Road trip! Part 1

My friends and I set off on a 200 mile road trip today to Tehachapi, the Caliente train curve, Lake Isabella, and Mojave. Lots of driving and lots of sights! I planned this trip and we set off towards Palmdale via the road that drives along the San Andreas fault. Fortunately we made it through without triggering the 'Big One'. We traversed the flat land around north of Palmdale and headed for the wind farms near Tehachapi. The wind turbines generate 34.5 megawatts according to the sign at the wind farm office. The giant blades create a low frequency rumbling that reminded me of ocean going ships heard from a distance. The sense of power from these massed machines was pretty awe inspiring for me. Since the temp was reading about 38F at this time everyone else was just cold and wanted to go on.

(click on the pictures for a larger view)

The trusty vehicles

Another view. There were hundreds of wind turbines of all sizes for miles around

We drove on further up into the hills and into snow. We passed by Tehachapi and on to Caliente and the Caliente railroad curve. This is everything that the horseshoe curve in PA isn't; the main thing being that you can actually see the trains here! This looks for all the world like a Christmas time model train. The track curves around in a counter clockwise spiral so that the almost mile long train crosses over itself and is in two tunnels almost a mile apart!

The history of the curve

The train starting up the spiral. The rest of the train is down below about a half mile behind

The train headed for a tunnel where we were parked. The rest of the train is still spiraling up! The engineer tooted the air horn for us as he passed. My camera batteries died at this point so no more pictures from my trusty camera! After here we drove up further into the hills and into rain, snow and cold. We headed for Bodfish and Lake Isabella. After a tasty lunch in a small cafe in Bodfish we turned up into the mountains and even more snow. More in part 2!