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DAY: 24  DATE: Wednesday, July 11   MILES: 306  TOTAL MILES: 3792

LOCATION: Oceanside, CA

COMMENTS:

    With Connie waiting to get a cab to the airport, I'm out the door at 4:30am with the temperature around 97. I want to get across the Mojave Desert alive and not become one of those bleached out skulls you see hanging on the wall. Not only did I have to concern myself with the heat but there was a chance of severe weather as in thunderstorms. The folks in Vegas were talking of monsoon season. Hello, anyone home, the average rainfall for July in Vegas is 0.44 inches, less than 1/2 inch, not exactly what I call monsoon season. I guess if you get zero for most of the year, 0.44 is a monsoon. Like the earth is small when compared to the sun.

    No rain, though I did see a thunderstorm crackling away over some mountains to the right as I neared the California border. Temperatures continued to drop until it was 63 near San Bernardino in the marine layer. But the temperature wasn't the only thing to get hot on ol' I-15. As I mentioned last year, the traffic between Vegas and LA is pretty steady. The speed limit for trucks and pulling a trailer is 55 while the rest can do 70. Then as you cross the mountains trucks slow to 45. One of the few times I actually passed someone I look in my rearview mirror to get back in the right lane and there is all of a sudden a car right on my butt. I have my blinker on and am already part way into the right lane when this idiot zooms around me on the right missing me by a foot or so. I yell &&^%$ and flip him off. BIG MISTAKE! The guy goes bonkers and starts swerving all over the road. I thought he was going to lose control and flip. Then he slams on his breaks and slows to about 20, on the interstate. Me and all the traffic behind me slow way down watching this. I'm thinking, 1. No way I'm going to let this guy get behind me and 2. What if all this traffic weren't here, I'd be roadkill found at daylight along the Interstate in the desert, not a doubt in my mind. Anyway, after a couple of minutes they scream out of there and are long gone. Now I'm thinking where are they waiting for me. So I make sure I stick with the traffic. While I'm gassing up 30 miles later in Baker, CA, I see emergency vehicles zipping out of town onto the Interstate and I think great, an accident and we'll be crawling at best. 10 or so miles later,  guess who ... cops all around and the front end caved in? Snowfo learned a BIG LESSON and lived to tell it.

    After that little episode the rest was really small potatoes. Last year I took I-15 through San Bernardino and Riverside during rush hour and I was traumatized. This year I decided to take a shot at I-215, not a good idea. Not only is there still a lot of traffic but, there is also a lot of construction. In Riverside, in the midst of this construction, there is a little 8-1/2 x 11 sign saying to make the next right for I-215. I start to make the right and a little 3 x 5 card sign says this is for, I think, Rt 60. I sneak back into the traffic and low and behold there is another 3 x 5 card by the next exit 4 feet further saying  no, really turn ... now for I-215.

    Pulled into Kim's and Dave's drive at 10am. I survived and am ready for a case of beer.