14 May 09 11:06, Roger Nelson wrote to Roy Witt:


 RW>> Driving my girl-friend's little VW bug, I followed close on the
 RW>> bumper of an 18 wheeler doing 70mph in the fog on Highway 99 in the
 RW>> San Jauquin Valley. The draft was what I was looking for and we got
 RW>> quite a ways before coming up on a 18 wheeler who had crashed, which
 RW>> is where I had to drop back and then lost him in the fog. Ascending
 RW>> to the 'grapevine' heading toward L.A. took longer than the ride
 RW>> from Bakersfield. :o)

 RN> That took guts!

I had plenty to go around in those days. :o)

 RN> You realize now (or maybe you did at the time) what would have
 RN> happened if that truck had to make a sudden stop?

Yes...as a young man with super reactions, I would have been able to stop
that VW long before the 18 wheeler came to a stop. I figured worst case, I
could adjust my speed to ride his back frame to a stop. That is, unless he
ran into a brick wall.

 RN> We actually had some smog by the New Orleans airport (MSY) about 50
 RN> years ago.  That was my one and only experience with smog.

One can experience smog on a daily basis in California. Especially during
a Santa Ana condition (east wind blows the smog off-shore). On any given
day, you can look out to sea and see a yellowish-brown haze. If you're out
there, you can barely see the coast through it. It's a lot better than it
was 40 years ago, but it's still a health hazard.

 RN> Fog is bad enough and in this neck of the woods it get so thick, you
 RN> can't see anything.

I know the feeling. I've been in that situation many times.

 RN> Fortunately it is the patchy-type fog and you exit one patch to enter
 RN> another.  I'm glad I don't have to drive in that stuff anymore.  What
 RN> is the "grapevine?"

The highway (I-5 now) splits near the bottom of the mountains around
Castaic, CA and the two roads intertwine and twist up/down the mountain
like a grapevine, thus the name. In some places you can see the opposite
lane, in others you can't. It's almost the same on the northern side of
the mountains, but not as steep. If you go to Google Maps and take a look
at it, you can see the split just south of the I-5/99 intersection. It's
actually labeled as such, if you get in close enough. Once you get up to
Lebec, they come together again, then you go south for a ways and it
starts to go down. It's quite a ride.

                R\%/itt




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