The Great American Road Trip Detour

BREAKING NEWS:  Flash Flood, Mud Slides, Rock Slides- video shots show cars and trucks avalanched by mud cascading off desert mountain walls.

As we left Sequoia NP, the sprinkles had begun and we observed off to the south a huge, dark cloud, heard rumbles of thunder, and saw jagged cloud to cloud lightning. A good, slow, soaking, steady rain would be good for this dry, parched area, we thought.

Thing is, when the rain comes so hard and fast, it makes mudpies that slide right off the side of the mountains, creating larger and larger mudpies, dragging rocks and boulders with the mud.

We did not know that circumstance as we were making the hairpin switchbacks coming down from Sequoia. It had not affected the area where we were touring and neither of us anticipated any trouble. 

Neither did we know that our sleep-cheap motel was in “downtown” Visalia (an entirely different story to be related, maybe, later). We drove, instead, on down Hwy 99 S to Delano, CA, where the hostess told us they’d had a deluge.

The following morning, we set our GPS for Henderson, NV, located strategically between Vegas and Hoover Dam. About two minutes out of Barksdale, CA, we saw evidence of what happens in this kind of desert environment. Rock and mud slides had closed 58 E. Flashing signs were being placed in the median by state Highway Guys.

Quick like a flash of evening lightning, Marvin cut the median and wheeled around into the return to sender direction. He drove 25 feet and pulled onto the median, parked, and approached the State Highway worker for information.

The short of it is this: there’s a long way to Vegas.

The worker explained how to detour around the incident, though the route would be “a long and winding road” to Isabella Lake on Hwy 178 N, over to 395 S, on the other side of a Sierra Nevada mountain range.

We pulled across and whipped on over to the Cheyenne exit, we and about a hundred other vehicles; the 18-wheelers had already pulled off the road and were preparing for a long overnight because 58 E would not be open for another day.

I met a family traveling to Vegas and chatted with them while Marvin topped off the gas tank at a local station. 

Off we went on another High Sierra desert adventure filled with natural sage grass, tumbleweed, and cactus tree landscapes. Also growing with irrigation were lemon, orange, and even some almond trees.

The opportunity to see this western countryside has provided us with greater appreciation for the bounty produced in America. We’ve also been awestruck by the different kinds of beauty stretching as far as the eye can see.