Follow Route 66 for novel kicks

Needles is considered the gateway city to California on Route 66. Old Trails Arch Bridge across the Colorado River connects California with Arizona at Topock. (Pirate Cove Resort)

Written by Kathy Strong
Special to The Desert Sun

The famous 1946 song that invites you to “Get Your Kicks on Route 66” praised the trip along the historic “Mother Road” that led drivers to more than just road-side discovery. Route 66 chronicles a time when heading west stood for finding new opportunities while enjoying the diverse scenery that unfolded along the way.

The 2,400-mile Route 66, also coined America’s Highway, runs from the Midwest to Los Angeles, but desert residents can get a fascinating look at an important portion of the highway (with just a few detours) beginning in Needles and ending in Ontario and Upland. Not unlike travelers 60 years ago, the easy road trip is filled with new discoveries each day, from geological wonders to funky roadside cafes and landmarks with a bounty of California history dedicated to the traveling freedom revolutionized by the car.

Gateway city

A three-hour trip through the upper desert leads to Needles on the Colorado River. Needles, referred to as the gateway to California on Route 66, is one of the oldest cities in California and was named after the spiky rock outcroppings directly across the river in Arizona. A railroad town since 1883, the city continues to play an important role in the railroad trade.

Pirate Cove Resort & Marina is a surprising 1,000-acre oasis that straddles the river and the Mother Road and makes a great jumping off point for exploring the historic roadway. An RV park is popular here, but new two-story condos with kitchens make for an ideal weekday stay if you want to avoid a livelier weekend crowd. The resort hosts a popular restaurant and bar, hiking/nature trails, a zip line over the water and river recreation. Plan to take the resort’s two-and-a-half hour river cruise to the Topock Gorge, a mini-Grand Canyon, petroglyphs and the Old Trails Arch Bridge that was featured in the famous Great Depression-era movie, “The Grapes of Wrath.” Along the way, you may be lucky enough to spot Bighorns, wild donkeys and Bald Eagles.

Craters and chicken

Although once a major stop for weary travelers along Route 66, 1858-founded Amboy met its inevitable decline with the construction of Interstate 40. The town has a handful of surviving buildings today. Among those the much photographed, retro-designed Roy’s Motel and Cafe — once a service station, then café and motel owned by the town’s original owner and family until its eventual foreclosure. In 2005, the property and town was purchased by Albert Okura of Juan Pollo restaurant fame who has promised to preserve the town and re-open Roy’s.

Just west of Amboy are two extinct volcanoes, the Pisgah Crater and the Amboy Crater, a 6,000-year-old cinder cone. Standing on the Amboy Crater observation deck, take in the 27 square feet of lava flow, a geological wonder in the middle of the desert, and try to imagine the spectacular fiery eruptions that occurred some 80,000 years ago.

Milkshakes at the Bagdad

Continuing west on Route 66 toward Barstow, you’ll pass by the 1940’s mining town of Ludlow. Once a welcoming stop for passing motorists with a motor court, café and gas station, the original Ludlow is a ghost town today, thanks to the advent of Interstate 40 in the late 1960s. A newer Ludlow just north of the off-ramp of Interstate 40 reemerged in the 1970s to serve the traveler once again with gas stations, a small motel and restaurant.

In Newberry Springs, at the foot of the mountains on the south side of Route 66, you will find another landmark of the roadway — the Bagdad Café. Mention the name to French tourists, who come by the busload, and they will tell you about its cinematic cult allure. Formally known as the Sidewinder Café, the tiny café gained international fame when the movie “The Bagdad Café” was filmed there. Its flamboyant owner, Andrea Pruett, holds court and is a celebrity in her own right. Stop for the souvenirs, a chat with Andrea and a tempting handmade milk shake.

Next week, read part two of the Route 66 journey that promises museums dedicated to the roadway, historic murals, a bottle ranch and one of the country’s most unique motels along the famous motorway.

Calico solar plans withdrawn

A survey marker in 2010 delineated property where a a solar energy development was planned north of Interstate 40, about 35 miles east of Barstow. The developer has dropped the project, citing market conditions. (2010/FILE PHOTO)

BY JANET ZIMMERMAN
Press-Enterprise

The developer of a controversial plan to cover as much of six square miles of public land with solar panels east of Barstow has abandoned the endeavor, citing changed market conditions.

It is the second massive solar project dropped in the past six months in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. In January, BrightSource Energy Co. announced that is was backing off from its plan to install mirrors on 12 square miles near Blythe because of cost issues.

The K Road Calico Solar Project had been proposed in an ecologically sensitive area north of Interstate 40, between Ludlow and Newberry Springs.

Environmentalists who sued to block the development said it would have fragmented an important corridor linking habitats of the desert tortoise, bighorn sheep and other threatened species, which range between land south of I-40 and the Cady Mountains; the solar site is in between.

“This is a really important area to keep intact, especially when you think what’s going to happen with these populations with climate change,” said Kim Delfino, California program director for Defenders of Wildlife in Sacramento, one of the groups that sued.

The land, about 37 miles east of Barstow, would have been covered with photovoltaic panels, generating — at full capacity — electricity for 250,000 homes

“It’s a victory in terms of stopping projects that are unfortunately sited, but it’s too bad we have to fight renewable energy projects. If we put them in the right places we’ll cheerlead for them. If they’re in the wrong place, we’ll fight them,” Delfino said Monday, June 24.

She and other critics said solar projects should be placed on abandoned agricultural fields and other degraded lands, which they say are readily available in the western Mojave.

They are working to identify appropriate locations through the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, she said. The DRECP, as it is known, is a multi-agency effort to identify which parts of the desert should be developed with renewable energy and which should be set aside for wildlife and other natural resources.

On June 21, K Road sent a letter from its San Francisco office to the California Energy Commission surrendering its license for the development.

The letter said: “Due to changed market conditions, we will not be able to move this project forward, either as licensed or as proposed to be amended.”

Reached Monday, June 24, K Road managing director Sean Gallagher declined to elaborate.

In 2010, the firm bought the project from Tessera Solar. K Road immediately announced a change from mirrored dishes to photovoltaic panels.

A spokesman at the time said when fully built, it would be the largest photovoltaic plant in the world.

An agreement to transmit the energy to the electrical grid had yet to be secured.

Calico is not the first large-scale solar farm to suffer setbacks.

Developer BrightSource Energy of Oakland has put two projects on hold this year.

In January, company officials said they were suspending plans for the Rio Mesa project near Blythe, above the Colorado River Valley. Rio Mesa, which already had been down-sized, would have consisted of three solar-concentrating towers and 85,000 mirrors. Critics raised concerns about the project’s effect on wildlife and other natural resources.

BrightSource officials said the suspension was because of anticipated delays from additional analysis needed at the site, which would have made it impossible to meet the terms of the company’s power purchase agreement with Southern California Edison.

In April, the company announced that it was suspending the permit application for the Hidden Hills Solar Energy Generating System in Pahrump Valley, 45 miles west of Las Vegas, because of delays in transmission upgrades.

SCE plans $750 million project to link solar plants to grid

Public input sought on new transmission corridor through Hesperia, Lucerne

Natasha Lindstrom
Victor Valley Daily Press

HESPERIA • Southern California Edison is planning a $750 million project to enable new renewable energy development in the Mojave Desert to connect to the power grid.

The proposed project would build a new substation near Newberry Springs and construct 67 miles of new transmission line between Edison’s Lugo and Pisgah substations — including 18 to 20 miles of a new transmission corridor that would border some 600 residents between Hesperia and Lucerne Valley.

Edison does not yet have estimates on the number of jobs the project would create.

While the project’s still in the early stages, Edison is turning to local residents for input on four possible routes for the line of large metal steel towers topping 100 feet, with a public workshop in Hesperia scheduled for March 3.

“Like most new transmission-type projects, a lot of people are concerned as to where it’s going to be located geographically as to where they live,” said Spear, adding that Edison has notified all the residents living along the potential transmission corridor routes. “We’re just wanting to be very up front with the public and go to them early and let them know what’s sort of on the preliminary drawing boards.”

An executive order signed by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger requiring California utility companies to increase the percentage of renewable energy in the state’s electricity mix to 33 percent by 2020.

The next steps in the Lugo-Pisgah project will be for Edison to submit applications to the California Public Utilities Commission for approval, which Spear said will likely happen in the first quarter of 2012. It’ll take up to two years for the applications to be processed and the project’s build-out will taken another three. The tentative construction completion date is in 2017.

The public is invited to share their input and ask questions about the project at a public workshop 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday at the Percy Bakker Community Center, 9333 E Avenue in Hesperia.

For more information, Hesperia residents can call (760) 951-3281. Apple Valley and Lucerne Valley residents can call (760) 951-3237. Or visit sce.com/lugopisgah.

7.0 Quake Shakes Up California, Derails Train

By Tom Gorman, Mitchell Landsberg
Los Angeles Times


The quake knocked Amtrak's Southwest Chief off its tracks.


LUDLOW, Calif. - A magnitude-7.0 earthquake struck the Mojave Desert in Southern California early yesterday, knocking an Amtrak passenger train off its tracks but otherwise causing little harm.

Four people on Amtrak's Southwest Chief from Chicago to Los Angeles were injured, none seriously, when the quake - one of the strongest in Southern California's recorded history - rocked the region at 2:46 a.m.

Centered beneath a Marine Corps base northwest of Twentynine Palms, the quake swayed high-rise hotels in Las Vegas, shook buildings as far away as Phoenix and Tijuana, Mexico, and jolted millions of people awake throughout the Los Angeles area, stirring unwelcome memories of the 1994 Northridge quake. Up to 90,000 utility customers lost power and mobile homes were knocked off pilings.

But while the Hector Mine earthquake, dubbed after the mineral site where it was centered, was three times stronger than the 6.7 Northridge quake, it caused a fraction of the damage because it was centered far from heavily populated areas.

"The damage could have been catastrophic, but was minimal," Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan said. "It's a good opportunity, however, for everybody to take note that we live in earthquake country. We can never be too prepared for the next one."

The earthquake was the fourth magnitude 7.0 or greater recorded across the globe in the past two months. Earthquakes in western Turkey and Taiwan occurred in heavily populated areas and left nearly 20,000 people dead. Twenty people died in the third, a 7.5 quake that struck a mostly rural region in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.

The earthquake yesterday hit hardest in an area more highly populated by rattlesnakes than people, but it was a terrifying experience for those nearest the epicenter.

"Let me put it to you this way," said Juan Tirado, who lives in a mobile home in Ludlow, a hamlet of about 40 people along Interstate 40 between Barstow and Needles. "The first thing I tried to do was jump up and get to my daughter - but I couldn't.

"I got as far as her bedroom door, but then I couldn't move another step, we were shaking so hard. I was holding on to the walls but couldn't move. It was like I was in a bottle and someone was shaking it back and forth."

Although power was lost at the Joshua Tree Inn, about 30 miles from the epicenter, the lodging established sustained no significant damage, night manager Jacob Naylor said.

"Twelve guests, all definitely awake. A couple in from Holland, definitely shocked. A couple in from the U.K. asked me, `Is this normal?' " Naylor said. "They're all taking it rather well, kind of excited. Vacationers, new experiences, what can I say?"

California Institute of Technology experts said the epicenter of the rolling quake was located near the Pisgah strike, a slip fault about 47 miles east of Barstow.

Within hours of the main quake, three aftershocks of magnitude 5.0 or more and at least 17 of magnitude 4.0 or more had swayed the desert.

In all, there may be up to seven aftershocks of magnitude 5.0 or more in the coming week, Caltech experts said, and thousands of smaller aftershocks will continue for a decade or more.

There is only a 5 percent chance that a quake bigger than the original will strike in the next week, said Lucy Jones, chief seismologist at the U.S. Geological Survey's office in Pasadena.

Some of the aftershocks yesterday appeared so close to the immense San Andreas Fault, considered the powerful master seismic switch for much of the state, that seismologists could not be sure if it was affected by the aftermath of the Hector Mine quake.

However, as the day went on and the pattern of aftershocks was established, scientists and state officials discounted the possibility of any large quake on the San Andreas.

"The San Andreas Fault is capable of producing large earthquakes, as large as or larger than the one that took place this morning," said Dallas Jones, director of the state Office of Emergency Services. "Seismologists are unable to predict earthquakes and the chance that these earthquakes will be followed by a larger San Andreas event is small.

"Nevertheless, the aftershocks near the San Andreas Fault are a source of continued monitoring by scientists," Jones said.

The quake was centered not far from the epicenter of the 1992 Landers quake, which had a magnitude of 7.3 and resulted in one death and few serious injuries.

All highways were operating yesterday, including Interstate 40, where cracks were reported on two overpass bridges.

The Amtrak train derailment occurred about eight miles west of Ludlow. While the locomotives stayed on the tracks, 21 of the train's 24 cars were derailed. The tracks were left splayed out in a V shape, the wheels sunk into gravel.

Of 155 passengers and crew members on board, four were taken by ambulance to Barstow Community Hospital - two for back and shoulder injuries and two who complained of breathing difficulty, said San Bernardino County Fire Department battalion chief Gary Bush.

The train was traveling at about 60 mph at the time of the derailment, rail officials said. The speed limit is 90 mph, but the train had slowed because it was approaching a freight train.

"These guys were lucky," San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy Mike Cadwell said. "If the train was going 90, we'd be out here picking up bodies."

All the homes in a nearby mobile home park were shoved off their foundations.

"Everybody was running out. The dogs were howling. The cats were hiding. And the kids were freaking," said Barbara Houseworth, 19, who fled her trailer with her 3-year-old child. "When mobile homes rock, they really rock."

Aside from the Amtrak derailment, which caused the shutdown of a twin set of eastbound and westbound tracks, the earthquake caused relatively little disruption to rail lines in and out of Los Angeles, one of the nation's busiest rail hubs, railroad officials reported.

The quake was blamed for a leak of about 2,000 gallons of naptha, a volatile byproduct of petroleum processing, at a tank operated by Ultramar Diamond Shamrock at the Port of Los Angeles in Wilmington.

The leaking fluid flowed into a catch basin, and never was in danger of reaching coastal waters, according to Jim Bradshaw, Ultramar's environmental-health and safety manager.