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.

Where Are the Dixons?

Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else get your way.

Interesting cactus tree

We had visitors stop by on Monday.  Actually they didn’t come uninvited but certainly would have been welcome had they.    It had been raining earlier in the day so we were hoping we’d get a little relief in the rain drops and we did.

Highlights on the cactus after the rain

A little moisture does wonders to the desert.  It brightens the area and softens the very dry ground.

Terry testing the equipment.

That’s a good thing because it just makes riding so much more fun.

Sandie getting a little instruction here.

Where are the Dixons?  They were at our RV park taking a spin through the beautiful desert on the quads. 

Jim and Sandie posing.

I had trouble getting Jim to pose for this picture.  He wanted to finish getting ready to leave us in his dust.  We wouldn’t let him until we had the official picture of him and Sandie on the quads.

Arizona desert.

The tracks you see are ours.  Jim’s a little competitive.  Well, I can’t say he started it.  Terry found a straight path and came back with a top speed of 30 mph.  At that time my top speed was only 23 but I couldn’t let Terry beat me now could I?  Thus, I took another spin and beat him at 32.  Then, comes along Jim.  He waited until I cleared the path using me as his protector on the path just so he could beat us all at 40 mph!!  Of course, he didn’t tell us the speed until AFTER we were through riding.  According to one website the Suzuki has a top speed of about 54 mph and the Arctic Cat well over 65 mph. We're certainly not going to see if this article is correct!  However, next time I see Jim I'm sure I'll have beat his speed.  Beat by a woman!!  Yep ... not a competitive bone in our body!

Oh …. and what was Sandie’s top speed?  I guess she’s just not as competitive as the rest of us.  She proudly announced she had the Arctic Cat up to 10 mph!!!  She gave some excuse like it was too cold or something like that.  Whatever, Sandie!  I'm sure you'll be up to 12 mph next time!

Anyway, if you were looking for the Dixons on Monday, that’s where they were.


**  A little note about the Dixons -- 

      

One thing that is so wonderful about RV clubs such as Escapees or following blogs written by RVers is that you actually get to know folks months or even years before you actually meet them.  After communicating via the Escapees forum and blogging, we finally met the Dixons in 2009.   We've been good friends ever since.  Every winter we have a little group that gets together.   We've met in "Q" and also in Yuma.  This year ... well, who knows but probably some place different yet.  It actually depends on who is in the area as to how many we have!  If you're out there ... come join us in early 2012.

Soccer Fields and Great Seafood Buffet

When the chips are down, the buffalo is empty.

Tuesday night was Jordie’s first official soccer game of the season.  We made it a family affair as all of us watched from the bleachers.  Jordie is a junior and it is her second year on the high school varsity team as a first string starter.  She’s number 16!

It was a beautiful evening especially as the temperatures started to cool off from the highs of the day that were in the 90’s.

The ending score – 3 to 1.  They won!

Temperatures are still running in the 90’s.  Tammi and I had planned on heading to the Gorge to view the waterfalls … again.  However, we didn’t expect it to be so hot when we made those plans.  Thus, we decided to postpone the trip until it cooled down a little.  Perhaps, this will be something we’ll do next week

I mentioned a few days ago the quirky little issues I was having with Firefox.  After downloading and installing the newest version of Firefox over and over again, I finally just reset all the options to default.   I had disabled the plug-ins previously but that didn't work.  However, resetting it back to the default options, did.  Obviously I had picked something along the way that was causing a problem.  Whatever that was is gone now.  Thank goodness!

When soccer season starts it really starts.  Jordan had another soccer game on Saturday.  Her school didn’t win this time but they did play a good game.

My brother had a tow dolly he no longer needed since he had recently sold his motorhome.  So, we took a trip on Sunday to deliver it to my cousin who lives in Port Angeles.  Our point of contact was the casino just south of Shelton – about the half way point.

Selecting a casino as the meeting place was certainly smart.  It meant we had one fabulous buffet lunch.  It was a seafood buffet.  Tammi and I pigged out on clams and crab and shrimp and everything wonderful.

 

Hopefully, our temperatures will dip into the 80’s tomorrow.  At least that’s the prediction.  It’s been hovering in the mid-90’s for way too long.  We’re certainly ready for it to cool down.  We hope the weatherman isn’t wrong this time.  We need him to be right.

Traveling Back and Forth

Remember the other day I mentioned that Terry had to hop on another airplane to head down to Phoenix for a dental appointment.  It was actually supposed to be the end of his dental work being done.  Two appointments were schedule.  One was on Wednesday and the other on Thursday.  This was easy …. right?

 

Portland airport

You might guess that nothing … and, I do mean, nothing … turns out as planned.  The dentist canceled the Thursday appointment and scheduled him for the following Tuesday and Wednesday!!  Now what would you do?  My guess is that it’s not what Terry did.  He hopped an airplane and returned to Portland with the intent of just hopping another one back to Phoenix on Monday!!  What ???!!!   I’ll certainly be glad when this going back and forth for appointments is over with.  If we’re going to fly someplace, let’s fly someplace fun!!

Speaking of which ….. we were hoping to have a chance to do just that and fly someplace fun once we arrived in Washington.  After all, we have a place to park the motorhome and even a dog sitter.  However, right now it looks like we have so many things going on that it’s going to take real planning to find a few empty days while we’re in the right location.  There are always places we want to visit while in this area (it’s that Memory Lane thing) and we’ve got to do that too.  We had originally figured we’d head out in August so that we could travel to Hannibal, Missouri (Terry’s hometown) but now may just extend our stay in order to do everything we hope to do.  

Since we’ve also thought we would spend next winter in Texas instead of Arizona, another idea was going to Albuquerque for the Balloon Festival.  We know several who have visited in the past and loved it.  However, the HOP really jumped in price from last year.  Didn’t it??    I’m not sure I’m interested in putting down $1100 for boondocking for four nights with a chance we might not make it but we’ll see.   You know how often we change our plans!!  

In the meantime, while Terry’s been spending most of his time flying back and forth, I’ve been busy unloading the motorhome.  You may think these little things on wheels can’t hold much.  Let me tell you …. they certainly can.  Our space under the bed, in the cabinets, in the basement and every other nook and cranny we have has been sorted, cleaned out and unnecessary items taken to the storage shed.  This was my project with Terry being gone.  Maybe I should be glad he’s returned but sometimes it’s easier for one person to sort and throw out than two.

Sorting through our odds and ends I was reminded of a post not long ago about only having 100 items.  I’m sure I disposed of way more than 100 items because we certainly lightened the coach by several hundred pounds.  I’m hoping our motorhome stays underweight at least for a while.  The problem is that this now opens up space to accumulate new junk.  One thing I tend to accumulate is travel books. They certainly aren’t light.  Terry accumulates food and …. just about everything else.  However, with the Hyders in Utah, he doesn’t have Jerry to shop with!  (That’s a joke, Jerry)  The good thing though is if either of us go shopping, we at least have a place to put the new-found stuff while we’re in Washington  …. our storage shed.

Winter Leaves A Mess

Winter time takes a toll on many things.  We notice that many times just driving down the highways.  The roads become “weathered” with pot holes and settling.  The yards and gardens need maintenance when spring comes.  Then, to top all of that off, if you’ve been sitting in the deserts of the Southwest during the winter, you’ve accumulated more than what you feel is your share of dust and dirt.  However, until you’re actually out of there, you can’t do much.

Another place I’ve discovered that winter takes it’s toll is on us.  We become so accustomed to eating and eating and more eating that the pounds start coming back on.  Spring and summer usually means cutting back on some of the eating out because most of the RVing friends have headed in other directions.

Even our summer home base took a beating this last winter.  We have a little cabin (very little cabin) at an elevation of about 1400’.  That’s not very high but it’s high enough in the state of Washington that it gets a bit of snow.  This last winter the snow and ice brought down some pretty heavy branches and even cracked a tree in half.  Some of the branches nestled into the deck and the property we have.  The part of the tree that cracked away …. fell onto the roof and then down the side of the cabin.  The gaping hole isn’t large but it’s there and needs to be replaced.  

So now we have lots of cleaning up to do.  One nice thing is that some of the grass we had thrown around last summer is showing through where we had a second RV site dug out.  Hopefully, it’ll keep on spreading and keep on growing to help keep the mud and slides out.  We can’t plant much else there or the deer would have a frenzy with the fresh vegetation.

Speaking of deer we did spot a few grazing.  Their winter coats are starting to give way to the summer coat but not quite yet.  It won’t be long though until we get to meet all the mothers introducing their  new babies.  I guess we probably need to stock up again with the wet cob we feed them.

Elks RV parking  - St. Helens, OR

Terry left on Tuesday for a couple dental appointments in Phoenix.  Moving doctors and dentists around when you’re on the road can be a little challenging.  First we had to move them from Texas where we lived to Arizona where we resided for a short time.  Now we have all the doctors in Portland but still have the dentist in Phoenix.  That’ll get changed next.

We took a ride across the bridge from Longview, WA to Rainier, OR and then drove south to St. Helens on Hwy 30. We didn’t go far. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful drive. We love the cute little town of St. Helens. It’s small, has everything one would need, close to the river, little traffic and is a bedroom community to Portland. If we were ready to settle down, it would certainly be a place of interest.

RV park on the Columbia River in Goble, OR – usually fills up with fishermen

There are several places right on the Columbia River where RV parking is available.  The private little marinas are still pretty empty but with fishing season and summer just around the corner, they won’t be that way long.

Fishing at Trojan Lake – close to Rainier, OR

Welcome to Washington

We made it. We pulled out of our little overnight spot at the Monaco factory in Eugene and traveled the 140 miles north to Kalama, Washington. We have arrived! This leg of our journey was over. Even Duchess was happy she wasn’t going to have to travel for a while. Well, we told her she wouldn’t have to and I’m sure she understood. She hadn’t seen real grass in months but it didn’t take her long to make herself comfy on it.

Traffic on Saturday morning was light. It was another gorgeous day. The sun was shining and the sky was blue. It’s amazing how much a nice day can make everything seem so beautiful. Every time we return here from the desert of the Southwest we are in awe of the beauty. This time of year it is especially beautiful with spring flowers, tall evergreen trees and lots of flowing rivers. As my dad would say, it’s definitely God’s country!

I-5 outside of Salem

Oregon I-5 heading towards Portland

Portland, Oregon -- an old stomping ground

Interstate bridge over the Columbia River crossing from Oregon to Washington

Washington Rest Area -- Many rest areas have RV dump facilities

Heading towards Kalama

Little town of Kalama

Duchess and her favorite thing to lay on --- grass

Let the good times begin!

Leaving Reno and into Oregon

The forecast for Friday was good. The winds were on their way east and only left a slight breeze in the area. This was good news for us. Our plans were to hightail it out of there! And, that’s just what we did. Terry is not normally an early morning person but he usually is on travel days. And, of course, that means we’re often pulling out during morning work traffic. Again, that’s what we ended up doing in Reno. However, there was definitely a difference between the work traffic in Phoenix, the work traffic in Las Vegas and the work traffic in Reno. We also pulled through other towns during the evening rush hour traffic but didn’t even notice it. There certainly is a lot to be said in favor of driving through these small towns over the larger towns.

Up until Friday morning we weren’t sure which way we were going to head. Well, we knew we’d be taking Hwy 395 as far as Susanville but from there we weren’t quite sure.

Cousin Wally had taken Hwy 44 on to I-5. He said it was a good route. It was a good route but I’m sure our mpg dropped to below 3 taking this route. Hindsight is good for so many things. It’s just too bad we don’t have it. Now that we’ve done that route I’d sure like someone to compare the same route going via Klamath Falls. That was our alternative.

The roads were good. Perhaps, they were windy but they were good. I don’t remember seeing one …. not one .. other RV taking the same route we did. We climbed up to 5800 feet several times. We saw lots of snow. Some of it was fairly fresh and in other places not so fresh. The scenery was beautiful. This definitely would not be the route for someone who does not keep tabs on current weather conditions. During much of the year the elevation could bring more snow to the area. If the snow isn’t enough, icy roads could be another hazard. In some places the trees shaded the roadway and sunlight never peeked through. There were areas where signs were posted warning of high wind gusts.

The day we went through it was perfect. I can’t say we were lucky but I can say we certainly knew that the day was to be clear, wind would be gone and the temperatures were high enough to melt any overnight ice.

The terrain continued to change the more the road headed west and then as it turned north. The deserts and scrub were left behind for the green grass, spring flowers and tall, tall trees. Mountains in the distant were absolutely breathtaking.

Our first tentative overnight location was to be around Phoenix. That is Phoenix, Oregon and not Phoenix, Arizona…. been there, done that. However, we still had lots of hours of daylight left when we got there. Thus, we set a second tentative over night location. This was to be the SKP park in Sutherlin, Oregon. That’s right. That’s where we were heading. (OREGON – pronounced OR-Y-GUN and not OR-E- GONE).

I had downloaded GPS coordinates for the SKP parks. Needless to say, whoever figured those coordinates out, didn’t do a very good job. We ended up at the post office in the center of Sutherlin. Instead of wasting time looking for it, we trudged on down Interstate 5 towards Eugene and spent the night in a déjà vu location.

If you travel through Oregon, notice the weigh stations. Many are closed but the scales still work. You can drive through and weigh your rig. The weight will be on the LED screen in front of the driver.

The Monaco RV Service Center and Cummins Service Centers are located just north of Eugene in Coburg. Both of these facilities have RV hookups on their service lot. We know. We stopped there last fall. That’s where we pulled in, plugged in the electricity and passed out for the night. There are several parking areas by the buildings too so if the RV parking spaces were full, we could have just spent the night and not hooked up.

It was a long 475 mile day. Terry swears all the traveling was uphill and then more uphill. The next leg of this journey is on pretty level ground with no more mountains to cross. Only 140 miles to go …. at least for now.

Travel safe.

Carson City and Rock’n in the Wind

We knew there was a reason we needed to stop at Reno. Again, we were thankful we did make it to there and didn’t stop sooner. The wind blew and blew all day Wednesday and during the night it rocked and rocked the motorhome. There haven’t been many times on the road that we’ve needed to pull our slides in and take our antenna down due to storms but Wednesday night was one of them. The weatherman predicted strong winds and high gusts during the daytime but also predicted they were to subside later in the evening. Well, he missed it. The strongest winds came through about midnight and lasted for about 4 hours until the forecasted thunderstorms were to move into the area. The rain came but the thunderstorms never did. One more day of wind and then we’re out of here.

We had talked to the RV park manager about taking a trip to Virginia City during that day. However, he advised against it with the strong winds. He said there are sections of roads where it's not necessarily uncommon to see an RV or a truck on its side due to the winds. Instead we did decide to take the 30 mile ride down the freeway to Carson City in the Jeep. This is the town Mark Twain’s brother lived in and Kit Carson was famous for.

Have you ever seen a sign at the entrance to a freeway and then again on the freeway forbidding RVs? I hadn’t but it was there. The crosswinds from over the mountains made even holding the car on the road difficult. It also was not a good day to play tourist in this historical city. After all, who really wanted to be outside in all of this?

We didn’t. We drove through Carson City and that was about it. On a nice day it would be a very interesting little town to wander through. However, this was not the day to do it. The weather was just too nasty. Even though we can say been there done that, we also know that sometime we would like to return.

Guess what we found on our way back to the RV park?? A WINCO! I was so excited. We had to stop and fill up our basket with dog treats and a few other odds’n ends. It certainly is nice to know that we’re finally back in WINCO country! However, this one is a little different than others we have been to. This store had a section with slot machines. We probably should have figured that since it's in Nevada.

I also found the perfect little driving range. It’s just a few feet from where we are currently parked waiting for the winds to pass over. There were a few golfers bundled up and trying their luck regardless of the wind. I thought this might be a place Jerry and Ed would like to try out their golfing skills. All of the little buckets on the water have markers showing the distance just like the flags on a driving range.

We did take another little drive up the freeway. We were actually thinking about moving Thursday morning but then decided not to bother and just stay put for one additional night. We did see a couple motorhomes on the road but just the two. It makes you wonder if the folks don’t check the weather before they head out or if they are out there just daring something to happen. One was having a very difficult time staying in his lane. Of course, there were no warnings on this one but sometimes I think people need to make some safe decisions on their own.

Friday it'll be up over the Siskiyou Mountains and down into Oregon. Winds are predicted to be gone out of here so that's just what we're going to do .... get out of here.

Travel safe, everyone.