Stopping @ Stephanie's

450 miles today that began in the deserts of Barstow and ended in the lush green wine country outside of Sacramento. We began our day of travel at 7:30 and ended@3:30. Perfect amount of time to be on the road!  

We did go through an interesting little town called Boran. Maybe my brother and sister Kathy will remember "20 Mule Team Borax"? Well this is where the "white gold" of the 1800's came from.

This is an excerpt about the history of this time. 

THE ROUTE

With a growing demand for borax and an apparently unlimited reserve of crude ore, Coleman needed to find the quickest, surest way to move his product out of Death Valley.

W.T. Coleman

According to legend, Coleman's local superintendent J.W.S. Perry and a young muleskinner named Ed Stiles thought of hitching two ten-mule teams together to forms a 100-foot-long, twenty mule team. The borax load had to be hauled 165 miles up and out of Death Valley, over the steep Panamint Mountains and across the desert to the nearest railroad junction at Mojave. The 20-day round trip started 190 feet below sea level and climbed to an elevation of 2,000 feet before it was over.

Built in Mojave for $900 each, the wagons' design balanced strength and capacity to cary the heavy load of borax ore. Each wagon was to carry ten tons — about one-tenth the capacity of a modern railroad freight car. But instead of rolling on steel rails over a smooth roadbed, these wagons had to grind through sand and gravel and hold together up and down steep mountain grades. Iron tires — eight inches wide and one inch thick — encased the seven-foot-high rear wheels and five-foot front wheels. The split oak spokes measured five and one-half inches wide at the hub. Solid steel bars, three and one-half inches square, acted as the axle-trees. The wagon beds were 16 feet long, four feet wide and six feet deep. Empty, each wagon weighed 7,800 pounds. Two loaded wagons plus the water tank made a total load of 73,200 pounds or 36 1/2 tons.

Between 1883 and 1889, the twenty mule teams hauled more than 20 million pounds of borax out of the Valley. During this time, not a single animal was lost, nor did a single wagon break down — a considerable tribute to the ingenuity of the designers and builders and the stamina of the men and mules.

Ok, back to the trip...we did pass thru cherry orchards and fields of flowers, but Joe zoomed by before I could get a pic! (To be fair, I really didn't ask him to stop.) Once you are clippin' along, hard to interrupt that pace. Now I know why dad, we called him "the Great Santini", just herded us into the car and drove until one of us whined to stop!

The only other stop of interest was at Pea Soup Anderson's. In the first pic, you'll see Joe does not mind posing, by the 2nd pic he has lost patience with me. (Didn't see that coming, did you?)

The food was ok, but THE famous split pea soup a little grainy. 

We arrived in Woodland, CA where Stephanie McMullen Ladd calls home. Great visit with Nathan, Steph, Andrew and Brandon. The boys have grown a bit since we last saw them at the wedding! Andrew is a star baseball player and Brandon graduates high school and is off to Santa Cruz college on Monterrey Bay! 

 Oh, and I wanted to remember the grilled chicken recipe Stephanie and Nate made! They bought gluten free Asian teriyaki sauce/marinade from Costco, added yellow mustard (a cup), and seasonings like basil, oregano, sea salt, garlic powder and pepper. Marinaded it a couple of hours and ready to grill. Delicious along with grilled to perfection asparagus. Thank you, Ladd Family!  So nice to see each other in real time and not just FB!