Steven & Fran's Travelogfor 2009
The Reunion Tour -
Part-1
Travelog
Steve and Fran are on the road again for a bit of a break after several years spent in one place with only a couple months travel in California to visit other family. It is a special treat for us as we have not been able to really experience travel in our new (in 2007) home on wheels. We are moving about in familiar territory mostly in southwest Arizona visiting old haunts and locating old friends. What a wonderful part of the full time lifestyle it is to renew old acquaintances and trade memories and stories of travels.
Day 1:
Yuba City to Santa Nella, California. Interstate 5. Lots of semi trailer trucks on the road. Lots of RVs also... but they are going north. It's that time... snowbird migration. We pulled into San Luis RV Resort just south of town. The former owners were friends. They sold the park a couple years back. We registered and decided to go to dinner and connect to the utilities when we got back. Okay...so we wanted to go to Pea Soup Andersons. We both ordered the soup filled bread bowl. It was really good and fun to eat that way. Yum. That bread is sooo good.
Day 2:
Santa Nella. First wake up out of Yuba City! What a nice thing to be able to see for miles, to see green fields, to see trees, and other RVs! We got ready to leave San Luis park. We had discovered a bit of a leak problem beneath our rig so I went to the office to report it so they could make sure it would dry up. The man that came to the counter looked familiar. I said 'What's your name?' He said 'You look familiar'. It was John, our friend that had owned the park and we hadn't seen for years. They had sold the park twice and it kept coming back to them. They were trying to retire. It was so great to get to see John again and find out what's been going on with them.
We headed south for Mojave, California. Down the 'great valley' of California on I-5 to Lost Hills. We saw pure white dust devils rise from alkali in dry fields. We passed fewer orchards and more vineyards and then vineyards with oil wells in among the vines. Traffic was heavy. We refueled in Bakersfield ...people and truck... and headed east on highway 58. Slow going over the Tehachapis. Got behind a slow truck. Ours was pulling okay on the upgrades but had not enough 'stuff' to pass. As we puttzed along we were treated to a long freight train going around the spiral at the Tehachapi Loop to gain the needed altitude to cross the mountain. It was our first chance to see such a long train going around the curves of the loop and through the tunnels. Fascinating.
Finally we crossed the summit ...4046'... and headed down into Mojave and the Antelope Valley. We got settled into the Spaceport RV park and then zipped into Lancaster to visit family there. Back to Mojave we awaited the arrival of any UFOs that might be circling about. Bummer, saw none and couldn't even get Coast 2 Coast a.m. on the radio to keep us posted as to where the aliens were.
Domingo's in Boron, CA is crowded at lunchtime.
Day 3:
We departed Mojave, early for us, and got all the way to Boron (32 miles) in time to beat the lunch rush at Domingos. As any who have traveled highway 58 probably already know... Domingo's is the friendliest restaurant on earth. And the food is good too. Back on the road we headed to Barstow and picked up I-40 to Needles. California and then north on Arizona highway 95 to Spirit Mountain RV Park, in Mohave Valley. We registered for four nights and are assigned a site we'd stayed in before. It felt like home.
Day 4:
Kickback day... no plans to go anywhere or do anything in particular. Worked on this journal and just sort of zoned out. Could feel the nerves unraveling lulled by the flow of traffic at the front of the park. We were in the very back. At night the hum of the highway tapered to almost nothing.
Days 5 and 6:
In mid afternoon we were desperate for some drinkable water. Drinkable water does not come out of the water taps along the Colorado River. We did a bit of exploring while we were out and 'discovered' a great State Park in Nevada, Big Bend on the Colorado River. It is south of Laughlin, Nevada on the road to Needles. It is a great park with large camping sites, boat launch, picnic areas near the river, swimming beach... and, the Ranger said, 'a roadrunner with an attitude, and loves Goldfish'.
Swimming beach at Big Bend Colorado River State Park, Nevada
Back to Arizona we crossed the river at the AVI Casino at the very southern tip of Nevada. We replenished our drinking water supply and bought a few groceries in Fort Mohave and headed home.
The next day we did laundry and other chores. Catching up on computer work is necessary since we never know what sort of internet connections we will find at the next place we stop.
Home Is Where We Park Our House at Spirit Mt. RV Park 2009
Next time: A week on California's east coast.