California - Day 5 - driving to Hinckley/Barstow

Barstow/Calico KOA, Yermo

Saturday, 5 March 2022

today's route

Google told me today's drive would take about 3½ hours, and foolishly I sort of believed them.  It took 6½ hours instead.  Oh well.  It happens.

Today I got my first look at California's non-desert terrain, which seems to include far more hills and mountains than I remembered from other times I drove through the state.  In the vicinity of Moreno Valley, I drove through (up and down) some odd looking hills.  Mostly covered in a dusty green and, I guess I'd describe them as folded.

I looked up "folded hills" hoping to find a photo or explanation and on both Bing and Google got absolutely nothing except a zillion entries about the Folded Hills Winery.  But finally I did find one entry from National Geographic (you can always count on them) that contained a whole lot more information than anyone but a geologist would want to know.  The short version is that folded hills occur when tectonic plates shove together - and we all know California is sitting on some tectonic plate lines.  

The illustration they gave said put a tablecloth on a table or a rug on a floor.  Then push the edge, and wrinkles will develop and fold on top of each other.  And unlike with the tablecloth where the table itself doesn't move, it is the Earth's crust itself that's doing the folding over onto itself, being shoved around by the tectonic plates.  What I saw were the folds, not the crust.  But still strange looking.

I left the main roads to drive through the Riverside area a bit.  I passed the University of California Riverside and drove up and down some ordinary roads.  The route included the town of Rialto which its 104,000 residents would seem to qualify for a spot on the map, but it's not on this one.  It has a nice old downtown that looked like a California version of an old downtown.

San Bernardino has just over double Rialto's population and does show on the map in huge letters which seem to me out of proportion to its size - 217,000 folks - and it gets star attention while Rialto isn't on there at all.  San Bernardino seemed to have a very large Hispanic population, based on who I saw on the streets and the names on the shops.

I passed the Sonny Bono Memorial Interchange (really).

On the interstate, I saw a sign saying I was on the Historic Route for the Old Spanish Trail.

And another sign saying, "Avoid Overheating - Turn Off AC Next 15 Miles."  I guess it can get quite warm here during the summer, and the road was climbing steeply.  San Bernardino sits at 1,053' and I climbed to Cajon Summit at 4,190'.

At Victorville, I saw signs for Roy Rogers Drive and Dale Evans Parkway.

The National Weather Service put out a high wind warning until tomorrow at 3 PM, so I wasn't thrilled to be driving in mountains in a largish vehicle.  And then I passed a highway sign saying I was in an area of high winds - which, with the NWS high wind warning, meant extra strong winds.

I wanted to make a side trip to Hinkley, site of Erin Brockovich's first success, because the movie made me curious about what the town looked like.  I can't say I know yet because I could never quite find a town.  I found some houses scattered around, and I saw in the distance a place where more buildings seemed to be clustered together, but I couldn't quite figure out how to get there.  And the roads weren't paved so driving an RV wasn't easy.  And the high winds made blowing dust a real problem.  I didn't see the PG&E plant either, so I obviously missed something, but Google turned out to be no help at all and I couldn't figure it out on my own.  The internet says it's an unincorporated town with 1,915 residents in 2000.  Not exactly current information.

I drove on into Barstow and we gratefully stopped at a small public park with big trees and lots of green grass.  A sign said the City of Barstow Welcomes You to the Crossroads of Opportunity.  In the 2020 census they had 25,415 residents, and they're considered a major transportation hub, with several interstates and several railroads meeting there.

I got lost in trying to get out of town, which turned out to be lucky because when I drove back through I saw a series of murals that were visible only for westbound travelers.  Here's a link that shows what they look like.   http://www.mainstreetmurals.com/murals

The campground was 7 or 8 miles out of town, and the usual directions led me to a road closed due to construction.  Another couple had stopped there ahead of me, they called the campground for alternate instructions, and I followed them to the campground.

And at the campground, I found they'd given me a site that wasn't what I'd asked for and knew I'd hate because it had us facing away from all the other campers. (I sit with my back to the wall in restaurants, too.)  So I had to do some fast talking, but she eventually moved me - as she should since there were plenty of vacant campsites.  It was one of those places where the man was great with people but spent his time on maintenance while the woman was truly lousy with people and worked at the reception desk.  Anyway, I got my site with my back metaphorically to the wall, so I was fine.