April 2017
After San Luis Obispo we spent two nights at the River Run RV Park in Bakersfield, California. Bakersfield, whose outskirts are oil wells and farm fields, has kind of a bad rep. But other than traffic congestion -- the city is just not set up to handle lots of cars, plus there was road construction everywhere -- it was a pleasant stop. The RV park had a nice walking path on the shore of the Kern River. And a great brew pub was nearby. So no complaints from us.
Along the way to Bakersfield we passed the spot where 24-year-old James Dean was killed driving to a car racing competition. He crashed his new Porsche Spyder in 1955 at the junction of California State 46 and 41. We’d known James Dean died in a car crash but didn’t know the details, so seeing signs about the crash lead to reading up on the rebel without a cause. Dean's Porsche collided with a Ford Tudor driven by 23-year-old Cal Poly student with the interesting name of Donald Turnupseed. Mr. Turnupseed lived in nearby Tulare and was found not to be responsible for the accident, nor was Dean. Mr Turnupseed went on to own a successful electrical contracting business until his death in 1995 at age 63. We read that he spoke of the accident to police and did one media interview -- then he never spoke publicly of the crash again.
After Bakersfield we spent one night at the Desert Springs RV park east of Barstow near Daggett, CA. There’s not much in the way of RV parks around Barstow, and Daggett is probably not a vacation destination for most people. But the park managers were nice and our spot was level. That's about all we can ask in the middle of nowhere. We didn’t even unhook the tow car. We parked, ate, read/watched TV, and hit the bed.
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I remember the walk along the Kern River in Bakersfield (and next to the RV park where we stayed) as being much prettier than my photography shows. Bakersfield is the county seat of California's, Kern County, which Wikipedia says is the most productive oil producing county in the US, and the fourth most productive agricultural producing county by value in the US.
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| Wind turbines as seen on the way to Daggett. |
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| Our campground in the middle of sparsely populated Daggett, California. Per Wikipedia, for two years the famous "20 mule teams" hauled borax from Death Valley to the railroad in Daggett. Wiki also says that part of the 1940's movie "Grapes of Wrath" was filmed there and that part of the world's second largest solar thermal energy generating system is located nearby. |
The intersection of California 41 and 46; a cool and somewhat macabre giant ball of string. Good find!
ReplyDeleteTo me it is pretty hard to believe that someone was not at fault; Dean or Turnupspeed; Ford or Porsche. So we’ve got to choose either between the personal responsibility of a two young men or big business. Of course it could have been a mismarked intersection, thus the State of California; or a rainy slippery road, an act of God. So there you have it, spoiled misbehaved movie star, irresponsible college student, big business, big government or the Big Guy. Someone’s got to take the fall.
As an ex journalist you probably don’t find it as refreshing as I do that Turnupspeed started just saying no to the press.
The police interviewed Turnupseed and then told him to hitch hike home. Or maybe he offered to hitch hike home. Anyway, he hitch hiked. I think both cars were toast. I feel bad for Turnupseed; although not as bad as it would be today, I'm sure he was haunted by memories and people the rest of his life.
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