Stayin Alive on 395!

 Sorry, but I have to admit I can be a bit of a liar...well, not a liar, just a forgetful person.

I had said last week that I was done with the desert highways, but I had forgotten one, and this one was mentioned in my California U.S. Highways article. It definitely bears mentioning because I have a good deal of personal experience with this road, both in its current form and old and occasionally hard to find pieces. 

This is....

395 is unique in that even before the rise of the Interstate Highways, 395 never once connected with its mother route U.S. 95. I think the closest they come to each other is 75 miles apart.

395 is one of those highways that even before truncation was a "close but no cigar" in terms of border to border length, having previously ended in downtown San Diego.

Currently, U.S. 395 begins in the high desert town of Hesperia, California. After a few stop signs and traffic signals, 395 heads into the empty desert for a long while, seeing some relief stops at its junction with CA 58 (which until fairly recently was a frequently backed up 4 way stop), Randsburg, Inyokern, Lone Pine, and Big Pine.  Along the way, it provides access to the Naval base in Ridgecrest, sees the end of CA 14 (formerly U.S. 6 before 1964), and also access to Death Valley via CA 190. 

Many of the towns I mentioned are in the Owens Valley, which while completely desert, give some breathtaking views of the eastern Sierra Nevada escarpment. Gas in this valley can be a bit pricy since 395 does not connect directly to any major highways until entering Nevada.

Exiting the Owens Valley, 395 enters Bishop, which serves as a gateway to the mountains and mountain skiing resorts. It is a great town to gas up and eat after all of that desert. Bishop is also where U.S. 6 has its western beginning. 

After Bishop, 395 climbs into the mountains for a while, getting some cooler air while going through Lee Vining (where it meets CA 120 west, providing access to Yosemite National Park), Bridgeport, and Topaz before entering Nevada and evening out into the Carson Valley, serving Minden and Gardnerville before entering the Carson City area and becoming a freeway bypassing the capitol town. From Carson City to Reno, 395 is paired with I 580 before becoming its own route again after junctioning with I 80. 18 miles later, 395 is back in California.

The rest of 395 in northern California is fairly flat with some low mountain views. It completely bypasses Susanville before re-entering empty lands to Alturas and riding the east side of Goose Lake before entering Oregon.

Hate to break it to those hoping that Oregon is a bit better, but it is still a lot of desert on its eastern parts, and as towns are fairly scarce, gas and food planning is wise. It travels with U.S. 20 for a bit to Burns and intersects with U.S. 26 in John Day, getting in some mountain climbs before that junction. From John Day, 395 does some more mountains before descending into the agricultural region of Pendleton. 395 joins I 84 for 21 miles before leaving to go through Stanfield and Hermiston before joining I 82 into Washington.

U.S. 395 in Washngton is still desertlike after leaving the tri city area of Pasco/Kennewick/ Richland, staying that way all the way to Ritzville where it joins I 90 to Spokane. North of Spokane, 395 gets greener and even has the luxury of having a 2nd crossing of the Columbia River. From there, it is quite tree-lined to the Canadian border.

Like other desert highways, 395 sees most everything except ocean, though it does travel alongside many lakes in all 3 states.

All that said, what about the "lost" 395?

I am happy to announce that much of the old 395 is quite driveable. It is quite evident on the Cabrillo Freeway between I 5 and I 8, but after that, it is quite buried under freeway concrete along CA 163 and I 15 to the Pomerado Road/Miramar Road exit, taking drivers through Poway and Rancho Bernardo before ending at I 15. Granted, the current Pomerado Road replaced an older narrower one. If one takes 15 past North County Fair Mall to  Centre City Parkway in Escondido, they can continue on 395.

In Escondido, there are 2 versions of 395. The original alignment took drivers northwest to Vista and then cut norh to Fallbrook, Rainbow, and down the hill to Temecula in Riverside County. The later realignment went fairly straight north from Escondido and now serves as a frontage road for I 15, and even has an exit labeled "Old Highway 395". It is quite driveable and in fact acts as an alternate to 15 when it gets backed up in the afternoon rush hour out of the San Diego area.

From Temecula, 395 at one time went northwest to Lake Elsinore and then northeast to Perris, and meet US/CA 60 to travel to Riverside, San Bernardino, and the Cajon Pass. 395 is still a road from Temecula to Murrieta. Later, it was realigned to go more directly north from Temecula to Perris and to Riverside before turning north for San Bernardino.

Now, I did mention a personal connection, or rather history, with 395. Back in 1987, our family took a vacation from Pennsylvania to Yosemite. We flew to Reno and took 395 south into California. We stayed in Bridgeport for the night and then continued to the junction with CA 120 to take us to the park. Coming back, we did a little detour around Lake Tahoe. That trip was quite memorable if only for the fact that on the trip back, our flight from Minneapolis to Newark was canceled...not a 395 fact but a part of the whole.

A few years later, my sister had enlisted in the Navy and, after basic training, was assigned to China Lake. She met her first husband there and they welcomed their first child in the Naval hospital. We often traveled up 15 and 395 to visit, until they moved to Washington in 1995.

Even later, a colleague of mine and I took a class at UNR one weekend in 2004 and we headed home part of the way on 395, form Reno to Big Pine, stopping to eat at a Sizzler in Bishop.

A one of a kind highway with a unique identity, 395 has something for pretty much everyone.