Pahrump, NV, vol.2

Feeling very insecure we took off from Pahrump to California. We were seriously worried that our car would not get there. And our fears came true. We passed the "Thank you for visiting Pahrump" sign, entered California (4 miles from Pahrump), drove another 23 miles through the area looking just like Death Valley and the control light popped up again. Few more miles and there was a smoke coming from under our hood. We stopped to cool it down and considered our options. Go on? Go back? 

"For" going back was to pressure "our" shop to finally fix the car, besides it was just 40 miles whereas to our next destination it was another 120, God knows if we're gonna make it. "Against" - it was Friday evening, they'll be closed until Monday, and once they look at it they would will try to convince us - again - that everything is fine. Besides, our new boondcking host knows a lot about cars so maybe he'll be able to help. And last but not least, one more day in Pahrump and we will simply go crazy… 

Scared to death we went on, stopping every few miles to cool the car down. We even managed to find out what the problem was - transmission would get stuck on third gear, so we couldn't drive very fast. Even worse was that sometimes it wasn't downshifting so going uphill was even more frustating. We called our hosts - Lois and Randy, who after they heard what was going on got into the car and went to meet us. 

The road, luckily, was not very difficult. Interstate going west is pretty flat, and even goes slightly down. The bigger problem was the speed limit - 70 mph, while we could do much less. In California drivers don't really care about speed limits and are not very understanding, so they would pass us by flashing lights and honking. When we went off the highway it got even worse… 

At 10 pm, after over 6 hours drive at average speed twenty something miles per hour (we had a lot of breaks) we met Randy and Lois. They came to pick us up. It was some 40 miles before Rosamond, where they live. They hooked up our trailer to their truck and we went to their place.

Eddie hooked up to Randy and Lois's truck

Rosamond welcomed us with...Christmas lights. At least that's what it looked like. We soon realized that red blinking lights are windmills - the place we stayed at is called "windy acres" and to make sure the wind does not blown in vain they built thousands of small and big windmills that supply electricity to the area. It looks unbelievable at night. Those who live nearby are not too happy though, as it is a bit noisy…

We spent the next day doing laundry, being sick (Paweł this time), talking to our hosts and trying to figure out what to do next. Randy called Jeep dealer for us and scheduled us for Tuesday. Until then we saw the main attractions in the area: "cats' house" which is a mini-zoo taking care of endangered cats, train loop in Tehachapi and music street Lancaster (simple but neat).

Maciek and uncle Randy

Cats' house is a name for EFBC's Feline Conservation Center, a shelter for around seventy different species of cats, most of them endangered. The fee is 7 USD and even though this mini-zoo is tiny, it's quite interesting. A walk around, even with long stops (cats are not always posing outside) takes about 2 hours. We were invited by our hosts it was a really nice Sunday walk with them and their son Andy.

Kitty

Train loop in Tehachapi was a test for our jeep which, as we found out, without a trailer isn't doing so bad, even in the mountains. Too bad that pulling a trailer is what we need it for... And the train loop was really cool - it was built in a very picturesque gorge, when at the end of 19th century the engineers designing the railroad faced a problem of large difference of levels at a short distance. If the railroad was running straight through it the trains would not make it, they would just slip on tracks. That's why the loop was built.

What's unusual about this loop is that the train looks as if it's eating its own tail - even not very long trains go in circle and then pass 20 meters beneath itself in a tunnel. To make it more interesting, Lois' grandfather was one of the first railwayman who was riding the loop once it was completed (by the Chinese of course).

Loop

Music street was a nice break from all the stress and sickness. On part of G street (Lancaster area has streets named after letter and crossed by streets named after numbers - good way to avoid historical and political conflicts and to save some money on street names committee members salaries) the asphalt is notched in a way that the car's wheels are playing part of the overture of Rossini's "Wilhelm Tell". You just have to keep left and drive 55 mph. Pretty funny. We drove it a few times. According to what we found on Internet about it the street was created for Honda's advertisement. It was in town center back then, but once it became a local attraction people who lived nearby started complaining about the noise. That's when it was moved by the airport where nobody lives. 

On Tuesday the car was checked by the dealer guys. As it usually happens in dealershops we found out that we had to replace the entire cooling system, and for just opening and diagnosing the transmission they wanted 1700 USD. In total, they said, it would be 4100 USD!!! We said no, thank you and we tried to explain them our situation more clearly, so they would realize that we're not going to pay, but at the same time to make them want to help us. 

And so they did help us. After a short discussion we found out that the cooling system isn't really that bad and what really needs to be fixed is the transmission. Dealer's advice was not to give it to any shop other than his shop, but vision of spending another hundreds of dollars was not something we were looking forward to. That's why we decided to go back to Pahrump. 

Those few hours that we spent with Randy waiting for dealer's diagnosis we spent running some errands in the area. That's when we've decided it's time for writing a post that we had in mind for a while now - about American military and role of it in American society from small towns' point of view. We'll get to it some day. 

Rosamond area is very military, mostly because of the military base nearby, in Edwards. Additionally there are many different civilian air companies. Let's just say that at the barber's we went to were 3 newspapers: local, overlocal and "Air Industry". In Rosamond/Lancaster/Edwards there is a huge research and development center of Boeing, Northop-Grumman (manufacturer of nuclear submarines and B-2 fighters) has its hangar here. There is also NASA center. 

Randy had a few stories about military. A few times he mentioned that the most interesting ones he'd keep to himself, as they are related to ongoing things or are "top secret", but he shared a few other. We liked them, especially as an example of American "out of the box" thinking. 

One was about a guy Randy worked for. He was making different things out of plexi. In 1960s some men from Boeing visited him. They said they had a problem with windshields for their new jets. Anything they make in their laboratories would break. They offered the guy million dollars if he came up with the solution. They said they believed in him because they had seen some of his products. The guy was not interested. After they insisted he finally agreed. He went to Boeing, worked for a while with engineers, came up with the sollution and got the money. 

What would happen if the situation took place in Poland? Never ever any development department would agree to hire some manufacturer. It would be a shame if he was smarter than their specialists! And a good excuse to fire development department manager if needed. Here this was not a problem. Solution was found, everyone was happy.

Randy used to work also for local companies that were contracted by NASA, and, of course, directly for the army. He did something for a while with Black Bird. Pawel was really proud of himself that he actually new something about this plane. After all we've seen it in Alabama. It was pretty good looking and effective survilance supersonic jet mostly for spying Russians, but it was quickly replaced by satellites. 

After seing the area, it was time for a battle. With a written report from the dealer and ready to fight we got up next day at 4 am (!) and we went, without a trailer, back to our favourite place in Nevada. We got there at 8.30. There was no fight. "Our" shop took the car after saying "sorry". We warned them that we were coming so they even ordered some new parts in advance (including selenoids which is a part responsible for shifting gears). 

Next day, late in the afternoon, we picked up the car. According to Russ, the owner of Bulletproof Transmissions, it was something with electronics, we won't go into details, anyway, they fixed it at no additional cost and they installed an extra cooling for transmission as a gratis. We hope our dear readers won't have to read about our car problems ever again. 

We stayed that night in a hotel. We lost 20 USD in the casino (at least we tried), we found out that PowerBall is illegal in Nevada (probably because with 2 USD it's not a real gambling), we met some nice people (our old friend Patrick, our new friend Richard) and we spent a few hours bowling (we would like to thank Lorie for special treatment and free shoes). At the end it was getting more and more difficult to actually get to our alley - everyone would greet us and ask how we are and how is our jeep…

To sum up: Pahrump is a great base camp for seeing a Death Valley and a nice place to stop for 2-3 days. Nice people, good and cheap food, bowling, casino. We hope we'll be back, just not too soon, maybe in a few years time, we have to come back to finally see Death Valley properly. 

We picked up the car after 4 pm, we thought for a second about going for dinner buffet for a very last time, but we wanted to get back to California as quickly as possible. We got a full tank of cheap, Nevadian gas, cheaper than Californian, and we took off. 

Our long stay in Pahrump made us rethink our plans. But we will get to this later, after some map-reading.