We entered California at 11:20 am on September 6, along with quite a few dust-covered cars returning from Burning Man, and got to Santa Cruz county approximately 24 hours later, after a sleepover in San Francisco and a detour through back roads due to Route 1 construction. This blog is about the previous 2 long driving days.

We were expecting to finally see mountains in Oregon, and I-80 did reach its maximum elevation of 8640 feet shortly after we entered that state. We stayed in Laramie, closer to 7100, with racing hearts and trouble breathing all night. The altitude sickness quickly subsided, however, because I-80 is at  lower elevations in the rest of the state, including both times it crosses the Continental Divide. And why not? In Wyoming, it follows the path of the Oregon Trail, and in Utah and Nebraska, the path of one of the California Trails.

The highway is relatively flat because those trails were relatively flat. Flying along at 80+ mph, we could not but think of these hearty souls with all their worldly goods in a wagon, “racing” along at 10-20 miles per day to get from Missouri to California before winter set in. Rivers were their rest stops, providing water, firewood, and grass, and the wagon was their off-road vehicle. Since it had to be dismantled and raised or lowered by ropes over the steeper slopes, these travelers were definitely optimizing for the gentler grades, which we appreciated 150 years later.

The “trail” was still flat but pretty much water-free in Utah and Nevada, one of the California Trails. At the time considered the most grueling trail, the California Trail was nicknamed “The Elephant” because it could not be described adequately, but had to be personally experienced to be comprehended. After seemingly endless deserts, the entry into California is dramatic: the dark green firs of the Teton forest cling to mountainsides, and vehicles crest at Donner Summit before traversing a twisty, 40-mile downhill run with a 5% grade.

Although we didn’t stop for anything, I hear one can still see vestiges of the westward migration, including wagon tracks. I’m not happy about how European-Americans supplanted native humans in North America, but I can only be impressed by these travelers who did so much with so little, whose paths we still follow.