After our continental breakfast at Comfort Inn (free high speed wireless you know!) we refueled and began the trip through Bakersfield to Tehachapi.

As a kid I always wanted to see the Tehachapi Loop in Tehachapi California.

I was into model trains – mostly because all the cool kids were. (That’s a joke, the ‘cool kids’ part anyways.) It is a remarkable turn-of-the-century engineering feat where trains could get across the mountains. For those who aren’t aware – trains don’t go uphills very easily – at all. This is especially true when they are a half-mile long, weighing several hundred tons. Engineers needed to get trains almost 80 feet higher in a short distance. What they came up with was a loop – where the train actually looped over itself. I know it sounds kinda geeky on paper (or in pixels), but in person it was quite a spectacle to behold.

Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

I was explaining to my dad how if we are lucky we might be able to even see a train cross over it’s own tail.

As we pulled up to the loop Dad spotted a train sitting at the top. So we got out at a little side spot below the loop and walked up to try and get a few pics. Those ones are shown here:

It was exciting. But we really wanted to find a higher place to look at the whole loop. We jumped in the truck and kept on going up the road. As we doubled back in the canyon and started climbing up we spotted a half-dozen people milling around. One had a rather large camera on a tripod. We pulled over, stepped out, and sure enough – there was an entire view of the loop. The same short train was still sitting perched on the top.

The man running the camera also had a radio with him and was listening to the train dispatch. Nothing much was happening so people start their cars up and were getting ready to leave. Suddenly we heard a flurry of activity on the radio and a rumble from down in the valley. Another train was approaching.

Off in the distance, we could see (and hear) a train accelerating up the valley. As I had hoped, we saw the train make the loop – and he even crossed his own tail. The train finished the loop and made a pass in front of us.

As quickly as he arrived, he was gone towards Barstow. (Scroll down for video clip)

Excellent trip. Childhood dream fulfilled. One more thing to check off my list.

We kept on going after ‘the Loop’ towards Barstow. We dove south towards I-8 to Yuma, AZ. During that time we went through some of the most desolate and bleak country I have ever seen.

Certain parts of the drive through the mountains and canyons took us through wind farms. Yes, there were literally dozens, and in some cases hundreds, of windmills across hilltops. The windmills themselves looked at least 100 to 150-feet tall with blades that cut a 50-foot diameter (or more) swath through the air. I am sure they have little problems with birds perching and crapping on their windmills. Heheheh.

We were glad to finally hit I-8 and ended up in Yuma, AZ. Dad and I both remarked how it was weird seeing street signs that say “Mexico Next Exit”. Just off exit 14 we were at Uncle Jim’s.

If I ever imagined what a typical house in New Mexico would look like, this would be it. The landscape was xeriscaped to conserve water. We walked in their front door through a stuccoed archway, where some large cacti greeted us. Everything was landscaped perfectly and everything seemed to be where it was supposed to be. It was a great house.

Jim made us some homemade chili – which promptly cleared out any clogging in my sinuses. We heard about their recent trip to Southeast Arizona where they explored some of the old western towns like Tombstone and the Slaughter Ranch.

Before we went to bed we went outside and tried some of the tangelos right off the trees. He pointed out his ruby red grapefruit tree, and some of the other fruit trees.

Dad slept out in their fifth-wheel trailer and I slept in the spare bedroom.

(Funny city namecheck for California: Weed, CA. Balls Ferry, CA.)

Tomorrow: Playing in Yuma. Visiting Aunt Margaret and Uncle George.

More Links on Tehachapi Loop:

• Tehachapi Loop on Wikipedia
• Tehachapi Loop Railroad Club (model train club with a model of the Tehachapi Loop)

Road Trip Links:

• Road Trip: Washington Arrival
• Road Trip Day 1: Shelton to Fresno
• Road Trip Day 2: Fresno to Yuma via Tehachapi (You are here)
• Road Trip Day 3: Yuma, AZ to El Paso, Texas
• Road Trip Day 4: El Paso to Jacksonville, Texas
• Road Trip Day 5: Jacksonville, Texas to Nacogdoches, Texas to Memphis, Tennessee
• Road Trip Day 6 (Part1): Graceland
• Road Trip Day 6 (Part2): Nashville, Tennessee
• Road Trip Day 7: The Road Home