More snow

 2/20- Mountain Valley RV Park, Tehachapi CA

  It dawned a nice sunny if somewhat chilly morning. I took a short walk to gobble down some more of the tangerines. We got off to a slow start trying to find the Walmart in Merced. It’s tough when we have Siri on two different phones each trying to get you to go her way. 

    Route 99 through this part of California is not the road that the chamber of commerce wants tourists driving on. It’s kind of like the back alley of California. We went by lots of industrial areas including super large dairy farms. It’s just there are shopping centers lining the road on one side and grain silos and packing plants on the other. Needless to say it was not particularly scenic. We did drive by acres and acres of flowering trees. Mostly they were almonds but lots of cherry and raisins along with other fruit. All I can say is those must be some awfully busy bees to have to pollinate that many flowers. Then they have to do some regular flowers on the side. 

    It wasn’t all bad as the view to the east, when a semi wasn’t blocking the view was amazing. The mountains had gotten their first real coating of snow and were proudly showing off their new cloaks. 

   Once we got by Bakersfield we started to steadily climb. We went from 300 feet to 4100 feet in 20 miles. It was really slow going as we got stuck behind a line of semis climbing the grade at 40 mph. It wasn’t too bad as we got to take in a bit more scenery as we climbed up through these rolling, grass covered hills. 

    When we finally got up to Tehachapi there was snow on the ground. One road to the campground was closed so we detoured through the town. It looks like they had gotten close to 4-6” yesterday. The entrance road to the campground had not been plowed but enough vehicles had passed that we motored through. It was interesting seeing the desert covered in snow. The campground is part of the airport and they fly mostly glider planes out of here in the summer. It promises to be a cold night so I’m glad we are plugged in. 

   Tomorrow we head back down the hill to Joshua Tree and beyond. 

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