California Trip-1: Sanity on the Roads

This post has a mostly quick history lesson about highways in California added on at the end to spice it up. The lesson is one I learned after trying to figure some things out about the roads we drove on.

I commented earlier about being happy to have been able to have skipped Interstate-5 (most commonly, and hereafter, referred to as I-5) in favor of the slower, denser, and older north-south arteries of 99 and 101 (for readers unfamiliar with the nomenclature, "99" refers to specifically "CA Route 99" and "101" refers to "US HWY 101"). If one is on a long drive from the southern latitudes of the US, is entering California, and has a terminus of Sacramento, I-5 is the best choice if quickness is the desire. I-5 runs along at the base where the Great Central Valley butts up to the Coastal Range, the mountains that separate the Valley from the Pacific Ocean. There are no towns between Los Angeles and Stockton (basically), every thirty or so miles a little oasis of gas stations and fast food joints pop-up, and the only vehicles on the road are high-speed travelers and semis. Almost every trip I made from Sacramento to San Luis Obispo I drove the long north-south distance along I-5.

Having driven across this country more than once, in both directions, I can say that 1) many places in this country viewable by road are spectacular; 2) the scenery along I-5 is anything but spectacular.

Our last trip to California was for my good friends Norm and Holly's wedding, and was taken about six weeks after our own wedding when we were lower than broke. We couldn't afford a rental car, had to fly in and out of the LA area to get the best prices, and had to take a week off to maintain those cheap prices (just to fly on the right days). We spent more time in the car than with friends and family, and since we had awesome friends who picked us up, we were still kind of at their mercy, and spent more time with some people--very cool people of course--than we would have if we'd had our own wheels. This trip we wanted the control of our own car (we got it), and we wanted to drive through all the little towns along the Central Valley and see where the people of California live when not in one of the two major triangles of population density (we did), and we wanted to break up our driving to keep the hours in the car down to reasonable numbers (accomplished).

The first day arriving in San Jose, we spent the evening there and eventually drove along I-280 South for a quick minute until it turns into I-680, which turns north and heads up the east side of the Bay all the way up to I-80, where we turned east and headed for Sac. We got to Sacramento quickly, slightly longer than two hours (the rental was faster than our '93 Saturn).

From Sac we headed south along 99 instead of I-5, and drove through all the tiny towns you see names and arrows for along the interstate, and arrived in Fresno in just over three hours.

From Fresno we went along 41 (as in CA Route 41) all the way to when it hits 46, stayed on 46 after they split, made it to Paso Robles and picked up 101 there, heading south into San Luis Obispo, in just under three hours.

The longest stretch of any driving we did was from SLO north to San Mateo, on the peninsula, at around three-and-a-half hours, along 101.

US Highway 101 is the last main north south arterial highway designated before the interstate system was developed in the fifties. I always had wondered why I-5 is on the west coast and I-95 is on the east coast, and why I-90 is the most northern east-west route and I-10 is the most southernly. The major north-south arterial Interstate highways ascend as one progresses east, and the east-west routes ascend as one travels north precisely to go against the numbering scheme of the US Highways. US HWY 1 is the major US highway along the east coast, US 11 runs through Tennessee, US 21 runs through Cleveland to New Orleans...I've read that US 101 is not a three digit US higway, as those were designated as spurs or loops (just like three digit interstate highways); US 101 is considered "10-1", where the first "digit" of the numbering scheme is 10. Okay... The US highways also descended as one traveled north...the idea was not to confuse residents too much with the new freeways.

In California I was curious how CA Rt 99 came to be named that, and learned that it had been US 99, and similarly to the east coast's US 9, which travels right across the Hudson from US 1, I realized that the main north-south routes ended in either 1 or 9. Besides the development of the Interstate system, a near fatal blow the old US highway system was perpetrated by California in 1964, when they commenced a major re-numbering project. US 99 became CA 99, and literally dozens of other US highways were turned into state routes, many with no connection to the US route number. 99 had gone from Mexico to Canada...in 1964 in California the bulk of the route was changed to I-5 north of Sac, CA 65 from Roseville to Marysville is all that's left of the 99-W (the western loop of 99, from Stockton to Davis, and up to Chico, where it used to meet up with 99-E). US 40 changed into I-80. Notice that 80 is north of US 50, which, besides having it's western terminus changed from San Francisco to Sacramento, has remained virtually unchanged.

The story behind the nostalgia of 101, and why an effort was raised to make sure it stays well maintained is traced to US 66. Route 66, the old famous highway of legend, from the older auto touring days, the route from Chicago to LA, in 1964 in California became a combination of CA 2, US 101, CA 110, CA 248, CA 66, CA 210, I-215, I-40, and then onto I-15, and that was just getting out of Los Angeles. Try making a nostalgic song about that cluster. The people were in general going along with the renumbering until Rt 66 got so screwed up, and it was deemed too late to fix it beyond putting up a historical marker every few dozen miles, so they made sure that 101 was maintained at the level that the interstates are mandated to attain.

I'm asking my readers who're in the next generation up (older than me) if my characterization of the renumbering, which I've developed from reading the internet, is accurate. My mom was in grade school, so...Let me know if there are any memories or anecdotes. Thanks.