Diamonds in Baja preview 2 - Tehachapi

Bakersfield was a Californian archipelago in the San Joaquin Sea. After two days of monsoon, half the city was submerged. One of those weird retro-moving storms had traveled slowly from east to west. They were usually caused by Pacific storms coming up against strong high-pressure centers over the Great Basin, which forced them to back up. Sometimes these same high-pressure areas also developed into Santa Ana wind conditions, downing trees in Los Angeles, toppling empty big rigs on the Grapevine, and blowing sandstorms in the deserts.

On the Highway 178 grade, above Bakersfield, rain drained quickly; more quickly as the grade increased. A Dodge Raider cut through the runoff, splashing rooster tails, ascending out of Bakersfield with 4-wheel drive engaged. Jerry Jensen hated Mitsubishi engines, but at least the Raider had a steel-plated protection, solid enough to protect its otherwise soft underbelly from most anything it would encounter in Death Valley.

☼

Jerry was a jaded high-tech worker who lived for his outings. They provided escape from the clean rooms, the secrets, the office politics, and the android bosses who demanded 300%. These safaris allowed him to smell the forest pines, listen to the waves on a rocky shoreline, and explore the secret desert canyons. Wherever he traveled, he took his Olympus cameras and assortment of lenses and filters, so that he would always remember what he had seen. For him life was graphic.

☼

Bakersfield had thrived as a major city along the truck routes ever since the Ridge Route had opened in 1915. Twenty years later, the Ridge Route had been replaced by the Grapevine. The route south into, and out of, Los Angeles had always been perilous, with vehicles losing control on the steep grades and plunging in ‘the somersault of death’ off one of the hairpin turns.

☼

Modern Bakersfield was a major truck stop. Big rigs stopped here just before or just after they took on the perilous Grapevine between Los Angeles and Bakersfield, and the radio stations played trucker music.

☼

Willie Nelson was singing ‘On the Road Again.’ Jerry traditionally listened to Keene Country Radio whenever he climbed this grade. He preferred jazz, but Bakersfield had the best Country-Western station this side of Luckenbach. He sang along to the music and said, “When in Bakersfield do as Buck Owens would” to his friend Irene.

His eyes swung to the left to take in the quickly disappearing East Bakersfield rooftops. Many were covered with plastic tarps held down against the wind by discarded truck and car tires.

Irene rode shotgun. She looked out the window for wild animals. She loved to write and had published a few articles in nature magazines. Her world was literary.

She loved animals, almost as much as she loved Jerry. She loved to get away with him and see the wonder in his eyes. She wanted to provide him with more wonder. She wanted to have his baby.

☼

Approaching the town of Keene the rain slowed and finally stopped. The hills became ablaze with the bobbing waves of golden California poppies dancing in the in the light breeze and glistening with fresh raindrops.

Jerry rounded a curve and pulled onto a too narrow muddy turnout. He stepped out and crossed the road. He took several polarized Kodachromes of the gilded flanks on the other side of the canyon, as a bright rainbow appeared behind the poppies. He was ecstatic at the good fortune of being in the right place at the right time. Jerry’s photography depended more on serendipitous opportunities than on technical expertise.

As he re-crossed the road, replacing his lens cap, a large bull rounded the curve and made a blind pass at Jerry, as though Jerry were waving a cape and wearing a suit of lights. It was a black Kawasaki, leaning way down on the inside with a tall rider wearing a black bandana and a black motorcycle jacket. The bike missed Jerry by suicidal leaning even further into the turn. Attempting to miss Jerry, the biker almost ran into the Raider, which he seemed to only see at the last second. As the bike sped off, Jerry noticed that the back of the leather jacket bore a jagged-cross logo.

Irene, “Jeez, honey! That idiot almost hit you!”

“Yeah! Almost!”

☼

As they approached Tehachapi, someone started to sing ‘Rocky Top,’ but the Tehachapi area was anything but a rocky top. Jerry turned off the radio so that he could concentrate. He took the Tehachapi off ramp, anticipating some local color. It had been years since he was last here. What had happened to the town? All of the local color had been replaced omnipresent plastic McDonald’s and Burger Kings. A quick U-Turn and they were back out onto the highway.

Irene piped up, “Hey Geraldo, I bet you’re grateful now that I got up early and fixed us some nice road snacks.”

Jerry had told her to sleep in, that they would eat lunch in Tehachapi and enjoy the quaint little village. Irene had ignored his request and gotten up early anyway. She had fixed deviled eggs, burritos a la habanera, and added some jalapeño flavored Fritos.

Jerry ignored her. “Someday I wanna come back here and just sit!”

“What you mean just sit? You gonna sit and wait for a chupacabra to come along and suck a goat? I don't see no goats!"

“No! I just wanna to sit and wait for a freight train!”

“¡Órale! What is so important about a train?”

“The grade over the Tehachapis is so great that a freight train, even with four to six locomotives, could not go up or down. The engineers got around the problem by building a 360° bend in the track.”

“Engineering intelligence! They wanted to go in circles?”

“The track doubles back and crosses over itself. This gives the locomotive more track length in which to climb the grade. It’s sort of like stretching the mountain so that it is flatter. It’s a kind of railroad yoga. Sometimes you can reach the unobtainable by just allowing yourself a little more latitude.”

“We’re gonna need hobo yoga if this recession stretches out too much longer.”

☼

Approaching the Tehachapi Summit all radio reception became, at best, intermittent. Even the station that was supposed to explain the countryside was mostly static. They did not need a tour guide to know that they were passing through one of the great wind-energy production fields of the world. All over the hills above them were so many tall drum majorettes standing with their feet apart and twirling their batons.

Irene screamed, “Jeez Geraldo! Isn’t that the guy that almost ran you over?”

Jerry glanced over his shoulder and saw a black motorcycle stopped, with the rider sitting next to it working on something. The rider was pretty well hidden, back from the road with heavy shrubs on three sides. “I dunno! Maybe! They all look alike”.