Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
allbecomingtoobizarreforme.IgotupheavilyandswitchedtheTVto“Mr.Ed.”Atleast
you know where you are with Mr. Ed.
In the morning I took Interstate 15 south out of Las Vegas, a long, straight drive through
the desert. It's the main route between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, 272 miles away, and
it's like driving across the top of an oven. After about an hour I passed over into Califor-
nia, into a shimmering landscape of bleached earth and patchy creosote bushes called the
Devils Playground. The sunlight glared. The far-off Soda Mountains quivered and distant
cars coming towards me looked like balls of fire, so brilliant was their reflection, and al-
ways ahead on the road there was a slick smear of mirage that disappeared as I drew near
and reappeared further on. Along the shoulder of the road, sometimes out on the desert it-
self, were cars that had failed to complete the journey. Some of them looked to have been
there for a long time.
What an awful place to break down. In the summer, this was one of the hottest spots on
earth. Off to the right, over the parched Avawatz Mountains, was Death Valley, where the
highesttemperatureeverrecordedinAmerica,134degreesFahrenheit,wasloggedin1913
(the world record, in 1922 in Libya, is just 2 degrees higher). But that was the shade tem-
perature. A thermometer lying on the ground in the sun has gone over Z00 degrees. Even
nowinAprilthetemperaturewasnudging90anditwasveryunpleasant.Itwasimpossible
to imagine it almost half as hot again. And yet people live out there, in awful little towns
likeBakerandBarstow,wherethetemperatureoftenstaysover90degreesforl00daysina
row and where they can go ten years without a drop of rain. I pressed on, longing for clear
water and green hills.
One good thing about California is that it doesn't take long to find a complete contrast.
The state has the strangest geography. At Death Valley you have the lowest point in Amer-
ica-282 feet below sea level-and yet practically overlooking it is the highest point in the
country (not counting Alaska)-Mount Whitney, at 14,495 feet. You could, if you wished,
fryaneggontheroofofyourcarinDeathValley,thendrivethirtymilesintothemountains
and quick-freeze it in a snowbank. My original intention was to cross the Sierra Nevadas
bywayofDeathValley(breakingofffromtimetotimetoperformexperimentswitheggs),
but a weather lady on the radio informed me that the mountain passes were all still closed
on account of the recent nasty weather. So I had to make a long and unrewarding detour
across the Mojave Desert, on old Highway 58. This took me past Edwards Air Force Base,
which runs for almost forty miles along the highway behind a seemingly endless stretch of
chain-link fence. The Space Shuttle lands at Edwards, and Chuck Yeager broke the sound
barrier there, so it's really quite a hotshot place, but from the highway I couldn't see any-
thing at all-no planes, no hangars, just mile after mile of tall chain-link fence.
