OK, get out your scorecards again! It didn't take long for the Mojave desert to nearly kill the car: The MOMENT we crossed the border into California, we noticed the coolant temperature rising steadily past its stable point. Climbing a long steep grade over the mountains, with the heat bearing down on us, car-heater blasting, with sand, mirages, and cactus the only scenery in sight, the radiator fan chose that convenient location to give up and burn out. We pulled over, engine running, waiting for it to cool off, thinking the long steep climb had done it. But the sweet smell of antifreeze, followed immediately by a blinking red idiot light, told us the bad news: We have overheated in the middle of the desert, 109 miles to the nearest town.

Morning Balcony Panoramic 1	Morning Balcony Panoramic 2	Morning Balcony Panoramic 3	Morning Balcony Panoramic 4
New York skyline in Vegas	Egyptian skyline?!	Spewing antifreeze	Stranded

We opted to limp the car to Baker, the closest dot-on-the-map, rather than walk a mile to an emergency call box, wait in the desert sun, and then pay $250 for a tow, only to find out that there wont be parts available for two weeks. Nope. The engine runs, it just cant cool itself. We made good use of the emergency gallon of water we've been carrying since Ohio, refilling the overflow tank, and took off again. We found that so long as we drive 70mph, we can force enough air over the radiator to keep it stable without the fan. I guess you can't leave Las Vegas without gambling, because we were betting on there not being any traffic. Like 3rd-rate actors in another sequel of Speed, we tried our best to keep the spedometer over that critical line, passing the slower traffic whenever possible, praying that there wasn't any construction, accidents, or congestion arround the bend. A few times, we watched nervously as the needle climbed faster than we could up the hill, but breathed a collective sigh of relief each time it was followed by a long, downhill, traffic-free slope.

We made it easily to Baker, asked around for a parts store or junkyard, and left immediately for the 70 mile marathon to Barstow. This, coincidentally is the very place on the map where our trip meets a decision fork: We've scheduled in two extra days to get to LA. Failing those, were we to reach Barstow, we would turn immediately for LA, only 200 miles away to the southwest, bypassing a three-day loop through mid-California. It was a kind of safety net built-in to the route that we hoped we'd never have to use, because the best part of the trip lay to our north: Sequoia National Forest, Yosemite National Park, San Francisco, and the long winding drive down US-1 along the coast of California. It's honestly looking bleak.

Looking for parts in Baker

How do you pronounce that?!

By some miracle, we made it to Barstow at 3:30, and found a junkyard closing at 4:00 which happened to have the exact part we needed! A little bit of in-the-parking-lot-surgery, and one fan-ectamy later, the car's good as new! We tied up the hoses clear of the new fan, patched it all up, and got it back on the road for only $35! When we reached that fork with LA in sight... we turned north instead.

Pulling out the old radiator fan	In the junkyard parking lot	Burning his hands	Modifying the replacement fan
Success!!

The new fan works better and quieter than the old one, taking us all the way to the doorstep of Sequoia National Park. We wanted to camp here tonight, but lost some time fixing the car. We'll make use of one of our extra days, and stay nearby tonight instead. There was vacancy in the park campgrounds, but the idea of setting up in the pitch blackness turned me off to the idea. Reading about how to de-scent your car to keep black bears from tearing them open turned Matt off to the idea as well.

Another VW crosses the desert	Windmills	Crazy ammounts of windmills	Sheesh!
Martian mining station?	Winding through the sand	If only we could take THAT road...	Sunset in the rearview
Red clouds over redwoods	Orange Sunset over Sequoia

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