Tehachapi Mountains

Our travel from Lodi to Bakersfield to Temecula took us on interstate 5 and two lane highways. The photographs below chronicle the second half of the trip.

I-5 accomplished the goal of quick travel to just north of Bakersfield. We then switched to CA 46 and then to CA 99 to Bakersfield.

From Bakersfield, we traveled CA 58 through the Tehachapi Mountains and the Tehachapi Pass, at an elevation of 3,793 feet, between the San Joaquin Valley and the Mojave Desert.

While the brown color of the mountains may not reach the description of "beautiful" on a grand scale, the roadways, fences, and rolling hills create smaller scenes that provide interest based on shading, contrast, and intriguing questions for travelers. Just take time to look.

The photos here covered our travels on CA 58. (They are not necessarily shown in the order that we observed these scenes.)

For several miles, we observed what I thought was a fog bank. From a bit of research, I wonder if this was an example of tule (too-lee) fog.

Given my uncertainty, I hesitate to elaborate, but forging ahead, tule fog is a very thick fog "that is created because warm air rises.

"Cold mountain air descends into the valley during the night and becomes trapped due to low air drainage throughout the Central Valley.

"The cooler temperatures and reduced sunlight of the winter months make fog very slow to burn off, and it can persist for days.

"The air above is warmer, drier, and lighter, further serving to trap the heavy, humid fog within the valley" (wisegeek.com/what-is-tule-fog).

Even if it isn't tule fog, I still like the effect of this fog amidst the hills.

We passed near Edwards Air Force Base and could see several planes of the Atlas Air fleet, which provides air cargo services, at this terminal.

We also passed what I think was the Tehachapi Pass Wind Farm, one of the first large-scale wind farms installed in the U.S. Wind development in the Tehachapi Pass began in the early 1980s. The area hosts a multitude of wind farms, comprising one of California's largest wind resource areas. The pass is undergoing much repowering activity. The area has multiple generations of wind turbine technology installed,

We assumed that the turbine blades were on the way to one of these wind farms.

We just liked the differences in this group of towers.

Coming down the mountains, we headed south on US 395, I-15, and I-215 into Temecula.