I continued up to the third floor to the Classic Car Collection. This turned out to be an appropriate name for this unusual collection of vehicles. There are old antique automobiles as well as fairly new and unusual cars. One care that sticks in my mind was a four wheel drive Cadillac. I'm not sure of the year, but the car was made with a standard Cadillac body mounted on a Chevy Suburban chassis. The car is a one-of-a-kind vehicle produced by General Motors for a friend of the CEO at the time. The car was so high off the ground that it would take a small step ladder to get in the vehicle. Another unusual car was a 1952 Muntz sports car.

A rare 1952 Muntz automobile

After seeing all of the vehicles in the collection, I went back to the motorhome. There I checked my e-mail and caught up on my trip notes. Kay came back to the motorhome at about noon so we could get back on the road.

This is Kay's corner of the motorhome when we are on the road

Our drive across the desert between Needles and Barstow was fairly routine. We saw the usual vistas consisting of wide open desert valleys with mountain tops sticking up through what looks like a bed of rock and gravel. The valleys always look bigger out in the desert.

Here rocky mountain tops appear to be poking through a bed of gravel

Just before reaching Barstow, we saw another wind storm come up. Just between the town of Gale and Barstow, the wind stirred up a cloud of white dust that made the structures in the valley disappear. I am guessing that the white dust is borax, which occurs naturally in this area. We drove on into Barstow to refuel and while in the gas station the wind rocked the motorhome. I was a bit concerned about driving in such strong wind.

I determined that once we were out on highway 58 we would be driving directly into the wind most of the time. So I drove out on I-15 to get to 58 and we had to drive with a cross wind for a short time. At one time a gust of wind hit the side of the motorhome so hard that it sounded as if someone hit it with a rubber mallet. It was very startling as the motorhome jerked sideways and then back to its original path.

Finally, after about 3 or 4 miles we were headed into the wind, but this caused a minor problem. The wind was so strong that the motorhome transmission would not stay in overdrive. Also, I was unable to use cruise control for the same reason I couldn’t keep the transmission in overdrive.

The last sunset on our 1999 Thanksgiving road trip

The wind stayed with us all the way to Mojave, California, but it wasn't as strong in town. The sun had just set, so the lighting was rapidly fading. While we were going through the town of Mojave, we saw the biggest "Wide Load" I've ever seen on any roadway.

The typical wide loads I've seen on the highways have been farm machinery and double wide mobile homes. These wide loads will usually take up one whole lane and a small amount of a second lane. The length may be as long as 40 to 50 feet. As wide as the loads are, there is room to pass them carefully. The truck pulling the wide load will be proceeded by a vehicle with flashing lights and another vehicle will sometimes follow behind the wide load.

The wide load we saw in Mojave was probably 100 feet long and wide enough to take up two full lanes of the highway. The cargo was some kind of huge pipe structure with very large flanges. There were three vehicles, with flashing lights, in front of the truck pulling the wide load. One vehicle stayed in the center of the road while the other two raced ahead to block traffic from side streets and turn lanes.

There must have been 100 or more tires under the truck and semi-trailer. The trailer had a second normal sized truck connected to the rear of the trailer by what looked like a tow-bar mechanism. The linkage between the back of the huge trailer and the front of the truck allowed the rear truck to steer the back wheels of the trailer. The trailer was so long, it had to be steered at both ends. This whole parade was followed by a single truck with flashing lights.

I would really have liked to get a picture of that wide load rig, but with the heavy traffic and the failing light, I thought it would be safer for me to concentrate on my driving.

I drove out of town and headed for the incline that would take us up to Tehachapi. The clouds were racing over the mountain ridges making it difficult to see the wind powered generators that now cover the mountain side. The support structure of one of the generators had been strung with Christmas lights, making the tower stand out in the cloudy darkness.

The drive over the Tehachapi Mountains went smoothly. I didn't seem long until the lights of Bakersfield were visible in the valley below. I drove through town to have dinner at a Burger King across from The Flying J north of Bakersfield on Highway 99. After dinner, I drove north on 99 to find Highway 46 where I turned east. This would take us to the town of Wasco just 5 or 6 miles west of 99.

Because we were going to a Venture Outers RV club outing for the weekend, we stopped at a grocery store in Wasco to get a few items we would need at the outing. From Wasco, I drove through the night to the San Luis RV Park at Santa Nella. We arrived at about 10 o'clock and found our way to a campsite for the night.

The last campsite on our trip this year

We attended the Venture Outers RV Club's December Christmas outing on Friday, Saturday and part of Sunday.