We had already been to Arizona and visited Rebbel's family. Everything was going smooth as we headed for San Diego with no signs of trouble and then.....there it was. A sign of trouble. It came in the form of an elevation sign. The first one wasn't too bad, but they kept bragging about the elevation every few thousand feet. I was really enjoying the view. The mountain we were going through looked like some kind of weird moonscape in places. Big boulders were strewn by the roadside along the way. My wife hated every minute of the travel down the mountain. She was freaking out. We pulled over at the first rest stop we found and my wife said something I will never forget. She said, "I want you to put me on a plane and fly me home!" Evidently the trip down the mountain was a little too much for her, I surmised as I got my only peek at the Pacific I would get on this trip.
Needless to say, all of our plans evaporated like water in the Death Valley. We decided to go to our friend's house in Bakersfield. Little did we know that we would pass through another place called the Grapevine on our way to Bakersfield, and it happened again. This time she also had her first panic attack. Her arms became numb and breathing heavy. I thought she was going to pass out. Did I mention she was driving?
Our dream trip to California turned out to be a short visit with our friends and family. Thankfully, they lived in lower elevations that you could get to without going through any mountains. We left California through the dessert and went relatively flat to Nevada. The next day, she drove on Hoover Dam without any real problems. The big problem was going down the mountain gave her an out of control feeling, yet she had to drive or she would feel even more out of control. I know what she means, sitting in the passenger seat during her panic attacks made me feel the same way!
Take the trip down the Grapevine http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7600703408514447465&hl=en
Picture on right: Going Down the Grapevine 1947 from the
California State Site
