Thursday AM on the road to Ingram, TX, to visit Dan’s sister Sharon & husband Tim who we last saw SEP2018. Although we dread making this drive back to Washington, it is always a pleasure to stop & visit with them. The day’s drive doesn’t start well as we immediately hit an extremely badly marked detour on I-45S. There were clearly marked signs at the start of the construction project telling you that you must exit & follow detour signs. But when we got off the highway there were no signs! So we back tracked & came to the same sign saying exit & follow detour signs; guess what - no signs. So Dan punched in another city just ahead of us into the GPS & finally got back on track.
During the drive we also enjoyed driving rain & wind, with a 40 degree drop in temps. Sharon & Tim have recently sold their house outside of Kerrville, TX, & are living a very nice trailer in a RV park outside Ingram, TX. Their intention is to start traveling with their RV this spring. Another great visit, with excellent hearty dinner to warm the bones, & some sort of dice game we are still trying to figure out? 309 miles driven.
Friday AM saying goodbye to Sharon & Tim & then back onto I-10W; getting to Van Horn, TX, with less than two gallons of fuel left in tank – even though we refilled during drive. 357 miles driven.
Saturday longest drive in a long time – 7-1/2 hours & 431 miles. We needed to fuel twice. Having to refuel on a daily basis also complicates our efforts to find cheapest fuel as we travelL In the past we (ie Dan) could research our intended route for next couple of days on the internet, noting exact location of cheapest diesel. Then we would plan on refueling there to insure best price & that fuel warning light never came on.
During this drive in Arizona we run into a new one at diesel pumps – you save 8 cents per gallon if your vehicle weighs less than 26K pounds? We assume this is new state tax law, since we never noticed this before? Anyway Dan immediately drove around gas station twice to get to cheap pumps. Why twice, because new RV has only one diesel fuel fill, not on both sides like old RV; & Dan keeps pulling up on wrong side. We stayed at Voyager RV Resort & Hotel outside Tucson, AZ – very nice. It was first night of the “snowbird season”, & the bar was packed for the entertainer, Albert G on the clarinet (think fourth string Kenny G).
https://www.voyagerrv.com/
Sunday, 10NOV, 7 hours on the road, 387 miles driven. At exit 5 in Arizona was last stop for diesel fuel before high prices in CA. Place is a dump, but packed w/vehicles doing last fuel-up before CA (don’t believe signs saying cheapest fuel prices are at exit 1 (it’s a lie!)). We spend the night at another RV resort – Indian Wells RV Resort, Indio, CA.
https://www.sunrvresorts.com/resorts/west/california/indian-wells/
Monday (Veterans Day) we make short drive to Victorville, CA, only 114 miles driven; so that Dan can have car shield for Toad modified to fit better. Shady Oasis RV is an old KOA that needs serious maintenance. After setting up camp, Dan takes Toad to Offroad & RV to have the car shield modified - no charge. Dan stopped at a newer Walmart Super Store w/large solar array on one side of the parking lot. A side benefit of the array is that it provided nice shaded parkingJ So customers have to make a choice – do you want to park close to entrance in the sun, or park in the shade & hike to the store? Dan picked the shade.
https://rvandoffroad.com/
Tuesday AM make another drive we know well – US-395 to CA-58 thru Bakersfield, CA onto I-5NL to Santa Nella, CA. In APR2013 we stopped here for lunch at Pea Soup Andersens for some of their supposedly world class pea soup? We found it pretty poor especially when compared to Dutch ertwensoep – this time we opted for Panda Express for our dinner. 311 miles driven in 6 hours, to Santa Nella RV.
http://peasoupandersens.net/
Wednesday AM back on I-5NL 387 miles driven in under 7 hours. We decide to stay at Blue Heron RV park seven miles off the freeway in Hornbrook, CA. First three miles of country road are good & 55mph; last four hours are TERRIBLE & we barely make 15mph. Then we discover park has no cell phone service & very poor wifi. If it wasn’t night time & because of terrible road, we would have left. Beautiful setting on the banks of the Klamath River.
https://klamathranchresort.com/
Thursday, 14NOV, more tedious, boring, driving on I-5N. We take our usual route on I-205N around Portland, OR, & run into stop & go driving for half the distanceL We stayed at same RV park (Columbia Riverfront RV) that we stayed at in Woodland, WA, when we had our original RV TVs switched to HDTVs back in 2009. Great site overlooking the Columbia River; 356 miles driven in under seven hours. Tomorrow final push homeJ
https://theryanrvexpress.blogspot.com/2009/07/14-16jul09-woodland-wa-entering-digital.html
No comments:
Post a Comment