Took a trip through the southern-most part of San Diego County last Saturday to take some photos of the rusted hulks at the Motor Transport Museum in Campo.

Naturally, the direct route was inadvisable! I headed out I-8 to Old Hwy 80 all the way out to where Hwy 94 meets it near Boulevard. 94 took me back to San Diego via all those towns whose names you heard during the Portrero fire last year. It was a pretty relaxed drive, 65 mph or so for the most part. I ended up in traffic from Campo to home, which otherwise would have been the most challenging part of the day. Oh well. It was a fun alternative to the usual Palomar, etc. run.

Here's the route:


Here are some pics:

 

Thanks for those pictures - it's been quite a while since I stopped at the Campo musuem.

Pickings for fun roads are a bit slim south of I-8, but I do like Lyons Valley Road. And Kitchen Creek Road off I-8 to the north is very nice for five miles, until you come to the end of the public road - but then the run back to I-8 is five more miles of fun!

And CA94 can be real fun at the right time (now rare) when you can avoid traffic. Watch out for the immigration checkpoint near Tecate, although MINIs tend to amuse the officers looking for vehicles smuggling people. One of these days, I'm going to have to make an early morning run in my classic...

 

I didn't get up early enough to expect a traffic-free run on 94. If I am up that early I'd rather head north to Palomar, Wynola, Banner Grade, etc.

I enjoyed this run because it was open and not very challenging (I suppose one could make it challenging with a high enough rate of speed...). It's amazing how close to San Diego the back country is. Hwy 80 was less than half an hour from downtown, but felt like another world, especially after it crossed to the south side of I-8. Other than Border Patrol trucks parked on the side of the road a few miles, I just tooled along through the countryside all by myself. It's more of an escape route than a canyon carving route.