Saying Good-bye to Tehachapi and the PCT

We had one more hike planned before we left Tehachapi, so we headed about 15 miles outside of town for the PCT trail head. That's short hand for the "Pacific Crest Trail" that runs 2,650 miles from Mexico to Canada. Tehachapi is one of the towns along this long hike that is often used as a place to stock-up and clean-up. There was a list of phone numbers for "trail angels" that will give hikers a lift into town for supplies, or a much-needed shower. They also left a nice supply of fresh water and even socks and sunglasses for those long-range hikers.

We headed up the steep path, and found ourselves in a new type of forest--a forest of windmills. There was a sign by the trail head that explained why Tehachapi Pass makes the ideal place for all these windmills. It has to do with the placement of the high pressure from the ocean mixing with the low pressure from the desert, that all comes together through the tunnel of the mountain pass to form the windiest conditions. 

Also, the close proximity to the Los Angeles Basin, means the electricity generated here doesn't have to travel far through transmission lines to get to an energy-hungry city.

After viewing these monsters from afar, we just had to get closer. It takes a microscope, but you can see Denisa standing to the left of the windmill on the right. Another sign at the trail head pointed out that these windmills have grown in size and efficiency since they started here in the early 1980s. First models were 70 feet high while the latest models are over 350 feet. That's higher than the tallest giant Sequoia tree (but that's in another blog).

Besides windmill forests, there were also cactus forests. It looks like more of those Joshua trees have escaped the confines of the national park.

After those big windmills, we had to look close to see some tiny wildflowers along the path.

After the hike, we made our final stop at Kohnen's Bakery, and said our good-byes to our front row spot at Mountain Valley RV park. We've enjoyed our week-long stay in Tehachapi, and we now proudly announce that we can pronounce it correctly 75% of the time.

We headed north out of town, and got a birds-eye view of the green velvet Tehachapi  Mountains as we started down from our 4,000 foot elevation to the valley far below.

We just commented that there should be some cattle grazing on all this lovely grass. As we came down the next descent, we finally saw those specks on the hill--our first herd of cattle in a long time.

As Mark drove the motor home down the mountain, we went from 4,000 feet in elevation all the way down to 400 feet as we passed through Bakersfield, California. Just as a fun fact of full-timing, when you carry a stocked kitchen pantry aboard, you see the curious things that these fast elevation changes do to plastic containers of food. Bakersfield is where the mountains officially change to the most productive agricultural valley in the United States. For the next hour, we would drive with orchards and vineyards surrounding both sides of Highway 99. First there were the miles of citrus orchards,

interspersed with table grape vineyards as far as we could see.

Then there were miles and miles of orchards filled with trees that we couldn't identify. They were already leafed out, but we didn't see any fruit. Denisa just commented that it would certainly be nice if they posted signs along the road to let passing motorists know what crop was growing. That's when we saw the blue sign attached to the fence, "Almonds."

They are obviously a good crop, as we saw more miles of tiny starter trees stretching as far as we could see.

We even passed the headquarters of the company that ships out all those wonderful little halos mandarins. That sign covers an entire building. When you spot the 18-wheelers to the left, you can understand that it would be hard to miss this halo sign along the highway.

It looks like they had just gotten another load of the little orange mandarins. We'll be seeing those in a grocery store near us shortly.

We always enjoy spending time in an agricultural community, watching things grow. Right before we pulled into our camp site at Sun and Fun RV Park in Tulare, we passed the Kraft cheese processing plant. We're also in the middle of the dairy capitol of California. This could be a yummy stop!