Catch up

Friday, May 31, 2013

It has been a while and a lot of miles since our last post, so this is a catch up overview.

Thursday, May 23, Fred and Wilma left Pebbles and Rock-O behind to catch up with Barney and Betty in mid Missouri. It was a mostly uneventful trip except that as we turned around to leave Pebbles, we heard a loud pop. After struggling with the camper shifting and tie downs needing loosened or tightened, we discovered we had broken a front bumper off the camper.

Our departure was timed so we could have lunch with Christopher and Anne-Shirley in Barstow, and we stopped by to see the room setup for the baby. It was a very short visit. The baby decided not to cooperate and arrive while we were in the state.

The remainder of the trip across I40 was still as long and not very picturesque as ever.

A small area of tornado destruction was evident along I40 near Shawnee, Oklahoma, where lots of people were out cleaning up, but it was just a small area compared to the massive destruction in Moore.

We caught up to Barney and Betty on Saturday night, and Sunday Fred and Barney tackled the fix.

After relaxing for a few days and carefully watching the weather forecasts, it seemed there would be no way to avoid the severe weather. We tossed around the options and the cave mobiles again hit the road on Thursday morning, May 30.  There were stamp stops in Salem and Rolla, and we enjoyed the good roads through the green rolling hills. It was very pretty through there.  Rolla also had a very convenient Waffle House where we enjoyed breakfast/lunch.

It seems like we have changed our route with every stop. Before striking out we had dismissed the idea of going to Detroit for the Henry Ford Museum, then we crossed off Wisconsin, and after running into very severe looking skies and very strong wind gusts along route 63, we holed up for the afternoon and evening at a Walmart in Moberly, Missouri. Our plans again changed and we will head north to I80, then west, planning to stop at Rocky Mountain NP and a couple of other stops before heading on home. We will leave the very northern route for another time.

Again this morning we are getting thunder storms, but not the vicious black skies and high winds of yesterday, so we will get on the road shortly to see if we can outrun this weather.

We will check in again as our journey progresses.

Making a Home for Pebbles

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Location: On the street, Wofford Heights, CA. and behind the house, Mountain Mesa, CA

Friday morning Barney and Betty took off for greener pastures, with a quick stop in Mesa, AZ.

New kitchen lighting

old kitchen lighting

Wow look at that laundry closet color!

garage staging area

The crew went back to work on the house on the other side of the lake with word that it should be finalized Tuesday. So we can’t demolish much yet, but got all prep work and most of the painting done by the end of the weekend. They had an extra helper Saturday and Sunday and ran the airless sprayer. Results were mixed, so we had some touch up to do. As of Tuesday pm almost all of that is complete. Several new lighting fixtures are in place, switch plates and solar tube covers have been reinstalled, and it is starting to look good.
Pebbles and Wilma went to Bakersfield Monday to look for curtain fabric, more lighting fixtures, etc. That also had mixed results, but got enough to keep us going for a while. The overhanging boulders are not a problem in the car, but the turns are still very tight.

Barney taking down lighting

Weather had been tolerable until the weekend, and has really heated up. Unofficially we saw 102 in Bakersfield, but there was a cooling wind on Tuesday.

Supervising

What's going on here?

Painting accent wall

At 1:40 pm Tuesday, May 14, Pebbles got the go ahead on the house. We don’t think they could possibly have found anything else to cause a delay, even though it did seem like they were trying to. We are thankful for the go ahead and now demo will begin. The carpet and padding come up fairly easily, but the tack strips are going to be a real bear.

rolling out to cover overspray

The coach has been brought over so Pebbles can stay on the property before furniture is moved. Appliances will be delivered on Thursday. We hope at least the kitchen floor will be in by then. Nothing goes as fast as you hope.
We will again have an extra helper for the weekend and hope the rest of the floor can be completed so move in could happen before we get out of here early next week.

Waiting, Waiting

Thursday, May 9, 2013.  
Location: Wofford Heights, CA, on the street outside Pebbles abode. No hookups, no cost, but showers and laundry. Soon to move over to the other side of the lake on the property she is buying.

Our last post left us on Sunday night waiting out the high winds in a little quote RV Park unquote! in Big Pine, CA. Big Pine is a wide spot in the road, and this RV park was about the same, but at least we had water and power while there.

Surprised there isn't a dust whirlwind showing!

The camp host never did show up, and she had the tokens for the shower! So their showers remained dry, and we remained dirty.

Isn't this pretty

Monday, May 6. We were up and around early for us and actually pulled out about 7:30 am. It was about 40 miles to Lone Pine, and we stopped at the Interagency VC before taking a little side trip out to the Alabama Hills area.

Breakfast spot in Alabama Hills

While in the RV park Barney and Betty talked to people who had been boondocking in the Alabama Hills for a while and recommended we at least go out and see the area. Like the Monument Valley area, Alabama Hills is famous as a movie making location.

It reminded us of City of Rocks in Idaho, but is a much larger area.  Breakfast was fixed and eaten before again heading south on 395.

From distance this looked like bottom of a foot

Instead of taking the turn off towards Pebbles, we continued south to 14 towards Mojave and turned west on 58, going over Tehachapi pass to the tiny spot on the map of Keene, CA. Keene is the location of one of the newer National Monuments that Obama signed off on in October. It is where Cesar Chavez lived, and is  home to the UFW (united farm workers) union. The union bought the property in the 70s and Chavez and family moved onto the property. He was a great influence in the treatment of migrant farm workers.

The property there had been a tuberculosis sanitorium prior to purchase by the UFW, and is 180 acres and a number of buildings on the property. The National Park Service only has two acres and a building or two there. There is a nice VC and very nice grounds.

A couple of water fountains are just outside the VC, with rose gardens surrounding the gravesite of Chavez. We were told that his wife still lives on the property. Of course the reason for our stop was to acquire a passport stamp for our books, and we did that.

Continuing on across Tehachapi pass, we dropped down into the Bakersfield area, and started seeing signs advertising California Fruit Depot. It sounded good, so we turned off to find it. What a great place!  They are in the middle of orange groves, so processing oranges is their main business, but their little store had a huge selection of nuts and other local items for sale.

They have smoked and candy coated and just about anything else you can do to a nut, and sample dishes of each one. We were welcomed and then told to eat our way around the room. Think kid in a candy store!  Lots of dark chocolate covered items: walnuts, cashews, almonds, raisins, pretzels, peanut butter filled pretzels, and on and on. There were others too, but the dark chocolate covered ones won in my book!  I think they must have had 75 to 100 sample dishes out! And you guessed it, they also had oranges for sale! Also a few fresh cherries that were excellent.

Oh was that ever a GOOD stop! Who needed lunch after that!

Then it was time to find our way on out to see Pebbles. After getting through the east side outskirts of Bakersfield, we found our way into a very tight canyon that is not at all RV friendly. Our rigs qualify as an RV when it is to our advantage, but are not RVs when that is to our advantage. Well nothing in this canyon was to our advantage, RV or not. We had to ride the center line or in a lot of places ride the other side in order to not bash the cave mobiles up against the over hanging jagged boulders. And did I mention tight turns! You could almost see yourself on both sides of some of the turns. It wound around and around. Local traffic flies through there, and we pulled off and pulled off to let traffic by, but it was white knuckle and not just for the drivers! The Bakersfield side of 178 is not for sissy traffic, and certainly not for RVs, and yet the Lake Isabella area is a huge camping area.  That route is on our never-again list. Maybe in a regular vehicle, but not with the cave-mobiles on.  And who thought to take pictures!

But we survived and found our way on to our destination. On arrival, the final papers still had not been signed, so we are waiting it out to begin demolition and renewal processes on the new to Pebbles place.
This being posted on Thursday, we have great expectations that all will be final today and we can begin work.

More from the rock pad later, and check again for any pictures we do have to go with this part of our trip.

Wind Drove Us Off the Road

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Location: Browns, Big Pine, CA, sites 29 and 31. $17 per night. W, E, S. Dust Bowl. Emergency camping only. Too windy to go on. Better than alternative Baker Campground.

After a late breakfast Saturday morning, we finally got around and pulled out of the Goose Lake State Recreation Area about 12:30 pm. Making the right turn out onto US395, we crossed the state line into California. We had really enjoyed our stay there, but would have to really think about going again. It was one of a few bright spots heading south on 395.

The California Ag Inspection only asked about firewood, avocados and mangos, so no problem getting through. There wasn’t a whole lot to see as we went down through Alturas and almost into Susanville, CA and continued on towards Reno, NV. Yes, we took the long way around to get to Reno, but that was not our destination, and we had wanted to travel 395.

As we closed in on Reno, we began getting a few spits of rain, but only light showers off and on. We checked out a campground just before getting to Carson City, NV, but were not impressed. It was very crowded. So we went on to Carson City and just Wally-docked (WalMart parking lot) for the night. We got quite a bit of rain during the night.

Sunday morning we again headed south on 395 toward Bridgeport, Mono Lake, Mammoth Lakes, and Bishop, CA, passing signs for several places that brought back memories, such as the Marine Corps Training Center, and the ghost town of Bodie. As we got close to Mono Lake, we stopped at an overlook high above the lake. It was a small parking area, and the guard rail there was plastered with stickers of all kinds. We could not resist, and dug around until we found something to add. Now we have gotten into vandalism on our trips!

We picked up a stamp for our passport books at the Mono Lake VC, and a couple more at the Mammoth Lakes VC. After stopping at the VC at Mono Lake, we drove out to see the tufas along the south shore, and enjoyed a picnic lunch while there. The tufas are formations in the lake. The lake is 2.5 times saltier than the ocean, and 100 times as alkaline.  Mono Lakes water is much denser than fresh water or the ocean, meaning objects float higher than normal. Gulls seem to have a difficult time keeping their feet in the water when they paddle. That would be funny to see! 

We had thought about staying overnight at a campground in the June Lake loop, but decided to go on. After Mammoth Lakes, we dropped about 3000 feet in elevation on an 8 mile downhill run and went on through Bishop. But the wind had picked up severely as we descended, and by the time we got to Big Pine we had had enough and pulled into this RV park that we would normally snub. Guess we should have stayed on top and battled the cold and thunder storms coming in. Oh well, we are here now!  Hopefully the wind will let up a lot in the early morning and we can get on down to see Pebbles.

We will not post every day while helping Pebbles, but will try to keep you updated.

Plans written in Jello melted

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Location: Goose Lake State Recreation Area off US 395 south of Lakeview, Oregon, Campsites 3 and 4, $20 per night, W,E,S (water, electric, showers). Nice campground on Goose Lake. Restrooms usable, shower not tempting.

Thursday evening while preparing to leave Friday morning heading east, our plans changed and we will be heading south to help Pebbles settle into her new home before heading east.

We had to stop in at the Ontario, Oregon, Grocery Outlet to fill up on sweet treats and a couple of other items before heading west on 20/26 toward Burns, Oregon. The scenery is slightly less than spectacular out that direction.

In Burns, we refueled the cave mobiles, and then stopped at a rest area on the west side of Burns to have a sandwich lunch. It was quite windy and a little bit cool in the shaded shelter, but we got back on the road feeling refreshed.  We needed to feel refreshed for a few minutes, because the desolation we were driving through sure couldn’t do it!  Miles and miles and more miles of pure nothing but sagebrush!  Okay, there was a small river we followed for a while, but it was pretty much the same color as the rest of the landscape.

We did see a couple of cattle roundups along the way, and this cowpoke waiting to cross the highway. Probably really just a rancher out riding his land.

Turning south on US395, there were several lakes to spark our interest, except there were only dust swirls on them, no waves because no water. Then lo and behold there was water in Lake Abert but you could still see the dust swirls along the dry edges.

The cave mobiles again were refueled as we came into the town of Lakeview. That was a pretty area after so much nothing. About 15 miles south of Lakeview, we crossed into California, but had to go back because the park we were looking for is in Oregon. So we are settled in for the night at Goose Lake State Recreation Area. It is a small park on the edge of the lake, and their brochure says visitors are thrilled by the overwhelming bird life inhabiting the Goose Lake valley.

Wilma was up early this morning and meandered down to the lake. There was a little bird that wanted to attack her as she went to read some signs. Turns out it was a Killdeer. Later Fred and Wilma went back out with the binocs and camera. The Killdeer again did his injured wing trick, and really yelled at us for being too near the nest. We also saw a couple of egrets out in the lake. Those things are huge! And Wilma had seen 9 mule deer earlier.  This is a very nice little remote campground.

We’ll have a late breakfast this morning and then go down the road a few more miles today. Have a great day. We will also.