Mojave Road—West
MVP:
Ramona (2019 Chevy Colorado)—I drove from around 7:30AM until 8:00PM (about 12 hrs of driving) and Ramona again handled the work without any complaint. She is a champ.
What I Learned:
Driving sand dunes with traction control turned off is just so much fun—inducing drifts, spinning tires from a stop, slipping while going uphill... Just so much fun!
For the first time in my life I stood underneath a bridge while a train roared past me. It was exhilarating!
Next time, I think I should plan to add a day or two to the Mojave Road journey as after the fact, I now wish I had hiked a few of the sights that I saw. Especially the cinder cone that I saw from my campsite.
I should have brought my drone as I could have flown it over the water crossings. That would have been fun.
I was feeling pretty good until I got to Highway 5. Then, the holiday traffic started and it added almost 2 hours of driving time. This really sapped my energy and when I got home, I felt exhausted. I really should have scheduled my visit to the Mojave so that my travel days aren’t on a holiday weekend.
For the first time in a long time, when I stopped by a gas station for snacks, I skipped over coke and chose sparkling water. The last few months I spent replacing coke with carbonated water did its job and I really didn’t feel like drinking coke.
Fears Overcome:
Deeper Water Crossings—Since I heard about the Mojave Road, I was excited for the water crossings near Afton Canyon. Of course, with Diesel engines, if water got into the air intake, it could be fatal to the engine, so I had quite a bit of fear. Fortunately, the east crossing only happened to be about 18-20 inches, and the west crossing was less than a foot of water. I was so excited that for the east crossing, I even forgot to engage 4x4!
Suspension Breakdown—With the Mojave Road being 150 miles long, I was worried about my factory shocks. With 40k+ miles on them, I wasn’t sure if they could stand the punishment of the Mojave Road. Well, these OEM shocks withstood the punishment and did their job.
Media Consumed:
Beyond Band of Brothers—finished!
What Happened?
I got really deep sleep (didn’t wake up once!) and woke up fully rested at 6:45AM. I thought about breakfast, but I was feeling full, so I packed up and started my drive.
The Mojave Road was familiar to me at this point, and although there were not many spots to fly as I had yesterday, I still had tons of fun driving the road. The highlights were the Traveller’s Monument, slot canyons, and the two water crossings near Afton Canyon.
At the Traveller’s Monument, I left three rocks for myself and my kids, and looked around for Bound For Nowhere’s rock, but didn’t see it (I mean, they left it more than a year and a half ago, so it was a long shot). I then found the hidden message in the middle, which gave me a chuckle.
I must also add that it was so awesome to have the piles of rocks that would signify that I was on the right road. I mean, I had my iPad with my GPS reading, but still, the piles of rocks allowed me to just engage in the driving full time and it made it that much more enjoyable.
After the water crossings, there was still a bit of the Mojave Road to drive, but it was bittersweet as I knew the fun driving was soon ending, and I’d have to drive 6+ hrs back to San Jose. I got to the end of the road, aired up my tires, and drove home.