Mike,
I live in Newport Beach S Cal and drive to the desert above Palm Springs
each weekend.(home) The trip it seems is up hill the whole way, leaving the coast.
I try to stay up with traffic in a conservative way but I need to drive at least 70 mph.
I try to keep the RPM between 2000 and 2500 sometimes hard to do especially on the very steep long hills. by the way I keep 40 psi in the tires and use 87 octain gas
JC