Easy First Day

I tried to publish this last night (Friday) but it wouldn't go so am trying again this morning. 


Last night we enjoyed a long, leisurely, hot shower before going to bed. With a 10 gallon hot water tank in the RV we won't have that luxury again for a long time!  

It was a pretty easy first day of our trip - only 130 miles or so. Not as much traffic as we expected for a Friday - hardly any going over "the hill (AKA Donner summit over the Sierra mountains)" and Sacramento traffic was heavy but steady going.  We made good time after a late start.

We had packed most stuff into the RV yesterday which only left meds, toiletries and food for this morning.  Well, there sure seemed to be a lot of food bags being hauled over to the RV this morning!  We left Sparks around 10:30am and got to Vacaville, CA around 2:30pm.  We figure that if we forgot something we can always find a store, but we did forget to pac  ourTilley hiking hats :-(    Will have to figure out some way to get them - too expensive to buy again.  

Rog spent an hour or so de-winterizing, i.e., draining all the antifreeze and putting water in all the lines while I put stuff in their proper place.  One thing about living in 324 square feet - every thing has a place and everything needs to be in its place or it is chaos.  

We then went to my sister's for dinner and had a very nice evening visiting with her, her husband and our nephew who stopped by.  I was surprised with a birthday gift and cheesecake. The amaryllis is going to be a perfect plant for the RV and will bloom about Christmas.  Thanks!!   (Sorry, about the dog peeing on your freshly cleaned carpet, though!)  

Speaking of Maggie - she did well today on the drive but we don't know weather to attribute it to her finally becoming used to the truck or the medication! 

It's late and we still need to put sheets on the bed.   Tomorrow we drive south to Bakersfield, CA and sleep in an orange grove! 

Leaving for Warmer Climates!

It's that time of year again when we pack up the RV with a great deal of our earthly possessions and point it south for the winter! We will be back mid-May!!

We decided this year that we wouldn't wait until January to leave and have to dig the RV out of the ice and snow for departure.  What a relief it was today to hook up the RV and park it in the Sparks Marina RV Park with the sun shining and the temperatures in the 50s!  It was wonderful compared to years' past when we wore coats, gloves, hats, etc. and slipped and slid on the ice and snow.  

We hooked up,  gave it a bath (There's a new RV bay at a car wash near the storage facility), and then took it to get new tires. Yes, the tires are only one year old and have about 6K miles on them, but they are the cheap Chinese tires that come with most RVs and are famous for blowouts.  We put some good tires on for this trip as an insurance policy against an incident on the road since we will be going across country on this trip.   Once we got the RV hooked up at the RV Park, we unloaded our "stuff" and put it all where it belonged which will make our first day out so much easier.  Tomorrow, when we leave, all we have to haul over there are our meds, toiletries and the refrigerator/freezer food.  This method of loading up is so much easier on us and the cost of a night's lodging is well worth it!

So, we are off tomorrow for a short day's ride - to Vacaville, CA. We will stop there for the night, flush out the antifreeze and get the plumbing working, and then have a nice dinner with my sister and her family.    Maggie has packed her toys and we have meds for her travel anxieties so I think we are all set!    

We hope you enjoy the our journal! 

Getting Back to Our Other Normal

The first load of wash is going, the groceries are bought and put away, Roger is in the garage putting it back in order (he moved his tools around to fit the car in while we were gone) and Maggie seems to have made the wandering cats in the back yard realize it's not theirs anymore!

Yesterday (Friday) we left Winnemucca about 10am after trying to winterize the RV.  Supposedly the last trip to the service department was wasted because the switches didn't work.  So, we poured the antifreeze back into the bottles and put that repair job on the list for next week's trip to the RV place for the air conditioner that didn't get in before we left and for other warranty items we discovered on this trip.  

The truck and RV were soooo dirty after all that rain on Wednesday and dust and rain in Winnemucca.  The inside was nice and clean, but the outside was really bad.  Rog was dreading having to wash either of them with his back hurting. We spotted a billboard (yes, I read the billboards) for a truck wash in Fernley so when we got there we pulled in.  They do RVs as well and it was worth the cost and the wait to have them give us a bath.  It was weird sitting in line with a bunch of semi trucks and us in our "little" rig and truck.  But, hey, whatever works, right? It was a new adventure for us!

Rog had the brilliant idea of pulling up in front of the house, putting on his hazard flashers like delivery trucks, and unloading there instead of schlepping the tubs of stuff back from the storage unit.  It worked beautifully.  In about 15 minutes we had everything pulled out of the RV and in the middle of the living room!  Shoulda thought of this before!!!  

We got the RV stowed away and we got home about 4pm.  For a short mileage day it was a long day, but that's why we did the short leg last.   

Maggie went nuts when she got home.  I didn't think dogs remember that well and I figured we would have to do a little reintroducing of the surroundings.  Nope.  She was so happy to get home that she ran circles around the inside of the house, up and down the stairs, over and over again.  We took off the harness she had been wearing for the last two months and she acted like she had been released from jail.  She was so funny and we were so glad to see she was happy to be home.  We haven't told her yet we are leaving again the end of November. We don't want to spoil her good mood!

Then I opened the curtains to the back deck.  There sat three kittens and the momma cat.  She went ballistic.  Hair on her neck and back stood straight up and she started barking like crazy.  I opened the door and they hightailed it fast - except the momma who went under the deck.  Maggie barked and barked and barked, ran up and down the deck sniffing, ran around the footings and barking.  We finally got her in to give the cat a chance to get away.  By late evening when we let Maggie out again it was gone and we haven't seen hide nor hair of them today.  I hope I'm not speaking too soon.  These kittens were born just before we left and were under our neighbor's deck.  She was supposed to take them to animal control.  Obviously, she didn't.  So, I have no idea of their fate - I just hope they don't come back to our yard.

It looks as if I only lost three of my potted plants that I had outside on the drip.  Two of them because the drip fell out of the pot and the third because the pot wasn't draining and it drowned, poor thing.  My pots of succulents doubled in size and the geraniums look great but I do have some yard work to catch up on.  

We have most of our stuff put away, I'm catching up on the mail and getting organized again.  Now, once I get my haircut on Monday and we start back at the gym 
ALL will be well!!

I'm signing off on this Summer 2013 trip journal.  We leave the last week of November for Santee Lakes for the winter.  Then we will head to Pensacola, FL mid-March to visit with our son and family.  We hope to be able to stay at the Naval Air Station there on Pensacola Bay for the month of April before heading back home (with a possible trip back to Moab).  I will take up the journal writing again when we leave.  I hope you have enjoyed the essays and will join us in November!!  

Roger and Mary Ann

Cleaning House and Packing UpBuc

Today we deep cleaned the interior of the RV and packed our "stuff" into tubs for hauling it into the house when we get home tomorrow.  

Tomorrow Roger will empty all the tanks and then winterize by pumping anti-freeze into the water lines.  We don't figure on any RV trips before the cold weather comes.  The next time we leave will be for our "wintering" trip.  

On this trip:

• We saw the capitol cities of Oregon, Washington, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.  
• Our most western  point was Sequim, WA and northern point was Whidbey Island, WA.  The most eastern was Denver, CO.  The southern most was just north of Albuquerque, NM.  
• We put a little over 5,000 miles on the truck and RV (and ourselves).  
• The only wildlife we saw was a small herd of pronghorn antelope in Utah.
• We had daytime temperatures ranging from the mid 50s in Washington to the mid 90s most every where else.  
• Roger only had to repair the screen door a few times and the rear stabilizers twice; he tried to fix the outside lights that won't turn off and the awning that is stuck in the retracted position.  Not too bad considering that with the last RV he would have been repairing something every day - mostly plumbing issues.
• Roger and I managed not to gain any weight, although Maggie gained a pound.  That is if the scale we have in the RV is registering the same as the one at home.
• We had a nice visit with an old friend.
• We had a super visit with our daughter and son-in-law.
• We learned we might want to invest in our own WIFI hotspot for the next trip.

Tomorrow is home.  We are ready.

A Really Rough and Tiring Day

First - thanks to our 2 loyal followers!  Guess everyone else got bored and gave up on us.  Glad to know that someone cares about where we are.  We enjoy keeping a trip journal. I write the first draft, Roger edits and adds, and then I edit his comments before we "publish." We often look back at old journals to settle a difference of opinion as to where we were and when :-)  

It was a rough day today in several respects:

• It rained during the night in Salt Lake City. We lay in bed this morning thinking "oh goody, another hook up in the rain." In addition, I had put the throw rugs on Maggie's pen to dry out from the Moab rain. Well, they got even wetter. So much for that idea.  Rog had to put them in the bed of the truck so they didn't soak everything else.   It did stop raining and we had some sunshine peek through the clouds when we took off around 10am for the trek past the Great Salt Lake and the Bonneville Salt Flats.  
• The drive, as mentioned yesterday, was the longest of any so far this trip - about 356 miles across Utah and northern Nevada.  We did change time zones and gain an hour but still we were on the road a couple of hours more than we normally are.  Rog was tired of driving and Maggs and I were tired of riding.
• We hit a wall of rain about the time we got into Nevada and it continued for about 150 miles.  Sometimes it was just rain and other times it was, as Roger says, like a cow peeing on a flat rock.  
• While Roger was fighting the rain he also had to maneuver the orange cones of construction for the same 150 or so miles.  Very tense driving conditions.  Lots of big rigs on I-80 and only one lane.
• We had to stop for fuel.  Normally we drop the RV at the RV park when we get to our destination and then take the truck for fuel.  Well, we had to fuel up with the RV hooked up today.  Not an easy task as the majority of gas stations (remember we are 54.5 feet long) just aren't designed for rigs our size.  There are some big truck stops that make it easier, but in Battle Mountain, NV there wasn't one.  We did find a service station that had diesel on an end pump that Roger could get the RV into.  Again, tension time.  

We are settled in a typical desert RV park in Winnemucca, NV. (gravel roads and sites)  Tomorrow we will clean house and pack and Roger will winterize the RV on Friday morning before we get on the road towards home.  Like the first days of a trip the last couple are hard.

On this trip we have noticed that fuel has been costing in the $3.85 to $3.89 range.  That is until we got into Nevada and it was over $4.  We have never figured out why the fuel prices in Nevada are so much higher than in other places.  Just lucky I guess.  

Crossing the salt flats today was kind of eerie.  After the apparently heavy rains during the night there was water in puddles on the flats (and it wasn't a mirage).  The salt between and around the puddles looked like what you see on nature programs when you see ice floes in the Arctic.  It was weird.  If it were winter you would think it was snow with ice edges on ponds. It was very surreal.  

At the entrance to this RV park they have some chain saw figures out front - a black bear and an old miner with a pan. Well, on our walk-about after dinner Maggie hesitated at the bear and sniffed at it pretty good but wouldn't go near it.  When we got to the miner she freaked.  The tail went between her legs, the hair on her neck stood up, and she started barking at it.  We've had this dog since April and this is about the 5th time we have heard her bark.  That old miner dude sure spooked her and Rog and I had a good laugh which is what we needed after the long day.  Maggie is good for us!!

Hooking up in the rain

Rog with his trusty rain gear.  First time we needed
it on this trip.

Sure was fun this morning - not.   First time we've had to do this since our Eastern seaboard trip when we felt as if we could charge the locals everywhere we stopped for being rainmakers!!  Despite raincoats we got wet and muddy.  Moab red mud everywhere.   We drove out of the rain in about an hour and had cloudy skies the rest of the way to Salt Lake City.  

Colorado River North of Moab

We never made it to the rock art yesterday.  It never stopped raining.  We thought about staying another day so we could see them and maybe take the river trip, but, after checking on the weather and discovering it was going to rain today, too, we decided to continue with our planned departure. Maybe we will get back on our way home from Pensacola next May!

We drove through Utah's coal country.  Neither of us realized that there was such a big area in Utah that had coal.  Again, I learned something new.  I always prided myself in my geography and history knowledge but am finding I know so very little.  Kind of humbling.  Every day we are on the road I learn or see something new.  It's one of the reasons I love the trips.

Roads and weather were fairly dry today once we left the Moab area and, as I said in the previous paragraph, we saw some new country.  We would make that same drive again. The only part of the drive that was stressful was when we connected with I-15 at Provo and then had four lanes of traffic all the way into Salt Lake City.  

We are staying the night in the Salt Lake City KOA.  It is HUGE! It takes up about two city blocks and is near the downtown area. We are two miles from Temple Square where the main Mormon Temple sits.   We have spotted about 20 rental RVs here in the park and they all seem to be together on some sort of caravan.  Roger helped one gentleman who was having trouble hooking up his water and said that he sounded British.  Some of the men are wearing capri length pants - something European men wear but U.S. men don't.  Of course Roger wouldn't ask about the group (even though I asked him to) so we are surmising that they are on holiday from Europe and touring the West.  We hope they are enjoying their time here and seeing our beautiful country.   I'm guessing that about 80% of the folks in this KOA are here to do some research at the LDS genealogy center here. I can see coming back if I ever need to delve into the actual records.   

There is a small Mexican eatery on the grounds of the KOA. Dad was cooking and the kids were serving.  It was a limited menu but they went out of their way to make us a vegetarian version of what we wanted.  We were the only customers at the time. They even charged us less than the menu price because we didn't get meat.  Dad/Cook says he needs to put veggie versions on the menu. He's only been open a couple of months and is still playing with the options.  The daughter/waitress looked about 16 or 17, skin tight pants and shirt, lots of makeup, tatoos, and a 4-month old son in his car carrier tucked under a table where she and her brother watched and played with him. He was adorable and so good.  We felt so sad seeing the situation.  Kids having kids. What a shame.  

We plan on driving to Winnemucca, NV tomorrow which is going to be our longest travel day yet - 303 miles - 5 hours.  The reasoning is that we will stay there two nights so that Thursday we will clean, pack, and winterize the RV before going straight to the storage space.  Winnemucca is only 160 miles from home and will give us a short day on Friday so we can have time to park the RV, schlep all our stuff to the house, get mail, groceries, etc.  We are not looking forward to the next two days but it is the price we pay for our trip! The last few days always are hard.   Home again, home again, jiggety jog.

Steady Rain All Day

We've had an enforced day of rest!  A light, steady, persistent rain has kept us inside except to go get fuel for tomorrow.   Maggie's hating it and we try to take her out when we get a minute or two of little to no rain.  She does not like getting wet.  I told her she won't melt as she doesn't have green skin and a pointy hat but she still has to be forced outside.  I baked some scones and we had a nice tea break this afternoon!  I caught up on computer work (emails, banking, journal) and we've been reading.  Not an unpleasant way to spend the afternoon!!

More rain is expected tomorrow so we will move on.  Salt Lake City is our destination.