Long and winding road.....

 7:33 am - Tuesday - October 19th - Alturas, CA - 24° F, 88% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the south.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 59° F.....the view this morning.....↴

......on this date in 2014 I was atop the lighthouse at Cape Blanco a rain squall pass over the Cape.....↴

Our ambitious goal for Monday was to reach Alturas, CA some 263 miles south of John Day, OR.  Unlike Saturday only two passes stood between us and Alturas, and they both came at the beginning of the day.  We were rolling our wheels south on US-395 by 8:30 am, and within 5 minutes began the ten mile climb to Starr Ridge Summit standing at 5,152' above sea level, and some 2,100' higher than John Day.....

......the grade was not too severe enabling us to maintain 33 mph in 2nd gear the entire distance.  Once over Starr Ridge only Devine Ridge summit stood between us and Burns, OR.  We only dropped down about 300' after summiting Starr Ridge, so the grind back up to 5,340' above sea level took little time.....

....once over Devine Ridge summit the views opened up considerably.....

....it was just a matter of setting the cruise control at 60 mph, hanging onto the steering wheel, and guiding the Newell down the 'straight as an arrow' US-395 mile after mile.....

.....we stopped for about 20 minutes at one of the rare Rest Areas on this stretch of US-395 to take a break, and clean the windshield.  Next up was the narrow, winding road along the eastern shore of Lake Abert.....a very large, and long dry lake bed....

Lake Abert on the right

....due to the tight turns along this 20 mile stretch of US-395 we were limited to speeds of 35-40 mph.  Soon we were past the lake and the road widened and straightened out the rest of the way to Alturas.....

.....the 263 miles just melted away, and soon we were crossing into California once again, and a short time later arrived in Alturas at Sully's RV Park on the southern edge of town....the time?  2:30 pm.  It did not seem like 6 hours had passed since we left John Day.  No doubt the ease of the drive made the time pass quickly.  As we cruised mile after mile of smooth, straight highway with enormous views we were reminded why we love US-395....

.....once again we arrived at an RV park without reservations, and managed to snag one of the last two pull through spots long enough for our 62'.  The view out the front window is certainly worth the price of admission.....

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