustained 2% grade.[1] A train more than 4,000 feet (1.2 km) long (about 85 boxcars) thus passes over itself going around the loop. Today, the railway line, with almost 40 daily trains on average, is one of the busiest single-track mainlines in the world.

This is a photo of a train passing over itself on the loop.

We are now settled into the Orange Grove RV Park just outside of Bakersfield.  It is an RV Park that was built in the middle of......   an orange grove.   We are surrounded by orange trees.   Too bad it is not orange season.  

Till tomorrow and Sequoia.

1 comment:

  1. You are doing a wonderful job with your pictures. Each day I look in amazement at all your wonderful photos! I loved seeing the doodles in the one photo and enjoy seeing you and Kate enjoying yourselves too! One request.... call me later and tell me how to pronounce all those places! Hugs! T

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