The Mojave Desert is not kind

This morning, due to what we knew would be hot temperatures, we left from Williams, Arizona (55 miles south of the Grand Canyon) at 6am sharp and started barreling across I-40 at a quick pace. It was 52 degrees when we started, and I can go all day long at a fast pace at that temperature, but I knew it wouldn't last. The goal was to get in good miles before it got hot.

We got onto Historic Route 66 in Ash Fork, Arizona and this was a wonderful section of road. Wide open spaces and a 65 mph speed limit. That's as fast as I'm driving these days, and with the I-40 speed limit at 75 mph I wasn't going any faster out there, so I might as well stay off the interstate.

The second stint of Route 66 started with a sign "Backcountry Byways." I didn't do the research, so I had no idea what to expect. It was awesome! I wish I weren't worrying about vapor lock or else it would have been even better, but I never had a problem. We wound back and forth through a long 20mph zone with innumerable 10mph hairpins. When we finally crested Sitgreaves Pass (see picture above), I had to stop and get a picture (and the picture doesn't do it justice). We were still on the normal SU pumps at this point even though it was in the mid-90s already, and as soon as I stopped I heard the SU pumps clicking like mad indicating the coming vapor lock so I turned on the auxiliary pump.

The whole drive through this pass was pretty desolate but very interesting landscape. The only town was Oatman, Arizona which had a bunch of bikers (as in motorcyclists) walking around alongside the mules wandering the streets (Carter saw one mule walk into a store!).

Below, see a random picture west of Oatman driving through the desert.

We had no problems on our drive from 6am to 10:30am when we got into California and the town of Needles, but at 10:30am it was already 100 degrees so I knew the vapor lock was coming soon so we took a break. I knew it would be a long break because after you stop everything heats up even more (heat soak), so we drove around Needles looking for anything to do (we drove around in the rental!). There is nothing to do in Needles, but we spent a few hours there.

Before leaving, we bought a little styrofoam cooler and a big bag of ice to bring along. We dumped some ice in the vee of the motor to keep the fuel lines as cool as we could and we launched off with the intent of going just 38 miles to the next gas station. I figured we could go that far and then cool off again before launching again to the next gas station 50+ miles after that.

From Needles, there is a decent climb, and it was 110 degrees outside (at least that's what it said on the "Outside Temp" indicator on my Dad's rental Focus). We kept climbing and climbing, and about 2/3 up that hill we started bucking with vapor lock. We got in the slow truck land and dropped from 60mph to 50mph and kept on going. Then we dropped to 40mph and even the slow trucks had to go back out of the slow land to pass me. As I dropped from 40 down towards 30 I started driving on the shoulder. The crest was coming closer and closer, and I knew that if I could just crest that hill we could get back up to speed for at least a little while and hopefully be able to dive off onto an exit and at least get under an overpass. No such luck....after several miles of climbing, the car finally "ran out of gas" a few hundred yards before the crest. We had a lot of room off on the shoulder and all sat in the air conditioned rental while the Vantom cooled off.

Typically when we have these vapor lock issues, I take a temperature reading on the fuel lines in the vee of the motor and they're about 157F. I took a reading this time and it was 186F! My rule of thumb has been to wait until those lines are back down to 145F before going on, so I figured we were in for a long wait, especially being out in the beating desert sun. But because we had a cooler full of ice, we dumped a ton of it in the vee and took a reading 20 minutes later and we were down to about 125F. We got back going on the road immediately, and after cresting that hill had a nice long downhill. And then another really long climb. We had only a few more miles to that exit I had been planning on, so I really took it easy up this climb, dropping from 60mph to 50mph. Because of that I was in that slow truck lane again, and just before cresting the top of that long grade I came up fast on a really slow truck so I got in the normal driving lane to pass, and right at that moment the vapor lock started again. I barely passed that guy (who was probably wondering why I went to go around him and then slowed down), and after the crest of that hill had a nice 4 mile downhill to the exit we'd been waiting for.

Now we've been at this "High Desert Oasis" gas station sitting in the A/C at some tables watching TV for several hours. The next gas station, as I said above, it over 50 miles away. It was well over 100F when I stopped, and now it is still high 90s and if we launch we'll eventually have to stop for vapor lock before that next gas station in Ludlow, California. Patience......