....miles, that is. Roger was so exhausted when we finally landed and set up in 97 degrees. The drive from Boise ID is not fun. It's a two lane road all the way through some pretty inhospitable and, frankly, ugly countryside. When you first head south on Idaho55 the route takes you through some awesome farms, vineyards, and orchards. Then, you are in Oregon and the landscape turns to a moonscape. Nothing out there at all for over a hundred miles. Once you finally find the Nevada border at Fort McDermitt, once again there are farms and ranches to see, but still it's mostly desert. Not a favorite route of ours - it's two lanes with a good deal of traffic, mostly big rigs - and not many places to stop. Tony was telling us that his last return trip to Boise from home his car broke down in the middle of that Oregon moonscape about 10 miles from the nearest habitation. No cell service out there at all. He said he figured he just needed to start walking and hope he got picked up. After an hour a woman stopped and then took him to the nearest pay phone where he called his roommate to come rescue him. His mom and stepdad apparently later drove up and towed his car back to Reno. Poor kid - that must have been quite scary.
Tony stayed overnight and left about 8am and we got on the road at our usual time of about 9. It was so nice having him with us and talking about trips he and his sister made to visit us in our RV when we were wintering or doing the Spring Training Baseball thing in Arizona. He did say they were happy times and remembers things we didn't. We also looked at old photos and talked a little about the geneology project I've been working on for years. He says he's sure Stephanie will be the one to take over as it would be too tedious for him. He's excited about his classes next semester (start of his junior year) and told us he is finally starting to see real life applications to what he is studying and "it's cool."
Roger was sure he had fixed all the RV problems with only one day to go! Well, one of the task lights over the kitchen sink had pulled loose from the ceiling and was dangling by the wires. All the vibrations of the road (and today's was quite bumpy) just work those screws loose. So, once again, his traveling tool bag comes to the rescue. He's going to be happy to park this baby for a while, I'm thinking. This RV park is one we've stayed in before - not a favorite but there's not much choice here. Since we were here last it has become a KOA and I had hopes of some improvements. Well, not so much. Still the same ole issues - the utilities are not in the right place. They have the electric box at the front of the site and most of the 5th wheels and travel trailers have their outlet on the back. The first thing Rog did was get out his power cord and lay it out so we knew where to drop the RV. Unfortunately, we had to park so far forward there is no room for the truck so we had to park it at the office. This, even though, they have our length in their database. Again, it would have worked had the power pole been at least half way back.
We've been watching others - one guy ended up driving out and around and putting his rig in backwards so his cord would reach. Then he ran his water hose under the RV to hook it up. Another guy who just pulled in had already dropped his RV and got his cord out and it was about six inches too short. He had to hook back up and start over. The sites are all gravel and delineated by landscape timbers. The one difference we noted since the conversion to a KOA, was that we were met by a guy in a golf cart who called into the office and then showed us to our site. I didn't have to go in, as I had prepaid as always when making reservations on the KOA site. It was nice because it was so darn hot - the less walking back and forth the better. Still, not a RV park on the top of our list.
Tomorrow - home. We'll park in the Sparks Marina RV park again to "decommission" the RV and get it ready for storage until we leave again late November. (We'll put it in storage on Tuesday) It's a short drive - comparatively - only 162 miles and all interstate driving. Piece of cake!!! :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment