Highway 128 California

Driving Hwy 128

The Anderson valley is geologically isolated from the interior valleys of California. Two roads give access to the valley and neither is great. Highway 128 is one of the best road for driving a sports car fast in California—absolute speed is so important as is one’s ability to stay on the road, stay straight, and handle extreme comers-dropping turns, blind turns, close to double 180 degree hairpins—it is wonderful. As an eighteen year old I had my Sister’s Datsun (now Nissan) roadster, 1967, a 1600 cc, 2000 lbs, low to the ground, Dunlap tired fire engine red sports car. She had gotten the car from our Dad as a college students and then moved to Paris to I got to baby-sit the car, along with my 1969 International Travelall.

I often traveled from the Bay area, San Jose, to camp. A couple of elements of the drive gave different challenges. Driving 19th street through SF was fun to see if you could make it through the entire city, Golden Gate Bridge to 280, without stopping. I did pull this off twice going south and once going north, without cheating.

Another aspect was making the 200 miles drive in under three hours- not impossible. Two keys were making time on 280, where you could easily average 80 mph and then driving 128 as fast as possible.

The road starts off fairly reasonably and then blasts up a step hill of winding turns. As a camper, this was where you really began to wonder if the bus could make it up the hill in 100-degree heat. The it straightened out along a ridge line, fairly fast, some turns, never enough time to space out, particularly at night. I did my best driving at night.

I don’t remember how many miles it was from the 101 junction to Philo but it was possible to do it at an average of at least 60 mph. Of course I never had the experience of driving it in one of Colbert’s early “Fang”’ buses. Aircraft landing lights, perhaps a Porsche distributor, who knows what else. Certainly an engine not long for the world!

One of the best turns

More nice sweeping turns

Great roads make great memories. Never crashed, never got left by the side of the road.