San Luis Obispo to Barstow

Route 58

I backtrack to Santa Margarita and pick up Rt. 58 East. Jay Smythe had recommended this road from his time out here, describing it as one of his most memorable. I can see why. On a two wheel motorcycle, these endless sweeping curves and switchbacks up and down the mountains would be heavenly. On the sidecar rig, they are still engaging, but at a much slower speed and with considerably more effort. Still, the scenery is marvelous as the land changes from mountains to low foothills, to those curious mounds that look like a giant child has been playing with those sandbox mold toys that make perfect cones or rounded inverted cups. Later the hills change to a series of wrinkled, eroded waves, covered in a light nap of fawn-hued vegetation. The gentle curves of the hills and their color makes me think of thoroughly rumpled bedclothes, with a thin blanket of the softest tan cashmere thrown over them.

Soon I’m on a flat plain, but I think it’s at a high elevation which lets me look around a bit on the straight road. The ranches out here are self-contained, as they must be, since the nearest services are 30 or 40 miles away. I can’t help but think, as I often do when out here, of what it must have been like in the early days to be wandering these hills and plains on a horse, or on foot. Whatever you could see in front of you looked like all the rest around you and you’d still be seeing it tomorrow at a walking pace.

Now that I’m not so focused on the road, I can think a bit about the machine I’m on. Don’t want to jinx myself, but it seems to be running very well, keeping a steady 60 mph on the straight bits at its “happy place” of 4,000 RPM. I love the single piston thump of the engine when it’s at lower revs and the rapid pulse of it up here at the business end of the tach. The sidecar tracks along quite happily beside the motorcycle, but often wants to go its own way when that third wheel gets in a groove or deviation in the pavement. Perhaps it is a metaphor for other kinds of unions, in which two unlike creatures yoke themselves together for what is usually a happy productive endeavor, but every so often one of them wants to go where the other doesn’t.

I’m learning more about handling the rig, experimenting with weight shifts in the corners as I hang off the side. It seems to work best in the tight stuff if I move back to the rear portion of the seat to hang off and feed throttle in slowly as I exit. Yes, I can hear the experienced sidecar drivers out there saying, in unison, “Well, Duh !” but hey, I’m new at this and experimenting to learn. I think Thomas Edison said something like that about his long series of things he tried for an electric light filament. He said something like, “I haven’t failed, I now know several thousand things that won’t work”. I have also learned that it’s best not to push it too hard. It doesn’t change the overall pace much and it seems to require a lot of the machine. Sort of like the old saying, “you can’t teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and it annoys the pig”.

58 comes down out of the hills eventually, near Bakersfield (home of Chet Adkins, if I recall) and goes back and forth trying to decide if it’s a two lane country road or a four lane interstate. It really isn’t either one and it is unbecoming to its dignity to keep making the attempts.

Between Bakersfield and Barstow is the little town of Tehachapi, (all you Linda Ronstadt fans out there sing together, “from Tehachapi to Tonapah, driven every kind of rig that’s ever been maa-aid !”) where the Tehachapi Loop is found. Apparently there are only two 360 degree train track loops, allowing a train to ascend a very steep grade, in the world, one in Japan and the other here in southern California. A long train coming around the loop will cross over itself. That’s a big deal to train buffs, I’m told. There are several people standing at the marker when I arrive, waiting for

Tehachapi Sign

a train to come by. They’ve brought the kids, who are playing on blankets oblivious to whatever is attracting the attention of the adults. I give it fifteen minutes and go on my way, leaving the faithful behind to wait and watch.

The other attraction of this little town is a German bakery, again recommended by Jay, where I stop and consume more than my share of calories for the day, and take away a strudel for tomorrow morning. The place is mobbed, even at a later afternoon hour, so Jay and I must not be the only ones who appreciate it.

At Mojave, I veer off into the old town to take a gander at the airport graveyard, the old planes parked as far as I can see. I guess the lack of rust and humidity is the attraction for those who leave these here.

I’m staying tonight in Barstow at the “Route 66 Motel” with its flashing neon sign, the old cars arranged around its courtyard parking lot and a mural on the wall showing scenes from the cities along the historic route. It is kitsch, I know, but when I was a kid in Ashland, Ky, in the 50’s and early 60’s, I dreamed of someday

The Route 66 Motel

traveling out here. It was these places, perhaps this very one, that I saw in the Life magazine articles about the west. There are few modern amenities here at this one, even now. The room is very small, and the bathroom hardly a closet. In my grad school days I once lived for 6 weeks in an 18 foot travel trailer and it had a shower stall about the same size as this one. There is a round bed in the room, one of the features the motel advertises, but at my size, I must sleep across its diameter. The walls are either badly done plaster or an attempt at recreating adobe…it’s hard to tell which. But I like it here. It fits.

Dinner is two blocks up the street at Rosita’s, which says it’s been serving Rt. 66 visitors since 1951. I had hoped to eat at Plata’s, a Mexican restaurant Jay had taken us to several years ago, but it serves daytime hours only and is now closed. Rosita’s is a good substitute. A chorizo and egg burrito, rice and beans and I’m set for the night. Off to my round bed.