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Tuesday, 06/17/03; Sacramento, California, Day One
The Last State!
This morning, shortly before 0800, we entered the final state of our tour – California! The day was bright and pleasantly cool, but we could tell it was going to be hot in the Sacramento Valley – and we were not wrong! It was Keith’s turn to lead; however, the Olson’s car seemed to have a knock (was that the number one rod going out?); therefore, Dennis took the lead so that he could set the pace up the hills. Most of the hills topped out below 2,000 feet in Oregon; however, when we reached California, one climbed almost to 4,000 feet.
On the downgrade on this hill, just north of Dunsmuir, we thought there might be some excitement. The Smiths were about 200 yards behind the Olsons and an 18-wheeler started to pass the Smiths. As the truck got about 45 degrees in front of the Model A, the Smiths noticed that the truck’s brakes began to smoke badly. The Smiths slowed down and stayed well behind the truck and warned the Olsons of the situation. Dennis had seen the problem develop in his rear view mirror and kept well in front of the truck down the three-mile grade. The smoking became quite severe, but the driver seemed to be able to control the truck to some extent. When the truck reached the bottom of the grade, it looked like the driver was going to attempt to turn off into the Dunsmuir off-ramp. Fortunately, he saw that the road leveled and began an upward trend, so he thought better of it and stayed on the Interstate. The truck finally came to a stop. As the Smiths went by, the brakes were smoking so badly the wheels were not visible, but there didn’t appear to be any fire. This incident brings up an interesting point: we have only seen two accidents on our entire tour of almost 12,000 miles! One was not severe; the other appeared to be a fatal accident.
North of Redding, California, we were treated with a view of Mount Shasta. The sun was in the wrong spot for any good photography, but we took what we could to remember this day.
Mount Shasta and cars.
We stopped at a very nice rest stop. Not long thereafter we reached Redding and put the long, steep hills behind us. From then in it was hot, dry, straight and boring all the way to Sacramento. We found another nice rest stop (even though they tried to fool us by posting a “closed” sign!). Here, we enjoyed a restful lunch in the shade. When we got there, one of the cars had unloaded a bunch of kids (the four legged type)! They were busily cropping the grass as we took their picture. The only item of note while driving the upper Sacramento Valley was the rice paddies. Keith had been this way almost 50 times and can’t remember ever seeing the new rice coming up in the paddies as it was today.
Kids in park; Picnic, California style.
After lunch the heat and the food made Keith drowsy, so he succumbed to the lure of the air conditioner. The outside temperature gauge was reading about 97 degrees and the inside finally dropped to 89 degrees as we pulled into Sacramento. Even though the car temperature was relatively high, the cold air blowing on our legs kept us comfortable. Joann finally complained of the cold and Keith had to reduce the speed of the fan. In all this, the engine temperature stayed at its normal place, 170 degrees. Keith did turn the A/C off to pass a truck that was lagging behind the Olson’s car.
The Olsons are visiting their son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter here, while Keith will be seeing his sister-in-law, nephew and family. The extra day here will allow the guys to do some preventive maintenance on the cars and the gals do the last bit of laundry. It will give the Four some time to relax so that they can enjoy the final two days driving home. We plan to take historic California State Route-99 to Bakersfield. This is a classic road and is shorter and passes through more inhabited areas than I-5. From Bakersfield we will go through Tehachapi and the Antelope Valley to the Santa Clarita Valley, as this does not climb as steeply as the Interstate. The Smiths will drop out in Canyon Country and the Olsons will continue to their home in the San Fernando Valley. We haven’t decided on a place to spend the night on this final leg of our journey, so you’ll have to look in on the web site to see where we light.
The Almost Home Again Four
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