Short drive today

We moved over to Buellton today. Our plan was to hang out in Lompoc until after the NASCAR race however, Susan’s favorite driver crashed out early and she wasn’t interested in seeing the rest of the race. I felt like a NASCAR hauler, packing up and hitting the road as soon as our team is out. We see this at all the races. They don’t stay until the race is over. As soon as they are out of the race they pack it up and pull out.

It was a short 30 minute driver here today but we had to wait until 2:00p to check in so we took our time leaving Lompoc. This is one of the few campgrounds that strictly adhere to their check in times. We got here 5 minutes before 2:00p and I heard the girl tell the guy in front of me, ”Check in is at 2:00p. We have a place where you can park until then”. I was going to tell her to just slow down a little and when she is done it will be 2:00p, until she realized how close it was. Most places will let you check in if your site is vacant. It’s not like they had to do anything to the site because our site is littered with cigarette butts and trash. I have a hankering to collect all the trash and wait for one of their guys to drives by then dump it in the middle of the road in hopes he will say something. I will simply ask,” What’s the difference if it is in my site or in the street?”

Lompoc

Today we moved on down to Lompoc. I decided to come to Lompoc because it is close to our next stop on Sunday, which we can’t get into until Sunday. Since our next stop is on race day, we are close enough to stay here for the race and cruise on over to the next stop after.

I am SO frustrated. Our Internet connection through my Verizon Air Card has been so very slow. It is so bad I even called Verizon. Now in order for me to call tech support and go through all the BS they put you through and talk to all the idiots you have to talk to takes me a lot. Of course after all the “try this” and “try that” nothing was resolved. I guess I am going to have to wait until I get back into a Broadband area to see if things improve. I have been in Lompoc before and don’t remember it being this slow.

SLO

I’m glad I decided to stop in San Luis Obispo. There is a lot to do here. Today we took a drive over to Morro Bay and cruised the shops. We were taking out time waiting for the line to go down at the Fish Market so we can get some lunch. We still had to stand in line for a little over ½ hour, but it’s worth it. I had the baked halibut sandwich and Susan had the Dungeness crab salad, yum.

It was nice sitting on their patio overlooking the bay with the Morro Bay Rock in the background.

Tonight we went downtown to the Farmers Market here in SLO.

This happens every Thursday night and still draws a Big crowd. It is close to impossible to find a place to park. They have everything from fruits and vegetables to BBQ meats and entertainment. If we had more time here we would head over to Pismo Beach but we are back on the road tomorrow. It’s a good thing too because they informed us that they are grading and surfacing the RV parking here and we have to move anyway.

Heading south

Today we mad our way down to San Luis Obispo. It’s a good thing we only drive a few hours and get off the road early because this place filled up shortly after noon. Tomorrow we will take a short drive in the car over to Morro Bay just for something to do. In the evening we will head into town for San Luis Obispo’s farmer’s market. This is a regular event here every Thursday. It is just as much entertaining as is a good place to pick up some produce.

Time with friends

Yesterday we spent the day with some friends near here in Santa Cruz. Ray and Judy spent their Sunday driving us around Santa Cruz showing us the sights. It was so nice to not have to drive around aimlessly. After a day of touring the town Judy cooked up some scrumptious baby back ribs. What a nice day!
Today While waiting for the windshield repair guy, I cleaned up the motorhome, which was badly needed. It is sure nice to have it all cleaned up again. What’s even nicer is when the neighboring RVer came over after it was all done and said it sure looked nice. Makes it even more worth the work.
We had a motorhome just like ours pull in next to us today. After swapping a few stories we found out they were from our hometown. It’s true what they say about it being a small world.

Another busted windshield

In 3 years we have replaced the windshield in the Saturn once and had the windshield repaired in the motorhome twice, and we haven’t even been to Alaska yet. Yesterday after we got here in Salinas I was cleaning the usual bugs off the front of the motorhome and noticed another crack in the windshield. I thought I heard something hit the windshield while we were traveling here. I looked around and there was no big truck in front of me so I thought it was my imagination. Well there is was, a crack about ½ inch long. At first I thought it was a bug but it wouldn’t wash off. Well this will add an extra day to our stay here as I wait for the repairman to show up. It’s not like we are in any hurry.

I called ahead to a popular campground to make reservations. I never usually make reservations but since it is a popular campground in California, it’s a good idea to sometimes. Well we made the reservations and later decided to make an adjustment. This is another reason I don’t like to make reservations. It screws up my spontaneity. Well it’s a good thing I did because they didn’t have any reservations for me. I swear I made them. I made new reservations and got a name and confirmation number this time. They will probably find my original one and try to charge me for them too. I will deal with that when the time comes.

We spent the day in Monterey today. My GPS gave me the grand tour. It seems when I ask my GPS for the shortest route, it tries to B-line me there. Even if it has to zig zag me through the streets to get there. My next GPS will have a “Least amount of turns” option.

2 stops 1 day

Our intent today was to leave Paso Robles and travel to Watsonville California. After arriving at the Watsonville Elks Lodge I noticed signs at the entrance to the parking lot that read, No Overnight Parking. I was puzzled since there were RV hookups. Also very noticeable was the absence of any RVs at those hookups. So we decided to head over to the Salinas Elks Lodge where we knew we could stay because we have been here before. This is a good example why we like to get done traveling early. If the place doesn’t work out we still have plenty of time to move on. This added an extra 40 minutes to my drive but still got me here in less than 3 hours. We made arrangements for a BBQ at some friend’s house in Santa Cruz and the Watsonville Lodge would have been a lot more convenient than Salinas but it’s not a big deal.

This Lodge is where most people drive straight in instead of backing in as the sites were intended. The reason is, it overlooks a nice green golf course.

Wine Country

We are stopping over in Paso Robles for tonight. Tomorrow we will head up to the Monterey area. Our Internet access really sucks here. Our Verizon phone has a full strong signal but my Verizon Air Card is struggling. Good thing they have free wireless.

Bakersfield

We are in Bakersfield. Ever wonder how Bakersfield got it’s name. No, me neither. Well I’m going to tell you anyway. The story goes, there was this guy with the last name of Baker that owned much of the land around here. He used to let travelers stay in his fields when passing through. So people would say they were going to Baker’s Field. True Story! Well here we are in Baker’s Field. Actually we are in an orange grove. The park we are in used to be an orange grove and they cleared enough trees to make roads and RV sites. When the oranges on the remaining trees are ripe, they encourage you to pick as much as you want. Unfortunately it’s all green right now. This is mostly a stopover park so it fills up before dark and empties out the next morning.

Stopover

We are back in Yermo/Barstow California. This is our usual stopover, to and from Las Vegas or Havasu on I-15. Although this is not a bad RV park we only do one night here because there is nothing to do here and we just use it as a stopover. We left Las Vegas this morning at about 8:15a and the temp was already over 100. It has been about 109 here in Yermo so we are not out of the heat yet. I am impressed how well the motorhome is handling this punishment. With over 100 degree heat and many hills to climb today we traveled effortless and trouble free. Next stop, Bakersfield.

Still in Las Vegas

We were originally going to only spend 2 nights in Las Vegas because of the heat. Since Outdoor Resorts offered us 5 nights free we decided to hang out here for the 5.

This is not a promotional photo, it’s typical of what you will find here.

We have pretty much done nothing since the first morning, Susan messed up her back. I was intending to do some more sight seeing on the strip but walking is difficult for her right now so she has been resting for the last couple of days. We did get over to the Wal Mart Supercenter and do some much needed shopping. To be honest, my back has been a little on the sore side too. The reason is, sitting too long. If I don’t get up and move much my back begins to stiffen up. It has just been too hot to do much except sit in the air conditioner and cruise the Internet. It doesn’t drop below 100 degrees until about 9:00p.

We did manage to get out the other day and tour the Chocolate factory. I was beginning to think that we should head over to Lake Havasu for a while and see how our plants are holding up. Susan called over and found out the temperatures have been around 120. Now I remember why we left. We will be heading in the other direction.

Zion Photos

I just added some photos of our Zion National Park trip to our photo site. Click on the thumbnail link in the left column to view.

I like free

We are back in Las Vegas, for FREE (more on that later).

Zion was nice. It was a little too hot to enjoy to it’s fullest though. I did get up fairly early yesterday and take the shuttle into the park to get a few hikes in before it got too hot. It didn’t take long (just before noon) and I was done for the day. The rest of the day was spent sitting under the trees next to the river. The campground we were in was pretty nice. We had full hookups with 50-amp service (good for running both airs) and plenty of room at our site. The Virgin River that cut Zion Canyon runs right next to the campground and you could get sites on the river. Trees shade the banks of the river.

Well, Why are we back in Las Vegas? One reason is the fires. They have been closing I-15 off and on for the last 5 days while battling the largest wildfire in Utah’s history. Even if we could get through, the smoke and ash is thick. Also I checked the weather forecast for our trip and it will be HOT with scattered thunderstorms just about the whole way. So we made the discussion to abort our Great Western National Park tour. We realized from our Zion experience that we would just not have as much fun as we could. Giving our lifestyle, we can do this anytime so the decision was made to head for the coast. Now, the free part? As I was searching the Internet for campgrounds, I came across a 5 night free stay coupon for the Outdoor Resort in Las Vegas. They say we can stay for 1 to 5 nights FREE. I like free, so here we are.

What was I thinking

The plan was to leave Lake Havasu City to get out of the heat. Now we are in Springdale Utah, just outside Zion National Park, where the temperature is well over 100. We have not seen temperatures under 80 degrees for a while now, and that’s at night. It doesn’t look like it will let up for a while. There has been some talk of aborting this trip and heading for the coast. Susan and I would really like to see Utah’s national parks but how can we enjoy it when the temps are over 100. Our next stop may be to head over to Bryce after Zion since we’re in the area.

View from our window

This campground is a nice full hookup park just ½ mile from the South entrance of Zion. The car isn’t even necessary since the town shuttle picks up right in front of the campground and takes you to the park shuttles.

Since we could not head north as planned because of the fires, and since Zion National Park was less than an hour away, we decided to head on over for a few days. We were originally going to come through Bryce and Zion on the return trip. We’ll have to see how the weather and fires pan out and decide if we will continue our trip as planned or head for cooler grounds.

What to do

During my cruising of the internet, I came across this article http://www.sltrib.com/ci_6322460. Apparently there is a lightning strike caused fire that has closed 57 miles of I-15 and evacuated 2 towns in our path. Our next stop is right in the middle of it all. They don’t know when the Interstate will re-open. I called ahead and it took about 10 rings before anyone answered and they said the smoke is really thick and it isn’t even possible to get to the campground right now. I guess I will see what’s up tomorrow. We may have to abort out tour.

Adding another state

We added another state to our map today. We are now in Leeds Utah. It’s supposed to get up to 106 today and in Las Vegas it is supposed to be 113. I guess 7 degrees doesn’t matter much. We are pretty close to Zion but we are going to save that for the return trip. We will sit put for a couple of days so Susan can watch her NASCAR.

Fun in Vegas

We had a really great time in Las Vegas. It was very hot but we managed to keep cool enough. As I said in a previous post, Susan and I went to the NASCAR café on the first night for dinner. The strange thing is that, all the table had track maps on them and they seated us at a table with the California Speedway map on it. Being from California, we thought this was interesting. Out friends showed up a little after noon the next day and we piled in the car and headed for town. After checking out a couple of casinos we had dinner at the Rio’s buffet. The Rio has a great buffet. We were stuffed when we left. We headed from there over to the Hilton to watch the fireworks show that evening. The next day we got an early start and parked the car at the MGM and bought an all day pass for the monorail.

We had brunch then spent the day poking in and out of casinos and doing all the freebies. After dinner we headed on down to Freemont Street. A fun time.

114! Oh My!

I thought it would be pretty hot to be in Vegas on the 4th but I didn’t mean literally. My outdoor thermometer reached 114.4 today and tomorrow is supposed to be hotter. We did pretty much nothing today but sit inside the motorhome. Tomorrow our friends will be here and we will cruise the strip looking for trouble. Hopefully we can find a firework show tomorrow evening.

This evening we went out to the NASCAR Café. I gave Susan the choice of the Toby Keith bar and grill or the NASCAR café and she picked NASCAR. Huh, go figure. She was disappointed though that they didn’t have one of Jimmie Johnson’s car but they did have my daughter’s driver Toney Stewart #20.

It’s dropped to a cool 104 this evening and the overnight low is supposed to be around 85. This park is nice with its many palms but they don’t provide much shade.

Las Vegas Nevada

We have arrived in Las Vegas. It is well over 100 degrees here right now. They are saying, in the next few days they will be having record breaking heat. We will be here for a few days and some friends are going to come out from Lake Havasu to visit for a couple of days. On the way out we saw a horrific truck crash. Luckily it was on the southbound side of the interstate because they had all lanes closed. I hope everything is OK.

Movin again

Yesterday we drove the car to Orange for another family reunion. This time it was on my side of the family. It was a lot more low keyed than Susan’s family reunion but we still had a great time. It was a simple backyard BBQ and pool party.
Today we are in Barstow. We are on our way to Las Vegas for the 4th of July. It is HOT here and should be HOTTER in Vegas.