2024 Ken Iles Memorial U-Turn Tour
article by Jim (Not a writer) Turk
Peter Ridgway and Hugh Calvin wanted to do something special to memorialize our long time member and past president Ken Iles. Apparently (and I have to take Peter at his word about this) Ken was famous (infamous?) for making u-turns on LPR tours. Hence, this tour was named the Ken Iles Memorial U-Turn Tour.
On the day before the tour, our intrepid guide, Peter, says that there is a 30% chance of rain during this tour. My computer says that for Saturday there is a 95% chance of rain in Los Banos, and a 65% chance of rain in Fresno. The odds sound pretty good for rain.
Saturday morning, the day of the tour, the chance of rain is now 24% in Los Banos and 47% in Fresno.
Guess I’ll find out if the new top is water tight!
Leslie and I blasted off from Santa Cruz around 8am so that we would arrive at Sandy’s Café in Gilroy in time for a quick cuppa joe and the drivers’ meeting at 9:20am.
Peter herded the cats out of the Sandy’s lobby (we had kinda filled it up) to a place under the building overhang because it was now raining in Gilroy. Looks like it will be a wet ride across the central valley to Fresno.
Leaving Gilroy about 9:30, we traversed Bolsa Road (which turned into Hwy 25) and eventually we turned onto Hwy 156. Thankfully, Peter and Hugh had selected a route that avoided the “turbo roundabout” at the intersection of Hwys 25 and 156. I’m pretty sure that this stroke of navigational genius saved many of the tour vehicles from rather expensive realignment work. Thank you, Peter and Hugh!
Eventually, we merged onto Hwy 152 (which, oddly enough can also be traversed from Gilroy, but not in such a fun way) and blasted through the puddles and up and over the Pacheco Pass. The tourers did a fantastic job of “keeping up” with Peter’s, ummm, heavy (lead?) right foot and so far as I could tell, we didn’t lose anyone.
As San Luis Reservoir came into view, the anticipation of our first tour stop at the Romero Overlook Visitor Center, grew and grew and grew… You probably get the point, after the coffee at Sandy’s and the bumpiness of Hwy 152.
At the base of the dam is the Gianelli Hydroelectric plant. Inside the Romero center there is a really cool sort of immersive video (playing on multiple screens which gave me vertigo) which gives an explanation of how water from the San Joaquin delta is pumped up into the reservoir overnight by impellers, and then released through the turbines when more electricity is needed on the grid. Rather clever engineering allows the electrical generation turbines to be the same device as the impellers for pumping water into the reservoir from O’Neill Forebay below the dam.
If you haven’t stopped at the Romero Overlook center, you might want to make a stop there next time you are headed out to I-5 south of Santa Nella, or continuing on (as we were) to points farther east (Merced? Fresno? Chowchilla? Bakersfield?). There are very nice bathrooms, and lots of cool old pictures (the project began in 1963 and was completed in 1967). Heck, President Kennedy even came for the ground breaking in 1963. Don’t know where Air Force 1 landed, but I guess wherever it was, JFK had to travel by auto or Marine 1 to get to the location of the future dam.
The wind was howling at the visitor center. So, what I thought was going to be a warm enough jacket turned out to be a good start, but I shoulda had more. Just spitballing here, but I’ll bet that the wind was hitting 40+ mph. For crying out loud, there were whitecaps on the reservoir. Yikes!
Exiting the Romero Visitor Center, we continued our sojourn east on Hwy 152 towards the intersection with Hwy 33.
Anywhere roads run North-South, East-West I know that the land is flat, and if the roads are decent, one can fly. Just watch out for the occasional piece of agricultural equipment or semi blocking your way! We flew. Until we reached Los Banos.
As we cruised through the multitude of stop lights, enjoying the sights and traffic congestion, my mind wandered back to the days when Los Banos was simply a bump in the road. Well, my friends, those days are long gone. Multiple chain “restaurants” and stores have eaten into the ag land that surrounds LB, with the result of more traffic. I suspect that the residents of the rural areas around Los Banos view the loss of their bucolic identity with mixed emotions. Yeah, they’ve got a Starbucks, but check out the local burger joints and dive bars.
We passed the dairy plant and the abattoir right there on the main drag (thank you Bonnie Lund for the explanation and history lesson) and paused on the eastern outskirts to reconstitute the group. Whew. No one was lost, yet.
And, oh yeah, did I mention that it was raining? And that the puddles were thick as thieves? Glad I had good tires – at least for another year.
Exited 152 in a southerly direction at Hwy 33 and proceeded to Dos Palos (I looked it up, Two Sticks or Two Poles – maybe that is where we got the phrase “you live in the sticks”).
Still raining. Still doing an impression of autobahn traffic.
When we got to Firebaugh, navigation became more of a challenge. Lots of turns. Lots of roads and streets. I especially enjoyed counting off the ½ roads – 7 ½ 8 ½ etc.. And as a sign of creeping development, 7 ½ turned into 13th street which turned into…
Just to prove that Firebaugh wasn’t sporting a “big city” attitude, the directions said “turn left onto 13th street at the Giant Burger. I really like those homey kind of directions. Takes me back to my adolescent days when I could navigate my folks around town via the landmarks, and I didn’t know the names of any of the streets.
From Firebaugh onwards there were a lot of X turns into Y streets. I was fastidiously watching my GPS map to make certain that I was on the right road/street, since I had kinda lost the folks in front of me at the Firebaugh chicane(s). Fortunately the sweeper, Hugh Calvin, saw my predicament and passed me to lead us to the promised GTG.
The final leg was onto Hwy 41 (Yosemite Freeway), and the horse could sense that the stall was right around the corner, I mean U-turn.
Yes ladies and gentlemen, the Ken Miles Memorial U-Turn Tour was aptly named in my case. I followed the car in front of me, and yep, we were wrong, making a left when we should have made a right. So, at the first opportunity we u-ied and got back on course. I think that I heard Ken laughing. Maybe it was the windshield wipers.
Obviously, I was one of the last to arrive at the Bennett’s, but it didn’t really matter since there was a buffet style sit down with ribs and beans to ease the pain of sort of getting lost. Nicely done, Debbie and Kevin.
Saturday night we gathered at a local restaurant, Bobby Salazar’s, for dinner. If I had read my tour instructions more carefully, I would have known where OUR Bobby Salazar’s was located. I didn’t, and when I googled (yes that is a verb now) Bobby Salazar’s Mexican Restaurant, I got about a dozen of them in the search results. Apparently, Mr. Salazar is a very successful entrepreneur, and has a LOT of restaurants. Bless him.
Thankfully, Peter texted me the correct address and I found the joint.
As we were exiting the restaurant, the rain was starting to abate, leaving reservoir sized puddles all over the place. I guess that the ground doesn’t drain well there. Or maybe it doesn’t rain much there, and the drainage system was overwhelmed. Ah well. I should have brought my waders.
Sunday I had planned on going with the group to the Forestiere Underground Gardens in Fresno.
As it turned out, we all should have brought our waders.
Thankfully, Peter checked the status of the gardens and found that not only was it underground, but it was under water and our tour of the place had been cancelled.
Just for grins, I decided to do a drive by of this historic Fresno site.
Lots of beautiful flowers could be seen from the street, and I could even see the entry way. But, alas, the gate was locked, and that was all I got to see.
Someday, I will go back and check out the Underground Gardens, not when it’s not raining and not in the summer. But sometime when the weather gods are smiling down on us. It was great to be with club members on a tour that I will definitely never forget.
Thank you Peter and Hugh and the Bennetts for putting together this tour and GTG.
Until next time, auf wiedersehn.
(If you want to see more pictures of this tour, you can do so at the the following URL 2024 Ken Iles Memorial U-Turn Tour).