Pictures from JP Aerospace's DSS3/Oklahoma flight

Day 9: Tuesday, March 26, 2002

by Ian Kluft

Tuesday was the last and longest day of the trip. We would press on driven by caffeine and the desire to get home. Well, some of us did...

In Gallup NM in the morning, it was freezing but the Sun was out and there was no wind. Compared to Oklahoma, it felt warm. A single-layer coat was sufficient to be comfortable. Following the motel's so-called continental breakfast (doughnuts and juice), we were on the road at 7:30AM.

The first stop on the road was around 9AM in Holbrook AZ. Al and I had wanted to stop to see Meteor Crater, coming up about an hour away. Obviously the rest of the group would want to press on. So we offered to go on ahead, budget our time for the visit (about 20 minutes), and catch up with them around Flagstaff. They agreed.

And that's what we did. What we weren't aware of was that John Sr's car had a tire blow out just past Holbrook. He must have unknowingly run over a nail at the truck stop we filled up at. They told us that an Arizona Highway Patrolman arrived soon after the blowout, changed the tire for them and sent them on their way. But their spare was a temporary tire - they had to stop for real tire repairs soon.

Al and I had no idea this had happenned. When we left Meteor Crater, we had taken 30 minutes so we expected the convoy would be about 10 miles past the Meteor Crater exit on I-40. From the crater rim parking lot we called them on the radio and they were exactly where we expected. They had left the truck stop much faster than we expected but lost exactly that difference for the flat tire. :-) We were in radio contact with them the whole time that we were catching up. But we couldn't make any progress catching up while going through Flagstaff because the speed limit was down to 65, which was a speed the trailer could do. They finally told us the whole story when we caught up with them at Williams, west of Flagstaff.

John Sr and Shirley decided to get new tires there. (They were going to need at least 2 new ones since one had been shredded in the blowout.) We had lunch while the work was done. It was quick enough that it didn't set back our schedule much. I think that's pretty amazing considering the Arizona Desert isn't my idea of a place you'd want a blowout. They had glowing high opinions of the Arizona Highway Patrol as a result of that.

Two hours further down the road, other plans within our group had hatched. John Sr and Shirley could see the writing on the wall that the rest of us wanted to press all the way home that evening. Though John Sr could do it, Shirley wasn't feeling up to it. So they were going to split from the convoy at Kingman AZ and go to Las Vegas for the afternoon and night. We suggested by radio that they should pass us on the freeway before their exit so we could wave goodbye. They smiled and took our picture as they passed us. :-)

We didn't stop in Kingman but pressed on for another hour to Needles, our first stop in California. Also 2PM became 1PM upon crossing the border over the Colorado River.

During the descent in elevation from Flagstaff to Needles, the outside air temperature guage was steadily rising, from 60 to 80. I changed into shorts for the first time on the trip. And that took just enough time on the quick stop that the van left without us. :-) But we caught up with them within half an hour.

It took all the rest of the afternoon to cross the Mojave Desert. Sunset came at the same spot on Hwy 58 just north of Edwards AFB as it had on the eastbound direction 8 days earlier. We stopped for fuel and a pizza in the town of Mojave.

I've been to Mojave before, in March 1999 for Rotary Rocket Company's rollout ceremony of the Roton/ATV. Sadly, Rotary has since gone out of business when their second round of investment funding didn't materialize. But most of their former rocket engine developers formed XCOR Aerospace, also located in Mojave. Mojave is another town to look at which is developing a center of aerospace industry at its airport in order to transform it into a commercial spaceport. Its proximity to Edwards AFB and Palmdale, where all the US space shuttle orbiters were built, doesn't hurt since it means more workers in the area have aerospace specialties.

I remember Mojave was a long drive from San Jose last time when it was the destination itself. But now coming from Oklahoma, it was the beginning of the final stretch.

Everyone was still evaluating their driving fatigue. I had a chance to sleep while Al was driving since Williams AZ and through the Mojave Desert. After Mojave it was my turn to drive for the remainder of the trip so that Al could possibly help with driving the van on the last stretch to Sacramento, if needed. JP and Norm would tell us how they were doing via the radio. But in Bakersfield, I spotted a Starbuck's that was open late. Norm, JP and I got lots of caffeine for the final stretch.

We had one fuel stop around midnight before reaching Santa Nella at 1AM. There we exited the freeway and Al took his luggage to the van. This was where we parted ways after a 9-day journey together. My route home to San Jose (Silicon Valley) went west from here while the rest of the group continued north to Sacramento. There were handshakes and thank-yous. And we made plans to phone each other upon reaching home so we'd know each other were OK. I got home in San Jose at 2:15AM - they were in Lodi when I phoned them. JP phoned me from the shop in Rancho Cordova at 3AM. Norm was going to just crash on the couch there but JP and Al each felt OK to drive home. With that I knew we were all OK and I could go to sleep too.

(1488x992 573K) (500x333 22K)	Tuesday morning, Al and I got the others to agree that we'd go ahead of them at Holbrook around 8AM so we could see Meteor Crater, which is just off the freeway. The plan was to catch up with them again around Flagstaff. In this photo, it's just after 10AM. We've turned off I-40. The rim of Meteor Crater is visible ahead. (photo by Al Differ)
(1488x992 583K) (500x333 27K)	A series of signs like this one line the road on the way to Meteor Crater, to get tourists interested. (photo by Al Differ)
(1488x992 533K) (500x333 22K)	The crater rim is now a couple miles away. It's getting hard to keep it in on frame on my camera, even with it full un-zoomed. (photo by Al Differ)
(1488x992 532K) (500x333 25K)	The right (west) edge of the crater rim. (photo by Al Differ)
(1488x992 694K) (500x333 33K)	Meteor crater viewed from the rim. It's one mile wide and 570 feet deep. Astronomers estimate a 150-foot wide meteor made this crater.
(1488x992 651K) (500x333 61K)	There's a disturbance in the bottom of the crater. The history of the crater in the pamphlet led us to believe this was from an 1800's iron mine set up here before it was known to be an impact crater. The mine was digging into the remains of the meteor.
(1488x992 666K) (500x333 35K)	The eastern rim of the crater.
(1488x992 763K) (500x333 42K)	The northern rim of the crater, and observation areas. The people in this photo help provide some scale for the enormity of the crater.
(1488x992 625K) (500x333 36K)	Al Differ at the rim of Meteor Crater.
(1488x992 612K) (500x333 35K)	Me at the rim of Meteor Crater. (photo by Al Differ)
(1488x992 681K) (500x333 33K)	Another view of the crater from a lower observation area seen in an earlier photo.
(1488x992 600K) (500x333 32K)	The eastern rim viewed from the lower observation area.
(1488x992 725K) (500x333 40K)	The western rim viewed from the lower observation area.
(1488x992 516K) (500x333 30K)	Early Tuesday afternoon, we finally return to our home state of California. The time zone changes local time from 2PM to 1PM.
(1488x992 378K) (500x333 11K)	Sunset on California state highway 58 north of Edwards AFB, just before the town of Mojave. Coincidentally, we had been here at sunset going the other way 8 days earlier.
(1488x992 458K) (500x333 15K)	The JPA van and trailer at sunset before reaching Mojave, California

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Copyright (c) 2002 Ian Kluft. All opinions on this page are my own. For official info from JP Aerospace please see jpaerospace.com.