I did a nice road trip down to Southern California after Thanksgiving. After being relatively restricted in travel since coming back from the UK it was nice to get out and see some different countryside. In the time of Coronavirus traveling was perhaps not the best of things to do but I was careful and didn’t really come into too much contact with anyone - masks all the time, food in the car, etc.
I did see some interesting places along the way however and that always makes a road trip worthwhile.
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| Woolworth's Bakersfield |
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| The Woolworth's Cafeteria |
First stop was in Bakersfield where there was an old Woolworth’s store complete with its original cafeteria. Of course it is not operated by Woolworth’s, they went out of business in 1997, but it is now an antiques market but it retains its signage and its cafeteria. I had a quick look around and bought some old postcards of Santa Barbara.
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| The Kress Department Store, Bakersfield |
Across the road from the Woolworths is an old department store, again now defunct and housing an antiques market, but what a beautiful art deco building. Just a wonderful building that must have been quite grand in its day.
Traveling out from Bakersfield on Highway 58 you quickly pass through some beautiful countryside as you go up into the Tehachapis. Bakersfield and its surrounds down in the plains of the San Joaquin Valley are quite desolate and boring but on the east side of Bakersfield it is beautiful.
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| Cesar Chavez National Monument |
In the foothills of the Tehachapis, in the small town of Keene, is the Cesar Chavez National Monument. I hadn’t heard of this place and I was surprised to find it was a National Monument. It is the place where Cesar lived in later years and from where he did his labor organization work. It is also the place where he is buried. The park and its facilities were closed but I did wander around a little to stretch my legs. It is, to say the least, quite a modest park.
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| The Tehachapi Loop |
Just a few miles beyond Keene, is the world famous, at least among railway enthusiasts, Tehachapi Loop. This loop gains 77 ft in altitude over a 1200 ft diameter circle. I think one of the first of its kind being built in 1870 by the Southern Pacific. The sign says it is one of the 7 wonders of the railroad world.
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| Parked Aircraft at Mojave Airport |
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| Joshua Tree |
From Mojave I went further east to Barstow and then dropped down to Joshua Tree National Park. The Joshua trees are just so majestic and beautiful and I always like driving through the area. Of course in Joshua Tree Park the rocks are impressive too and I had a nice little hike around one of the trails there.
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| Joshua Tree National Park |
For the return trip it was pretty much the same things in reverse. I did time things just right to catch a train going over the Tehachapi Loop which made my day. How impressive to see the front of the train pass over or under the back of the train.
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| Colonel Allensworth State Park |
North from Bakersfield I took a detour to Colonel Allensworth State Park. This turned out to be quite disappointing but nevertheless quite historically important. Colonel Allensworth was born into slavery but escaped to join the Union Army in the Civil War. After the war he became a preacher and moved west. Among many other things he created the town named after him as the only town founded by African Americans in the West. Now it is a collection of preserved buildings and homes in the middle of the cotton fields of the Central Valley. The town died away after Allensworth’s death and during the Reagan governorship it was restored as a state park. It has campsites and a visitor center but no one else was there. There is a railway platform but you have to make special requests for a ticket before the train will stop there.
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