Portland to Quartzsite and Christmas Quilt

"Why do we park on driveways and drive on parkways?

Our last night was spent at Tammi’s house.  Her place meant that we’d have about 30 miles less to travel on our way south back to Quartzsite.  At 6:15 it was still dark when we finally pulled out.  I say finally because we had a lot of “stuff” to take back.  Our car was loaded and I certainly do mean loaded.  Traffic was light but we were very thankful for that because it was also very foggy.  The fog stuck with us almost all the way to the California border.  We had our moments without the fog but they were very few moments.

Oregon fog

By the time we climbed up and over the summit of the Siskiyou mountains, the skies had cleared and the fog disappeared.  We actually got to see some blue skies.  We also got to see a little ice and a little snow.   Well, the snow was very sparse and in patches on the side.  The ice was in the middle of the road with tracks on each side of it.  In other words, it was a perfect winter day to travel through the mountains.

Our original destination for the night was Stockton, California.  However, we didn’t stop there.  We trudged on to exit 407 and spent the night at the Santa Nella / Los Banos exit.  This was the same place we had stayed on our way south in the motorhome.  Only then, it wasn’t the first night on the trip.  It was the second night.  We traveled 710 miles on Monday.  Obviously, we were a tad bit tired.

During the drive I tried to think just how many times I had made this drive through California from Washington state.  All I can tell you is in order to count the trips through this state, it would take more than my fingers and toes and more than Terry’s too.  Uncle Sam moved my dad from Texas to Washington during WWII.  Thus, we made numerous trips to visit his family over the years.  Terry’s family lives in Arizona so we made many more trips down to see them.  Next, Disneyland sits in Los Angeles and we’ve visited there a few times too.  The road hasn’t remained the same and some of those trips were before I-5 came about.  When we first made the trip it was one lane of traffic going in each direction.  Now that was a long time ago.  It has definitely improved.

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 Blue skies & Mt. Shasta

Speaking of roads  --  when we made the trip in the motorhome in October, I posted about the bumpy parts on the I-5.  When it’s bumpy, it’s really bumpy.  When it’s smooth, it’s really smooth.   It wasn’t long after that I read another blog mentioning how smooth it was.  Needless to say, I was pretty tuned into the roads on this trip.  Was it smooth or was it bumpy?  Part of that depends on what lane you traveled in. 

Obviously, you can’t judge the northbound lanes from the southbound lanes but we were both going south.   I-5 is certainly much better than it was in previous years.  It has miles and miles of beautiful newly paved roads.  However, it still has some mighty bumpy parts too.  The area around Stockton certainly needs a lot of work. We just bounced through that big town.   Many sections underneath the overpasses have not been repaired and parts in central California have been missed too.  In some places the chop was so bad that even the trucks were riding in the left hand lane to avoid it.  You could say we were both right.  It is smooth and it isn’t but it is definitely better than it used to be.  We hit the worst part of it just south of exit 307.  Maybe even that will be finished the next time we travel through.

Buggy windshield view. Even trucks opted to drive in the left hand lane to avoid the bumping.  Notice how foggy it was in this part of California too.

We know many RV’ers heading to Arizona for the winter prefer to cross over at Tehachapi instead of the Grapevine   Tehachapi seems to go on forever and have steeper climbs in our opinion.  It’s a preference. Perhaps, they are similar or perhaps it’s because we’ve done the Grapevine more but that’s the mountain pass we prefer to go over in Southern California.  However, without a doubt, the Grapevine has a lot more traffic.  That road also needs a lot of work.  The main work they need is in painting the lines.  As you head to the LA area heading south, you can tell that the lanes have been moved around a bit.  Some of the old paint remains.  At times it’s hard to tell where the lanes really are supposed to be.  However, if you just stick on the truck bypass, it’ll keep you in the lanes you need to be in as you get closer to the 210 exit and avoid the confusion of lanes.

This was a short day of driving compared to the day before.  It was only about 515 miles.  When we went through this area on our way north for the holidays we had scheduled four stops for Christmas shopping.  One was at Winco – dog treats for Duchess.  The second was at the Cabazon Outlets for a quick visit to the Brighton outlet and the Crabtree and Evelyn Outlet.  After that we headed directly for the Ghirardelli outlet.  This time we had no malls and no shopping to do.  We were heading for “Q”..

Were we tired?  You bet we were but the car still needed to be unloaded on arrival and we had four loads of wash  to do and put away.  Duchess was beat.  All she wanted to do was go to sleep and that she did.

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Before we left for the holidays, I mentioned I had all these sewing projects to do and my machine had been in the shop for 3 weeks.  As it turned out, I only got to finish one.  This is the one I finished.  It was a lap quilt for Lee and Sabrina because Justin wouldn’t be with us.  This was for them and I still have the one for Tammi to do.

Picture of Justin scanned and printed  on washable fabric for quilt.	Due to embroidery problems with machine, I had to keep buying more and more fabric to finish but this is it.

‘Tis life on the road.

Countdown to Departure

You can find your way across this country using burger joints the way a navigator uses stars.

This is winter.  Traveling in the winter can be less than exciting.  Well, it could bring some excitement to your travels.  That kind of excitement nobody wants.  I don’t care if you’re traveling by car or by plane, weather delays can play a major part in your departure or arrival time.  We also know the accuracy of weather forecasts.  In other words …. an unexpected storm could certainly ground you along the way.

I don’t like traveling in bad weather.  I especially don’t like traveling in the winter time.  However, about the only way to get from one point to another is to travel.  We have spent more than our fair share of time on the tarmac at airports waiting for runways to be opened up after a storm or waiting our turn to be de-iced.  We’ve also spent our fair share of time inside the airport after our flight has been cancelled.  What we did learn is if you have a choice and can figure it out, pick the flight on the schedule where that plane will be heading to a very popular destination after it drops you off.  That’s the plane that the airlines will put ahead of other flights before cancelling.  As an example, if you’re heading to Miami or Chicago, get on a plane that they need in Miami or New York for an international flight after you land.  More bucks are made on those flights than the one that will just head to another in-state airport.  Been there, done that, lots.

However, it’s not so easy if you’re driving.  If you’re driving, you’re in charge. You need to check the weather reports and road conditions.  That’s just what we’ve been doing.  Driving a vehicle with a dog is a lot different than driving with an RV.  With an RV you have your motel accommodations with you.  In a vehicle, you don’t.  In your RV you can have a dog.  Finding a motel that will accept your dog in the exact place you want to stop for the night could be a different story and takes a little more research.  Then, you’re also not sleeping in your own bed with your own bedding. We’re not fond of the idea of boondocking in our Jeep at a Wal-mart on our up coming trip.  No, we’re not fond of that idea at all.

Our original departure date was going to be on Thursday.  We have a couple stops we want to make in California along the way.  One is in Cabazon (do you know what’s there?) and the other might be in Stockton.  If we left on Thursday, we figure we’d arrive in Portland on Saturday.  However, Terry is getting more and more antsy to get on the road.  The problem is if we pull out on Tuesday, there’s a good chance we’ll run into some snow over the Siskiyous and possibly on into southern Oregon.  When we’re ready to go, we’ll go but we don’t even have chains.  We didn’t want chains.  We had no plans of traveling through snow in the winter.  Absolutely no plans of doing that at all.

I had been so busy focusing on the weather through the mountains in northern California and Southern Oregon that I never bothered to check southern California until now.  Guess where and when the storm is due.  Southern California is the target with snow expected through the Grapevine just about the time we were thinking might be a good earlier departure.  Geez … you just can’t win, can you?  Tehachapi is looking at 2 – 4 inches of snow on Tuesday.

There is a window.  There always seems to be a window even if it's not the one we want.  With snow expected on the southern part of our route on Tuesday and snow expected on the northern part of our route beginning Wednesday evening, we found a window.  We don’t necessarily like that window and aren’t even sure if we’re going to use it.  Knowing the accuracy of the weather forecasts, trying to use that window could be worse than just winging it.  Storms seem to rarely travel at the speed they are forecast.  Many arrive earlier and many arrive later.  Thus, we have a dilemma. 

‘Tis life on the road …. we just hope it’s a dry road.  My guess is that we'll be on that road before this is posted.

Touching Arizona Soil

No matter where I go, there I am.

I’m happy to report that our previous pattern of leaving a little earlier each morning didn’t continue on into Friday.  Friday we left about the same time we pulled out on Wednesday.  That was the good news.  Well, not the only good news.  The other good news was that we did step on Arizona soil even though we haven’t really left California yet.

This was our neighbor in Barstow.  He had 4 ATVs he carried on this trailer.  We have seen a ton of ATVs being hauled south.  I wonder where they all go.

As we traveled on from Barstow towards Needles, I knew exactly what to expect.  Now it wasn’t that we had been this route before.  We hadn’t been past Barstow on I40.  However, I had read the Western Mountain book so I knew it was a snap.  HA!  That’s what I thought.  It was a good road and the countryside was definitely high desert terrain.  Remember the song, Everything is beautiful in it’s own way?  Well, this was actually beautiful in it’s own way too.  It was definitely different than where we had spent the summer though … definitely. 

Comparison between Washington and this part of California.

However, the mountain book forgot to mention that this road is almost a constant climb.  It may be gradual at times but it felt like we were always climbing.  Then, there were times when we weren’t climbing that we were going down for miles and miles.  Add a little wind to all those ups and downs, I can vouch for the fact that even though the distance was short, it still seemed like a long day of travel.  We have talked to many who much prefer this route over the I5 and the Grapevine.  The Grapevine has a lot more traffic but when it’s over, it’s over.  I guess it’s to each their own.  Next time we travel between Washington and Arizonia via California, we will probably return to our old standard and travel over the Grapevine.

Beautiful Casino at Laughlin.

We arrived at the Needles Elks a little after noon.  Only two of their RV sites were full.  We weren’t worried that they might be full because we also knew they had a large lot that would accommodate us if they were.  After setting up, we unhitched the trailer and headed two miles north to the Arizona border!  Whoopee.  We made Arizona even though we didn’t spend the night there.  However, since we still had quite a few daylight hours left, we were able to check out another RV park that caters to quads and also look around a little in Laughlin, Nevada, 20 miles north.  Had we not decided to make Friday a short travel day we would have had to stay another night in order to accomplish this.  We also filled up the car with gas in Arizona.  It’s certainly less expensive there than in California.

Because we were still in a high elevation, the morning had been quite cool.  The afternoon in Needles definitely wasn’t cool.  We even had our air conditioner on.  

Another view of Laughlin on the Colorado River.  Many RVs were parked in the casino lots.

What is Saturday going to bring?  Well, your guess is as good as mine at this point.  Where do you think we will be?  We could stop over in Quartzsite.  We're thinking that might be an option.   Or, we could bite the bullet and go an additional 270 miles finishing up at our final destination in Gold Canyon ..... our destination at least for a while.

I don't have a clue what Saturday will bring.

Tehachapi is Behind Us --- More Traffic, Stalls, Construction

"I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once."

I left off on my update Wednesday night or was it Thursday morning.  Obviously, we have a few travel days still in our future but we are getting closer to the destination.  We pulled out a little earlier Thursday than we did Wednesday.  Wednesday we pulled out a little earlier than we did Tuesday.  I hope that isn’t setting a pattern.

 

We were still on I5 when we pulled out of our overnight park Thursday morning.  When we went to bed the night before we had definitely decided that Thursday would be a measly 170 miles landing us at the Orange Grove RV Park east of Bakersfield..   This is what happened.

Knowing that Highway 58 was the one we needed to be on, we exited I5 heading towards Bakersfield at the sign for that road.  I’m amazed that there isn’t a 4-lane straight highway between I5 and Bakersfield. This was a two-lane road that turns left and turns right and eventually drops you about 25 miles later on another freeway, Highway 99.  We made that just fine knowing in about 2 miles we would be exiting to follow 58 all the way to just about Barstow.  The exit off of the freeway was a 2-lane exit around a curve and up a hill. 

We didn’t make that exit as planned!  Oh, sure we got off but right in the middle of curve while going uphill, my car engine DIED!  It went DEAD and all the lights came on!!  It took me a few seconds to figure out I needed to get over to the shoulder while the vehicle still had a little momentum.  Actually, I wasn’t the one that made that decision.  I panicked.  There was a lot of other traffic that came off the freeway right behind us!!  However, we do have little walkie talkies and that was Terry’s suggestion  --- Get off to the shoulder if you can!!  You should have seen all those semi-trucks trying to get around the motorhome on the curve!  Believe me … it wasn’t a pretty sight with me and the trailer halfway in the road on the curve and Big Brother right behind still in the lane.  No, it wasn't a pretty sight at all. 

Where’s Coach-net when you need them?  Actually, we were thankful we didn’t need them.  We think it might have been a vapor lock or something like that. The car started up for Terry about a minute or two later and that was about it.    It seemed we were there forever but it was only a few minutes.  Obviously, this is going into the shop and getting taken care of as soon as we can.

I bet you can imagine how I felt about driving the Jeep and pulling the trailer up the huge climb at Tehachapi.   That’s no sissy mountain, you know.  It’s a biggie!  

We were trying to decide what to do and thought maybe we should just spend the night in Bakersfield and get it fixed the next day.  I still had the Orange Grove RV Park in the GPS.  We drove by it and stopped in front for a minute or two.  Okay, so we actually checked it out.  Now I can say been there, done that .... and we decided we were going on.  I wanted to get Tehachapi behind me.  I knew if we didn’t, I wouldn’t sleep at all that night so back on the freeway we went.

The climb was uneventful and I was once again a white knuckle driver but was also very relieved when it was finally behind us.  However, no sooner had we reached the top that we got stuck in a lineup of vehicles.  Two lanes went into one and the traffic was lined up for miles and miles.  By the time we got down to the working area, we were amazed to see there wasn’t any work but just cones and a couple trucks.  For well over a hour we creeped along.  It took us that long to move about 4 miles down the road.

 

We stopped in Barstow at the Desert Rat RV Park -- 308 miles from where we started that morning.  It was a long day and we were beat. It was also another RV park.  I had called for availability 45 miles down the road.  At that time there was one spot left.  It took us an  hour and 45 minutes to get there with the construction.  Thank goodness the spot was still available. 

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At this point I don’t even want to tell you what our plans for Friday might be.  We have an idea but the ideas so far haven’t worked out as planned.  I can tell you that we will know on Saturday what we did on Friday.  That's the best I can promise.

Eek! A Broken Motorhome Windshield!

Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.

By the time we pulled out of the Yreka RV Park on Wednesday morning, we noticed the grass was crunchy.  The temperature had dipped to 27 degrees overnight.  The good part was that we knew this would probably be the last we would see of the cold weather for quite some time.  We were certainly happy to get Mt. Ashland behind us but since our over-night stay was still at an elevation of about 3400 feet in the Siskiyou's, we also knew we weren’t off the mountains yet.

Remember my policy of one worry a day?  I did discover sometimes it’s impossible to only have one worry a day. Thus, I’ve decided to amend my original thought on that to one worry at a time. This is why I had to change it.  First I worried about the mountain grades, then I worried about the Sacramento traffic and now I’m worrying about the Tehachapi mountain.  At least I’m keeping the worries in order.  As soon as I toss one worry out, I’ll concentrate on the next one. However, once in a while a little kink gets thrown into that such as the flashing highway sign south of Stockton that warned RVs and autos pulling trailers about the high wind gusts currently in the area. I had to reorganize my worries in a hurry.  Ugh!

The highway between Sacramento and Stockton desperately needs to be repaired. It’s about the roughest freeway we’ve ever been on. I kept checking back through my rear view window to be sure the quad hadn’t bounced right off the trailer. There’s so much highway construction everywhere but they could certainly use it in that area.  I didn't realize I could hold on to a steering wheel so tight.  With the bad roads and all the traffic,  my knuckles were turning white.  My fear was having to change lanes pulling that trailer.  However, I did know that Big Brother was right behind me and if necessary, he'd clear a lane for me.  That certainly did help.

With so many changes to our planned schedule on the first day of our travel south, we thought we had to start over again to plan the rest of it. We didn’t though. We just skipped the day in the middle and instead of stopping on night #3 in the Los Banos / Santa Nella area, we planned it to stop there on night #2. What we hadn’t decided was whether it would be the big lot at the TA Plaza or at the Santa Nella RV Park.  By the time we filled up with fuel at the TA there, we had already made up our mind it was going to be the RV park with full hookups. Our routine normally is not stopping at full hookup parks but Wal-marts and truck stops.  I think we’re getting spoiled.

<----- I really wanted to do the Orange Grove RV Park in Bakersfield but I’m guessing we’ll travel on by it.  Who knows.

We have about 460 miles left to arrive at the Needles Elks.  We  plan to stay there a couple nights giving us a chance to check out another RV park and Laughlin.  At this moment in time we think we’ll probably divide those miles into two days.  We could get the worry of Tehachapi behind us (really just behind me)  or we could travel about 170 miles on Thursday staying at the Orange Grove RV Park in Bakersfield before going on into Needles Friday.  We could do several things.  I just hope it's an uneventful travel day.   Actually, even I’m wondering what we’ll do.  Stop back and find out.  We're going to be stopping back to find out what we did too.

One thing we do know is that we’d like to travel through Phoenix on Sunday.  Sundays are usually good days to travel through large cities.  At least we don’t get stuck in work traffic.  Besides thanks to the California highway system we now have a motorhome windshield to replace ($$$$).  The sooner we get there, the sooner we can have it taken care of.