It is a dark and stormy night as I write this. Raining so hard, the satellite TV signal can’t get through, and my cell is having a bit of the same problem.

Just like at the start of this journey, the weather is controlling my movements. It isn’t fun driving a 40-foot-long RV pulling a Jeep in a torrential rain storm. Thank you, I’ll just sit and listen to the drip of a leaking roof.

Come first light, it will be time to find the leak and apply caulking as necessary.

Took a drive today into Gilroy and beyond, between raindrops. Decided to follow California Highway 152 for a way because that is the path closest to the proposed route of the high-speed rail.

… I’m back, and you didn’t know I was gone. Lost power in the middle of writing this and have just come back to this after a few days’ break.

Roof leak fixed (it stopped raining), and so are my two electrical problems. My front step broke, and I finally got it repaired. I don’t want to talk about the step breaking. I can moor a large ship but had a little problem with this 40-foot RV. Got to get me some of them side thrusters to help me park. I wish they made something like that for RV owners. I couldn’t afford them if they did.

When you are reading this, I have returned to the SCV. I don’t’ mind the delay, since we are getting lots of rain and snow. I think Mr. El Nino has decided to come to the party after all.

The drive back was uneventful. Little if any traffic on the route roughly following the high-speed rail route over the mountains from Gilroy on CA-152. From there, it was a connection to the 5 Freeway and up and over the Grapevine. The roads were clear, and the snow was on the mountain tops far from the highway with clear blue sky and little wind. Good weather for a large RV.

As I was driving, I kept wondering: Why not build the high-speed rail line in the middle of the 5 Freeway? Lots of room, and most times there isn’t any obstruction. The only worry might be keeping folks in cars from trying to race the train.

I know. Such a route wouldn’t go through many populated areas. Why not run some feeder tracks and build stations for them? That way, folks could still get high-speed service and not have to have so many lives and so much property disrupted. Maybe the speeds required in Proposition 1A could be achieved and maintained. Or maybe just use buses to the stations along the route.

I don’t know. Out of maybe 100 or so folks I had discussions with concerning the high-speed railroad, only 10 or 15 really wanted to support it now as long as the water problems are cured first. All of those other people stated they just can’t see building it at all.

During my journey, there were hundreds of billboards and smaller signs stating, “Dams not Trains” and “Water First.” In such a huge agricultural area the size of California, it was brought home to me that more than half of all fruits and vegetables sold in the United States are grown in our state. One sign struck me as especially shocking but sadly true. It read: “When did using water to grow our food become so wrong?”

The farmers and ranchers feel as if they are criminals because they want to grow food and use water. Lots of water. It is what a farm does. They have no love of the high-speed railroad when water needs are being ignored.

You know, the little delta smelt isn’t any more native to the California river system in the Central Valley than is the unarmored three-spine stickleback fish here in our own river. Both are imports. But we’re protecting them. Makes me wonder.

I drove a little over 934 miles total in the RV and had many side trips in the Jeep. I did enjoy the lower fuel prices. All along the way, I saw fields plowed under and lying fallow for what could have been years. Once vast orchards were being pulled up and the trees long dead from the effects of drought are piled and being burnt. The smoke from those fires rises like pillars of protest to the stupidity of our state and federal lawmakers, along with regulators who do nothing more than attempt to protect a little fish at the expense of humans.

In the end, that long and mostly enjoyable journey proved to me that the folks in that beautiful capitol building in Sacramento and the ones in an even more impressive building in Washington, D.C., have no idea what the people want or need. They just don’t care. They want to retain office, so they say anything to get elected and then vote for the folks who paid to put them in office. I for one am sick of that.

We need water and don’t need trains. If we can’t shift the bond money to pay for water storage, we need to build dams. Lots of dams. We need to stop the train.

And I don’t believe at all that our main highways aren’t expandable. There is plenty of room to add one or two lanes to I-5 and most of Highway 99. There is also a need finally to reconnect passenger service from Los Angeles, Santa Clarita, Bakersfield and on north. The tracks exist. I just bet if we could get folks off the buses Amtrak uses between Newhall and Bakersfield, the ridership would soar. Nobody wants to buy a train ticket and ride a bus for fully one-third of the trip.

Let’s see if we can get people out of cars first. If that works, let’s build a high-speed train. The one along the I-5 right-of-way would be good, and use the existing Amtrak tracks all the way from San Diego to Seattle.

Seems logical to me. But then again, I’m a guy who spent a career of going to sea in ships that sink on purpose. I might just be a little bit nuts.

Darryl Manzer grew up in the Pico Canyon oil town of Mentryville in the 1960s and attended Hart High School. After a career in the U.S. Navy he returned to live in the Santa Clarita Valley. He can be reached at dmanzer@scvhistory.com. His older commentaries are archived at DManzer.com; his newer commentaries can be accessed [here]. Watch his walking tour of Mentryville [here].