Alabama Folks California Bound

Executive wrote:
Hwy 58 will take you into Bakersfield, good road, but a long downgrade from Tehachapi into Bakersfield. We've come that way many times.

A couple things to watch for. Just outside Mojave is a bone yard of sorts for all the unused airline aircraft. Hundreds of planes, from 747s on down all stored in the desert. Watch for it. As you continue west into Tehachapi there's a Loves that has the cheapest fuel prices @ exit 151.

Further west is the town of Keene, Exit 139. There's a market there with a post office across the street. Park your rig at the market and take the toad to visit the Tehachapi Loop. Whether you're a railroad fan or not it's well worth the effort and time it takes to visit it. With about 40 trains per day, you won't have to wait too long to see one come by. The Tehachapi Loop is a railroad 'spiral', meaning the tracks spiral up because of the long grade. As the engines pull the cars up the hill they will cross over themselves as they make their way up the hill. The only one of it's kind in the world and an engineering feat of it's day. It was designed and built back in 1874 and is still in use today. There are great viewing places all along the road and it's well marked. Pull off the road and walk about 40 yards along a well marked path to an overlook.

On Hwy 58 just before Bakersfield there's a campground if you're planning on staying near there. It's called Orange Grove RV Park at Exit 119. The park is set in an orange grove and feel free to pick as much citrus as you like. Nice park.

Have fun, but take some time to visit things along the way. If you want to continue west to Hwy 101, take the Hwy 46 exit towards Paso Robles. This is the road James Dean was killed on and there's a memorial to him at the intersection of 46 and 41. Enjoy your trip....Dennis

Tehachapi Loop
Orange Grove RV Park
James Dean Memorial Junction

Agree with Executive on Orange Groove RV Park being a great place to stay. Ditto for stopping at the Tehachapi Railroad. DW & I also went to town of Tehachapi & toured the rail museum, (a must see). We also stopped at the new National Veterans Memorial Cemetary (just west of Tehachapi).

We just came through this area (heading east) back in Oct 2013. We had a bad experience on Hwy 40 just before getting to Needles at the state line. This was the most horrible section of Hwy in the whole 8000 miles of our vacation through 13 states.

The road was so bad (again on east side) that we had to slow to a crawl to get across numerous bridges that were at different elevation than roadway. It busted the bottom out of one of our cabinets in our 2010 FR Blueridge 5w. Maybe the west side of I40 leaving Needles is better.

The polititians kept us from stopping at G Canyon, so we just turned north & went to Boulder City, Nevada area, (Canyon Trails RV is place to stay). We enjoyed touring H Dam. They have a nice museum in an old motel that details construction of the dam.