I have too much to write. I won't get to all of it. I won't remember all that I want to write.
I had a wonderful trip back from Los Angeles to Grapevine (Dallas area, Texas). I drove alone. May will stay in California for awhile; our granddaughters are there for one more week.
What a great road trip. I drove straight through, taking naps along the way. I left at 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time, on Tuesday, and arrived home at 5:00 a.m. Central Time, early this morning. I'll get the mileage later.
I had a number of CDs that helped me get through periods of lousy radio reception. I had forgotten I had this Johnny Cash CD, released in 2014, of recordings from the early 1980s that had been previously released. Except for maybe three songs I did not particularly care for (but even those three were very, very good), I was blown away by the album. From wiki:
Out Among the Stars is a posthumous studio album from Johnny Cash, released through Legacy Recordings on March 25, 2014. The recordings come from lost 1980s sessions with famed countrypolitan producer Billy Sherrill which were shelved by Cash's record company, Columbia Records, and discovered by Cash's son John Carter Cash in 2012.
Cash also recorded the 1981 album The Baron with Sherrill in an attempt to turn around his dismal album sales but the strategy did not work, leaving his record executives eager to end his affiliation with the label.
The album also doubles as a posthumous release for singer June Carter Cash, Johnny Cash's wife, who is featured on vocals on two tracks, and for Minnie Pearl and Waylon Jennings, who provide vocals on two other songs.Much could be said about the album, but I will simply say this: it was great to hear Waylon Jennings' voice again.
I will use the album as a jumping-off point for another post later on, if I remember.
I'm Moving On, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings
I was driving alone, so I could set the speakers in the minivan the way I wanted, and could play the music really loudly. I heard things in the album I would not have heard otherwise.
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My Route
San Pedro -- short segment on I-110 north to California Highway 91; then north on I-605 (memo to self: in the future, avoid at all costs); then east on I-210 (even worse than the 605, and this was 4:00 p.m., hardly rush hour).
North on I-15. The temperature peaked at about 94 degrees, well below the 115 degrees we experienced coming out a couple weeks earlier. Traffic heavy. Over the Cajon Pass (if that's the correct name), traffic was at a complete standstill for about 3 miles on the southbound side; my direction was moving nicely. They are widening the uphill side of the interstate from about 3 or 4 lanes to 5 or 6 lanes it appears.
At Barstow, somewhere around Barstow, I turned right on I-40, headed toward Albuquerque, and not north on the I-15 to Las Vegas. Perhaps another time (although I took that route about a year ago).
I'll come back to this later, but Needles has an interesting history which I noted in one of the books I was reading on the trip back. I bypassed Bullhead City and drove straight on Kingman.
I opened the windows driving through the Flagstaff area: the smell of pine in this area is the absolute best along this route. The skies were clear; I watched for "shooting stars" but saw none.
I needed to get home quickly so no side trip to the Grand Canyon. I slept somewhere in a rest stop in this area. I never limit my naps when traveling. I nap as long as I want. If I wake up and drive one mile and still feel sleepy, I pull off and sleep again. If I'm not asleep in 15 minutes, I start driving again. I never, never drive sleepy.
The truck traffic on I-40 was quite heavy. I love driving with the trucks. Very, very professional driving. I do what I can to stay out of their way. I drive very slowly, generally about 59 mph or 61 mph.
Later in the trip, when the speed limit was 75 in Texas, the minivan was feeling so good, it was hard to stay below 75, but that was for only very short periods, when I was "in the groove." More on that later.
I traveled most of Arizona through the night.
I traveled all of New Mexico in daylight. I think the stretch between the Arizona state line and Albuquerque is the most beautiful stretch in the whole Los Angeles -- I-40 -- Dallas drive. Wow, that's beautiful. I drove that segment slowly, only about 59 mph on the freeway. Traffic was relatively heavy. I missed the monsoons that come up in the western part of the state later in the afternoon this time of the year.
Somewhere in this stretch of New Mexico I took a long rest area stop to do some serious reading. I wrote some notes which I will transcribe later.
From Albuquerque to Amarillo it seemed to drag a big. Wow, it felt good to cross into Texas. That's when I found the Johnny Cash CD -- I did not know I had it with me, and I don't recall having listened to it before. Johnny cash mentions Texas in the very first line in the very first track of that album, and I played the album literally as I was just entering Texas. What a coincidence. "Out Among the Stars" was perfect for nighttime driving just as I enter Texas in the dark of the night: it's midnight at a liquor store in Texas... and then a "Ferguson story."
And then it began. Three hundred sixty three miles of being "in the groove." The last 350 miles between 10:00 p.m. and and 5:00 a.m. was pure bliss. The music was loud, I had just filled the minivan with gasoline at $2.49/gallon (compared with $4.69/gallon when I left San Pedro) and the minivan felt as good as it had ever felt. The air was a bit cooler at about 75 degrees if I recall. The highway between Amarillo is a state highway, four-lane divided, with a speed limit of 75 mph slowing to 55 or less going through the few towns along the way.
The road was essentially empty; an occasional 18-wheeler passed at 80 mph, I suppose. I probably drove some of the stretch at 70 mph, enjoying the curves, the pitch-black night (I don't recall the moon being out). Again, I watched for meteors; saw none.
I got lost somewhere northwest of Ft Worth -- relatively lost -- I don't have GPS. I had to stop to check the map. Relatively lost because I knew that if I stayed north and east of Ft Worth I would eventually get to landmarks I recognized. A few miles north of the NASCAR Texas Motor Speedway and I knew exactly where I was.
I stopped along the way once to get some more gas. I prefer never to let the tank get much below 3/4's full when I'm driving cross country. Frequent stops allow me chance to get out and stretch. I almost never get down to less than half a tank. Also, paying $20/"fill-up" seems less painful than $60/"fill-up."
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When driving along for 30 hours or more, one gets a chance to think about a lot of things. I will expand on some of those thoughts later, especially my thoughts regarding the Bakken. But that will have to wait; I'm off to see our youngest granddaughter, age one year, to take her swimming.
Note: this has not been proofread. I assume there are typographical and factual errors which i will correct later.
By the way, this song on the album reminded me of a rockabilly song out of Europe. After re-listening to the latter, maybe the similarity is not as much as I had originally thought.
Regardless, while searching for another video, I came across this, which is pretty good:
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