Wednesday morning we packed up, returned the car and set off north. The weather was now in the 90's, which you would expect in the desert. Our route was to travel back to the I15, go north and take the 395 to Kramer Junction then to Mojave for the night. from there we will join the 99 and travel through Bakersfield to Fresno, where our Bluegrass festival is.
The little stretch of I15 north of San Bernadino is a long treacherous climb of more than 2000ft, we opted to take the truck lane and travel slowly, even so we had to turn off the A/C to keep the water temp normal, even with or uprated radiator. Once over the top we made good time along the very straight 395 to the curious Kramer Junction. Just a crossroad in the desert, but thriving on the trucks that pass through. It was busy enough to have traffic jams at the junction. We stopped for a freshen up at the Pilot Station there.
Turning West we drove through Boron, with its massive Borax mines and then along the northern boundary of the masssive Edwards Air Force Base - didn't even see any buildings or runways it is so big.
Mojave is a town situated to the North West of Edwards. It is an interesting place. It is quite industrially active. We were camped just beside its huge airport, whose three principle activities seem to be a storage dump for unwanted aircraft - huge 747s, Airbuses etc. are lined up waiting .... for what? Also a storeage area for wind turbines. To the West of Mojave are hundreds of wind turbines and the airport is used as a distribution centre for them - they are very large when you see them on the ground. Lastly, and most intriguingly, it is the home of Richard Branson's Space Plane, although we have not seen it,this is where it is being developed and built, though it will fly from an airfield in New Mexico, on the west side of the White Sands Missile Base.
On the west side of town there is a long ridge, which is completed covered by hundreds of wind turbines.
Mojave must also be a rail junction as we heard locos moving constantly through the night and saw some really large trains moving through.
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