Good morning, motorists… the middle of the work week has arrived.
Roads in the Crestline area and downbound are a piece of cake to navigate today. The chill of freezingish temps has little noticeable effect on dry roads, but drivers are still advised to seek out wet/ice spots, and use those for the enjoyment of gittin’ a little sideways or even just goosing the throttle for some wheelspin. Even a ’91 minivan—possibly even FORD ones—will spin wheels there, so enjoy. The wind has faded to little more than occasional breezes, and precipitation is only in the past and the future, not in the present. Fog is something found in London today, but not here.
There were a surprising number of rocks in the road this morning… nothing larger than a size 5-1/4 left-handed baseball mitt (Spalding, not Wilson, of course), but of that size and smaller, they were bountiful. This suggests that larger rocks could also make their way to the roadway, so keep a vigilant eye out. I mean, honestly, you are driving a 5,000 pound brick of steel, with fifteen gallons of highly flammable gasoline in it to boot, down a steep hill, so that vigilant eye should already be all the way out, and maybe even sitting in your lap, or maybe on the dashboard, but I think you get the idea.
And, though this is something I rarely provide statistical data on, today’s drive has zero trees to inhibit the drive. Such could not be said for the entirety of yesterday’s Highway 18 passage, though (see the full story and pics on www.mountainreporter.com), so, today, it seems appropriate to provide the trees-on-the-highway tally for the morning commute. Please note that these figures reflect only the time and route that I have already completed; past performance is not necessarily an indicator of future results.
I noticed in the article about yesterday’s highway tree that they had to bring out a whole crew of CalTrans and CHP personnel to deal with it. Not sure why, though. Maybe not everybody has my same skill set, but I can tell you that I can cut a tree up just by looking at it: I saw it with my own eyes.
Well, it looks like we’re going random today. See, this column just isn’t always quite random ENOUGH, so let’s really make it random today.
First off, a bunch of really important things have happened lately with Kardashians, Haddids, Jenners, Beibers, Grandes, Teigens, Azalias, Iggies, Gagas, Gigis, Griffins, and Cyrusses, and all of these things are somehow related to Instagram and Buzzfeed and Twitter and possibly FaceBook (I think that’s still a thing). There’s been shade thrown, outrage, clapback, comeback, blowback, pushback, suckback, talkback, backtalk, retaliation, ultimate responses, put downs, disses (I’m pretty sure those are still a thing), shaming (body, mom, fat, thin, skin, hair, weight, orientation, and a bunch of other types, always followed by shaming for shaming, which is SOMETIMES followed by shaming for shaming for shaming), slamming, snubbing, reprisals, doxing, and probably dozens of other really positive things that social media brings to us. However… we will not be covering any of this important news. You’ll just have to seek it out for yourself.
So, over the weekend, Big Bear was apparently a little low on snow. But, the rest of Southern California believed that since Big Bear’s elevation is like, 29,000 feet, there’d at least be some of the year-round snow, like around the Big Bear Glaciers. So, they arrived in droves, caravans of minivans from the Yucatan and Kazakhstan and Pakistan and Huntington (most preloaded with dirty diapers, broken sleds, McDonald’s sacks, single socks, and all of the usual ballast to jettison out of the window, for us Disneyland employees to clean up later) with top speeds rivaling that of glaciers, looking for their damn snow. They asked Sherpas for advice on where to find snow, but getting no response, they had to settle. Reports this weekend were that a large number of snow tourists had settled for… mud. Really… mud. They bundled up in mittens and scarves, and played in… mud. They sledded in… mud. They made… mudmen (those things are abominable), they made… mudangels. They even had… mudball fights. They ate mudcones. No word on whether or not any ate the yellow mud. Never eat yellow mud. Everybody knows that. Or should. Fathers, teach your children.
Car and Driver recently road-tested and compared a couple of new Chevy Silverados: a V8 powered version, and a new inline FOUR cylinder version. Yep… I said four. The four banger is touted as being there for the purpose of high fuel efficiency. And, during EPA testing, the four-banger showed an ever-so-slightly better mileage figure than the muscly eight… but the EPA testing is done at 48 MPH. Car and Driver tested the two trucks at 75 MPH… a little more realistic for highway cruising. The weaker four cylinder (310 HP, vs. 355 HP for the V8) got 18 MPG… while the actually-capable-of-hauling-heavy-stuff V8 got 21 MPG.
This is not uncommon: often, when various engine sizes are offered for a certain model, the larger, more powerful engine is able to achieve better efficiency, and better MPGs. Buyer beware: you may regret settling for a smaller, weaker engine option, as those are often the worst of both worlds.
A while back, the Chickens Little predicted that cycle builder Harley-Davidson would crumble and fall… because of new tariffs on steel imposed by President Trump. The naysayers said that the price of a bike from H-D would therefore skyrocket, making them unaffordable to all but the very wealthy. Well… so far, H-D is still in business. Let’s see… H-D bikes average around 500 lbs. each… and let’s be really generous, and say that 80% of that weight is steel. So, 400 pounds of steel… at about a buck per pound (it’s frequently closer to half of that price, but we’ll go big here)… tack on Trump’s 25% tariff for steel imported from certain countries… and this could raise the price of a bike by… $100! Really? Is a $100 per expensive bike going to sink this company? I doubt it. Besides… there’s no tariff on American Steel… none at all. There are even a few NON U.S. countries that we can buy steel from, tariff-free. Heck, if H-D just used homegrown steel, that right there would save this tariff cost, resulting in NO increase to production cost or sales price.
Interestingly… some OTHER countries are bringing their manufacturing HERE. Indian automaker Mahindra is outsourcing some of their labor. Ironically, they are building cars in… Michigan? Yup… these are cars that are NOT for the U.S. market, either… after being built here, they are headed for India (they go on a boat, as Waze still hasn’t found a good route to drive). I just can’t help but wonder if there are angry Indians all over that country, bent out of shape over outsourcing of jobs. I’d just like to know who mans the customer service call centers?!?
I did a little math regarding steel… we use steel to make all kinds of things. It’s inexpensive but very durable… and is one of the major materials used in making cars and trucks. But, just how much steel does it take to build a vehicle? Well, a Chevy Suburban can be made out of a cube of steel that’s 27 inches to a side… a Smart Car can be made out of a cube only 19 inches to a side. However, an 18-wheeler, and the trailer it drags around, would need a cube 52 inches to a side. Still… that doesn’t seem all that big, considering how big those trucks are. That 52-inches-to-a-side cube of steel will weigh 38,000 pounds, though, so it’s not like you can just stick it in the back of the Suburban and drive off with it. On the other hand… it would FIT easily in the Suburban. In fact, the volume of steel required to manufacture an 18-wheeler would only occupy… about two-thirds of the cargo volume available in the Suburban.
You are welcome… now, your nights of laying awake wondering how many theoretical 18-wheeler-making blocks of steel will fit in your Suburban are over!