Great Drives and Destinations: San Diego to Las Vegas

Story and photography by
Nancy & Eric Anderson 

 

The car

Just as the Chrysler PT Cruiser was a tribute to the past so the Toyota Prius has become a signpost to the future. Everything about it reminds you that something changed in the automotive world, from the relative silence of the Prius on the road to its super-sensitive braking which slows the car with almost -- until you get used to it -- that sinking stomach feeling when an express elevator comes in for a landing. That retardation, called regenerative braking, turns the car's engine into a generator, catching kinetic energy that would have been lost as heat and converting it into electricity to recharge the batteries. Optimized for stop-and-go traffic, this is what gave Toyota the conceit of its original EPA claim of 60 MPG. Later came claims of 52 city and 45 highway. Whatever, it's a great pleasure for car testers, who pay for their gas, to see the fuel gauge take a long time to drop. Overall, during our week's trial driving of roughly 750 miles on our Las Vegas trip we got 42.5MPG.

This flawless, seamless interchange between the permanent-magnet electric drive motor and the all-aluminum, variable valve timing 1.5 liter gas engine, surely contributed to the success the first generation Prius has had in Japan where 37,000 units were sold in its first 18 months. The Prius that came to the United States was a second generation Big Brother: the U.S. gas engine gave 70 horsepower at 4,500 RPM versus the 58 hp at 4,000 revs the Japanese version provided. And the U.S. battery pack was 30 percent lighter and 60 percent smaller which allowed for a reasonable 11.8 cubic feet in the trunk.

Now Prius has grown. Today’s engine delivers 110 hp at 5000 RPM.

The Prius can operate on either system alone or both. It is a true hybrid responding to speed and load input. Neither engines are high revving and as a result many internal parts have been built lighter which results in less friction. The car weighs only 2932 lbs. But it feels heavier to the driver and aggressive acceleration off the mark is noisy.

The brakes are disc in the front and drum in the rear. ABS is standard as is air conditioning, power windows, mirrors and door locks, sound system and an eight-year/100,000 mile battery. Prius also comes with complimentary 7/24 roadside assistance and three-year basic maintenance. The whole package looks good. You might want to check Edmunds for its discussion on the true cost of running a Prius and any comparative car.

The appearance is a bit chunky. It has a truncated look with its upright stance and short overhangs. The drag coefficient is 0.29. Access is easy through the big doors and the fabric seats are most comfortable. Once in, you-need-to-read-the-manual. No way are you going to turn the key, and pull down that strange gear lever, that looks like the handle on a Las Vegas slot machine, without flipping a few pages. The dash and the manual suggest the starting protocol is complicated. It isn't. The instrument panel is quite straight forward and it's positioned high up close to the windshield makes driving comfortable on the neck. The interior is roomy; storage is average but the pockets in the doors are too narrow and feel awkward. And if you want "awkward" pop the hood and stare in wonder. This is not a car for the home mechanic but few new cars are these days.

Environmentalists hanging from the redwoods have been thrilled to hear how clean the emissions are from the Prius. Not only does its EPA SULEV (super ultra low emission vehicle) rating mean it is 75 percent cleaner than an ULEV but it has a fuel bladder inside the steel tank that collapses as fuel is burned effectively minimizing the amount of gasoline vapor that would normally remain in the tank. The car, dedicated to clean air, naturally comes without an ashtray!

Insiders knew from the start how the hybrid market would do; actually, everyone knew what would happen except the American public. It continued head-in-the sand to buy trucks and SUVs. Now the biggest online search for new cars is said to be for the Toyota Prius. Costing, in theory, less than $25,000, offering more seats and more room than the Honda Insight, giving more than 40 mpg even in the city Prius has been flying out Toyota dealers' showrooms. Nostalgia may be cool but our future has arrived.

The Drive

The road from San Diego to Las Vegas runs in wide sweeps for 350 miles across kinky colorful Southern California and over the faceless tan terrain of the Mojave Desert. In the old days such a road had its point of No Return: you didn’t pass Barstow and enter this then forbidding land unless you had a full tank of gas and plenty of water. There were, of course, two needs for the latter, the bodies in the car and the radiator of your vehicle.

It’s easier now. Interstate 15 carries all the way. At the early morning start in San Diego County the highway is jammed with commuters. There’s no particular reason for beginning your trip early because, at other times, the highway is still jammed with RVs, farmer’s trucks, gasoline supply vehicles, Mom and Pop cars, everything from college kid and Sunday drivers to retirees.

The interstate passes places with memories for us: Lawrence Welk Village, the Pala Golf Resort -- and the Temecula Creek Inn. It runs there under the high tension cables crossing the Rainbow Valley, past the massive boulders scattered on the slopes like detritus left by giants. The little valley used to be called -- literally – Vallecitos until a homesteader J.P.M. Rainbow bought some land there around 1880. So disappears any romantic notion that travelers might have that, one day in Rainbow Valley, a leprechaun was discovered with a pot of gold in Temecula…

The highway dashes past Lake Elsinore a community incorporated as far back as 1888. Elsinore’s had mixed fortunes. The lake went dry in the 1930s, was refilled in the 1960s, got flooded in the 1980 and currently is again suffering the reality that this is desert and will never have a sustained water supply. Despite that, the developers continue to build because land is cheaper here that in San Diego itself and in the last 30 years the local population has gone from3,800 to 38,000, many of whom seem to be on the road with us right now.

The freeway cuts between the Angeles National Forest and San Bernardino National Forest and runs toward Old Baldy Peak which rises 10,064 feet high above the yellow haze of smog that sits like a curse below it. So much for how society supports our pristine wilderness! As if echoing that thought, a sign beside a development reads: “Closeout Housing. Save $200,000!”

Old Baldy used to be known as Mount San Antonio but was rechristened by miners when gold was discovered just below its notch in 1860, a time when everyone in California had the Gold Rush bug. The summit is above the tree line hence the name. It was first climbed in 1878 and by the 1920s was the most climbed mountain in Southern California.

The route swings more northeast then turns more easterly towards Barstow and the Calico Mountains and for most desert adventurers one of the three interesting locations accessible in the Mojave: Calico Ghost Town. Calico boomed in 1881 when silver was discovered in the Calico Mountains, mountains so named because they had a varicolored appearance not unlike the pattern on calico cloth. Miners arrived in a frenzy, more than 500 claims were registered as working mines and Calico suddenly became one of the richest mining districts in the state. It produced in its brief life $86 million in silver and $45 million in Borax. The population surged to 1200 and the saloons increased in number to 22 to accommodate it.

In 1895 when the price of silver dropped from $1.13 to S.63 the town essentially died. Walter Knott who had bought 100 acres to homestead in the Mojave in 1911 when he was only 22 (before he got smarter and spent the 1930s and 1940s developing his berry farm attraction in Anaheim) restored five of the original buildings and created others to form a tourist attraction. In 1966 he donated Calico to the county and it’s now a California regional park. Yes it’s a bit touristy but about one-third of the town is original and, if you make time, fascinating.

Start at the Park Office, an original building, pick up some of the numerous flyers and, at least, check out the other originals especially the Lane House-Museum and Lane’s general store. If you have more time, you can hike, camp or even stay in a new bunkhouse and later explore the famous Maggie’s Mine. And if all that gives you an appetite boy do we have a place for you, our second Mojave attraction, Peggy Sue’s Diner.

Every desert should have an oasis like this. We don’t know where Peggy Sue Got Married but we do know where her cooking made her lots of friends: Vermo on Ghost Town Road. You won’t miss it; the Interstate 15 exit sign for Vermo is obvious because there’s not much else happening around here.

The original diner was built in 1954 from Union Pacific railroad ties, fell into disuse but was discovered 30 years later by Peggy Sue (who had worked in movies) and her husband Champ (who had worked for Disneyland’s competitor, Knott’s Berry Farm). Peggy Sue claims “cozy atmosphere, great 50s music and good homemade food – from her grandmother’s recipes.”

She got that right and more. This is Hollywood haven. You name a movie celebrity from the early days of the movies especially from the fabulous 50s and she has the photograph on the wall – and then some. Here are pictures of The Platters, The Association, The Drifters and The Inkspots. And Buddy Holliday and Annette Funicello and the recently departed Bo Didley. The names continue on to the menus. A Marlon Brando mushroom cheeseburger is $8.39, a Lana Turner tuna salad $8.59 and a Frankie Avalon Philly steak sandwich $8.69. Fancy something sweet to finish up the meal? How about a Carmen Miranda Chiquita banana split for $5.79? The list, and the variety, goes on: Dorothy Lamour dinner salads, Elvis Presley (what else?) shakes and, of course, Peggy Sue’s pineapple pie.

The signs on the wall, some hand written, suggest she doesn’t take herself too seriously; they read “EAT DRINK AND REMARRY,” “CHILDREN LEFT UNATTENDED WILL BE TOWED,” and “WE SERVE CRABS. SIT DOWN!”

Better sit down and eat. You won’t find restaurants at our third desert attraction although you can still get a $1 ice cream cone at the dilapidated Cima post office there. We’re heading about 50 miles further east along the interstate at Baker to the Mojave National Preserve. A national preserve differs from a national park in that a preserve allows the public to have hunting rights and also mining and cattle ranching rights. The Mojave National Preserve is one of the more than 380 parks in the National Park Service and at 1.6 million acres, it’s the third largest in the lower 48 states after Death Valley and Yellowstone.

It’s a vast remote area, the confluence of three of the four major North American deserts. The ranger, Dora Mckeever, is not surprised to see people stop in on their way to Las Vegas. That’s how they get most of their visitors, she explains.

“Travelers don’t get a view of the real desert unless they get off the interstate,” McKeever says. “There’s a lot to see: lava tubes, singing sand dunes, Joshua trees, yucca, old rail depots, and historic buildings because once 2,000 people lived here.”

We head off south down Kelbaker Road, an asphalt drive that crosses the old Mojave road which brought coastal Native Americans to the Colorado river. Massive cinder cones and lava beds lie off to our left then we pass between the Marl and the Kelso Mountains northeast of the famous Kelso Singing Dunes to reach little Kelso, 34 miles later. The singing dunes are the third tallest singing dunes in North America, the sound apparently coming from the shape and silica content of the sand particles and of course the wind.

Kelso was a Union Pacific stop until 1924. The depot is today an information center and small museum. The Kelso Cima road now heads northeast for 19 miles paralleling the old railroad to Cima. To the east lie places with intriguing names like Wild Horse Canyon, Pinto Mountain, Hole-In-The-Wall Trail, Banshee Canyon and, ahead, Cima itself, a former water stop for the trains as they prepared to tackle the steep grade up to Nipton. Cima is now a deserted settlement with a few ruined homes and a little post office store manned daily by what must be a pioneer woman who travels 14 miles to open the store and handle any mail. We get our directions and swing left to the northwest and the 18 miles that will bring us back to the Interstate. The Cima road passes through the biggest Joshua tree forest in the world and between Kessler and Teutonia peaks (6163 ft and 5775 ft respectively).

The Prius we are driving was probably happy the mountain pass ahead is not that high. It takes it in its stride although when you start to climb from the desert floor to the 4730 foot height of Mountain Pass, a road warning shouts “TURN OFF YOUR AIR CONDITIONING FOR THE NEXT 16 MILES.”

The signs change and come faster. The terrain changes too -- we are getting closer to Las Vegas.

Say the road signs: “WHY STAY ANYWHERE ELSE? WE HAVE IT ALL!” but we are moving too fast to see where. “COOL MILLIONS. WHY WAIT?” “WHO WILL YOU PLAY WITH?”

We are slowing down now so we can read the whole sign.

“HAVE THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE. Mamma Mia!”

“BEST VALUE. $35. Folies”

“BE SEDUCED. Phantom”

“THE REASON SEQUINS WERE INVENTED. Jubilee”

“THE JOINT YOUR MOTHER WARNED YOU ABOUT. Excalibur”

The architectural triumph that is Las Vegas lies before us. But that is another story.

Anderson published Eric Anderson’s Car Crazy for several years for San Diego Magazine Online. He has been car editor for Physician’s Management and for Physicians Financial News and has written articles for Medical Economics and Autoweek. He was a car columnist for Physicians OnLine, and the OnRamp and is a member of the Motor Press Guild