you've made it several times.

A second photo op presented itself just north of the junction of U.S. 395 and CA 58, the highway that runs from Barstow to the east and Bakersfield to the west. An antique store's buildings there are decorated with restored gas station signs.

Just to the south of Ridgecrest, we took a short cut that would take us into the western approach to Death Valley through the town of Trona.

I've come to think of Trona as the town that time forgot. It's a company town in which the main industry is the extraction of potash used to make gunpowder. The town's high school football team plays on a dirt field (grass won't grow here due to the highly saline nature of the soil). Many movies have been filmed in and around Trona, among them Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (look for the Trona Pinnacles to your right on the southern approach to town).

Trona is the last stop for cheap fuel, so I always top off my tank at the T-Stop convenience store.

Unfortunately, we were delayed almost 30 minutes waiting for a soda ash train to clear CA 178. Sitting in the line waiting for the train to get through the crossing, we idled with the air conditioning running full blast. The temperature gauge never moved past the one-quarter position, testimony to the robustness of the Camaro's cooling system and the engineering behind the liquid-cooled Kenne Bell supercharger.

We took the Trona-Wildrose Road north. This is usually my own private Bonneville, but since we were breaking in the new differential, we kept things under 100 m.p.h. Based on our calculations of fourth-gear engine r.p.m., we're certain that given enough road, the 650-horsepower RPO L78 Mr. Norm's Camaro would easily clear 185 m.p.h.

Turning east on CA 190, we headed up into Death Valley National Park, alert for signs of anyone testing