From the beach of la Isla de la Piedra to the dry desert in Ajo to shopping in Yuma to the farm fields of Southern California and onto the mountains of Northern California, so many different landscapes.  We woke to cool temps of 40F in Yreka and soon were ready to hit the road.  The four of us did some serious cuddling last night.

It wasn’t long before we crossed into Oregon.

Such a beautiful state. Saw a sign along the road advertizing ‘ Miguel’s Mexican Restaurant ‘.  Wish we had time to stop but I am fairly certain that there was no way they would be as tasty as Miguel’s on the Isla.  Rae, be sure and let Angela & Miguel know.

We hadn’t noticed this logging off the highway before. Always something new to see.

So much green here, of course it does rain quite a bit.

Saw this cute house enroute to it’s permanent forever location. Most expensive diesel of the trip North so far, here at Love’s @ 2.749/gal.

Our destination tonight is the Valley River Center fondly referred to as the Eugene Mall.

This is an oasis in the middle of a city right next to nature and miles of walking and biking trails along the Willamette River.  You are allowed to spend 2 nights here at no charge within a 30 day period.  A really great location after a long day on the road and just a few minutes off of I5.  Each time we stop here ( this is our 3rd year ) I think of Jean & Skip.  If they hadn’t posted about it back then, we never would have found this special place.  Thanks again Jean & Skip.

Within 15 minutes of arriving it started to drizzle so off we went for a walk. Note that the girls have Gortex jackets, neither Colin nor I do.

I haven’t seem too much spring activity this year. I think I just missed it as it was so early this year.

I never noticed this sweet plaque on a bench on the bridge before. What a neat tribute.  “He fished here…She fed the ducks.”

We heard some yelling and looked over the railing.

It was a couple and their dog who seem to be living under the bridge. She was screaming at the top of her lungs as she left, ” I am leaving you forever”.  Who knows, maybe it was for the best?  The peace of the park resumed once she pedaled off on her bike.  We have seen so very many homeless people these past three nights and dozens of people, both male and female, living in their cars.  Will this cycle ever change?  It seems to be getting worse.  Just an observation, they seem to have sufficient funds to buy their smokes and to buy expensive coffees in the morning 🙁

The drizzle had become more intense when we met this fellow just staring out to walk his two dogs.  Of course we had to say to his doxie girl.

I asked if I could take his photo. He was happy to oblige. I think it very neat that he has figured out a way to walk his dogs when he can’t walk himself.  We had seen him get out of his car and barely get the scooter out.

When I saw the rain drops bounding off the water, I knew it was time to head back to the RV.  Nothing like being mooned by a duck.

Once back inside the sky opened and it has been pouring for over three hours now.  The girls are in shock at the cold and the wet.  So many changes we go through, some small and some more involved.  Today as we drove, I found myself thinking of calling my Dad to tell him something.  Of course that got me thinking about how that will never happen again.  So many changes…..

There was a distinct feel to our drive today and soon I decided it was because it was Sunday.  I could see that things were different.  More relaxed and laid back.

We hadn’t been on the road more than 10 minutes when we saw skydiver after skydiver gliding down to earth.

A few minutes later there was an airfield to the left advertising skydiving and there were about 50 tents sent up around the building.  These folks must have been having the time of their lives, doing what they love to do all weekend.

Someone else enjoying a cruise along the river.  It could be a houseboat.

Someone has chosen to prepare a field for planting on this Sunday.

As we traveled up I5 I found myself just observing the day in detail.  I saw people going into restaurants for breakfast, brunch or even just lunch.  There were several baseball games being played and I was surprised to see a mini dirt bike track for wee kids.  I guess they start them early. The church parking lots were full no matter the denomination.

There were solo bikers and a few joggers but not so many of those.

Looks like it was a good day to burn some brush.

I saw people going shopping and I saw a couple sitting close together near a pond watching some ducks.  I even saw a dog being driven around in style.  The passenger seat of the car had been made into a special platform so the  poodle had a great view of the road.

We walked our girls in a lovely rest area.

I saw people enjoying an old fashioned picnic.

Then there was this fellow ( from B.C., Canada ) just enjoying the rays of the sun…..in the rest area!

Others were out for a Sunday drive.

We decided to play peek a boo with Mount Shasta.

It was a perfect day.

I don’t recall ever seeing it so clearly.

At the far end of 318 miles we are spending the night in Yreka, California with an elevation of 2589 feet.  It is going to be very cool tonight.

The girls are worn out from the day’s activities.  Caeli does love to burrow under everything.

I hope that today brought you a special or fun or relaxing activity.  I sure enjoyed my day.

Yesterday

This is day 10 of the super dry conditions and my body is rebelling.   How does one live with 1% to 12 % humidity?  Really, I do want to know.  Every year we have a reaction as we leave the humidity of the Isla and head into Arizona and southern California.  We both have the nose issues of dryness and bleeding.  We both have have finger nails cracking and breaking.  My heels are flaking when less than 2 weeks ago they were smooth as silk and dare I mention my new lizard dry skin, major yuck!  Even my vitamin gel tabs have been affected.  On the Isla they are extremely soft and squishy. Here they are rock hard.

I love my hair on the beach on the Isla.  The humidity and salt in the air makes my very fine hair seem so full and lush.  I can try different hair styles and it is so fun.  Suddenly I am back to limp fine hair and pony tails 🙁  It is what it is but it just doesn’t seem fair to have to suffer this transition.  Not sure if you recall last spring when I got back to Kelowna and started to have eye issues.  Dryness and burning and not being able to use the computer or even read a book.  Those same symptoms have already started and it is not fun at all.  I can’t see anything unless I use sunglasses and if I use the computer I need a dark screen in behind and lots of eye drops to lubricate my eyes.  At least I now know the cause of this eye problem. Last year I thought I was going blind, now I know it is a very serious humidity issue that I need to deal with using eye drops and eye gels.  Getting old is not fun 🙁

It was a dull day heading West from Needles.

Some excitement seeing these three Military V 22 Osprey Tiltrotor Aircraft.

This is how they function, most interesting.

Next stop, Kramer Junction and some serious polishing.

The before photo.

The process.

One wheel completed. A fabulous RV wheel polishing for only $10.00 per wheel.  Colin is happy.

Our Friday night stop at the Boron rest area. We quite like it here.

So does Carmeh. Caeli prefers to say inside.

Many other vehicles coming and going. The van in the foreground is from Quebec and they have added an awning to it as well as curtains to the windows. Their home on wheels.

Now that is a license plate you don’t see too often.

This is area is full of Joshua trees and this one is an oldie.

Carmeh snuggling as close as she can to Colin.

An unexpected spectacular sunset.

We drove 190 miles Friday.

Today

We drove from Boron to Stockton, California, a very long ( to us ) 326 miles after taking it easy this past week.  This was our first long driving day since we left San Carlos for the BLM area in Why where we drove 378 miles that day not to mention 501 miles the day prior when we left the Isla,  😯  Poor Carmeh, today the dryness affected her. She sneezed repeatedly for over 15 minutes this morning, then for the next 4 hours sneezed off and on.  She kept looking at me as if to say, please fix this Mom!  I wish I could have.

Year after year the first glimpse of these wind turbines is always amazing.

The Mojave airport is known as a storage location for commercial airlines because of the vast area and dry desert conditions.

We have been doing really well in finding low fuel prices.  The best so far was in Gila Bend, AZ where we got diesel for 2.489/gal and in Lake Havasu, AZ @ the Love’s on I40 for 2.649/gal.  Today we found a great deal on CA99 at exit 167, a Valero station for $2.679/gal.  Last year we paid 3.839/gal at this same location. The next lowest price we saw all day today was $2.779/gal.  I had made a note of this station last year and had hoped it would keep the lowest rate and it did, a keeper in my book.

Highway 99 has improved vastly over the past few years and with the changes in progress I expect that next year it will be an almost perfect road North.

Not sure what can be done about blowing dirt from the fields.  Fortunately it was only along a very small section.

So here we are after what seemed like a long 326 miles stopping at a Walmart for the night.  Lots of green grass for the girls and a nice assortment of fresh fruit in the store for us for our morning drive. We like to munch as we drive.  I am also happy to report that we have an increase of humidity to 28%, major progress.

As stealth as we can be in a Walmart.

Rather than the anticipated 7:30AM start time it turned out to be 8:30AM.  Fortunately the RV repair was being done where we had spent the night so we could just keep doing what we were doing until things finally got started.  At one point the RV next to us was going to be worked on first but when I kindly pointed out that we had booked our appointment for a 7:30AM start time six weeks ago and these people had just driven in, reason reared it’s head and we were first on the agenda.

The RV tech didn’t look a day over 18. It seemed to take him a while to figure things out.

Certainly not an easy location to work in.  For this dude we had to pull in the slides, put our jack pads under the front and back tires to raise the passenger side as we filled the airbags.  Gosh on the Isla, both Eric and his assistant were able to slide under the stairs while we were low to the ground to do repairs.  Not this kid, he needed to use his creeper to get underneath 😯

During the repairs our good friend Skip came by for a visit.  As the repairs progressed and so on and so, Skip finally said his adios.  It was tricky as I could not get out of the RV and the fellows were outside the RV.  Thanks for the visit Skip.

Finally we were ready to go.  Well sort of.  The new brain and new motor work but not with how the steps were designed to go up and down with the door opening and closing.  The brain had died a few years ago and our mobile RV tech in Kelowna at the time, had bypassed the master electronics so we only had to push/pull a yellow toggle switch to raise or lower the steps.  Worked great for a while but not with an entire new kit installed.  It should now work as it came out of the factory.  This ‘kid’ tech had no idea about electronics.  So in the end we decided to continue with the yellow toggle situation until our master tech Eric from Mexico/Winnipeg could sort it all out.  We were more than pleased with the price.  Although the young dude spent closer to two hours to do the job we were only charged for one hour.  However we were unexpectedly charged $10.00 for the overnight stay.  What?  We didn’t even use the A/C as did the coach next to us.  However due to the low price of the bill including parts, we decided to say nothing.

The folks in the RV next to us had gone out to breakfast when they found out we were going to be first. Do you think they might have been somewhat annoyed?

Why ever would they park this close to us 👿  Colin asked them to move their toad so we could back our car out and hook up and they didn’t even say sorry.  Off we went to Walmart for a few last minute can’t live without items and then we hit the road.

Road work just north of Lake Havasu. Slowed everyone down a bit.

Fortunately the roadside scenery was most interesting.  I see a monster in these rocks.

You really should click on the video below so you can listen and get into the mood as you read the rest of this post.

Next stop on Route 66, California.

Fenders RV Resort in Needles California on that historic highway.

A recent addition to  Passport America.  Gotta love that palm in the background.

Our great pull through site, one of two for big rigs in the park.  For only $15.40US/night.  Lots of other sites to chose from.

The park is located right on the Colorado River.

This is going to be our site next time. But you do have to unhook, certainly worth it to have the river lapping at the bottom of the stairs.  Love the location and the view.  I see this as a two night stay at the minimum.  The river front price is around $24.00/nite. Perfect.

The park also has observation decks, one in the sun and the other in shade.  Those black dots are a swarm of insect but none were biting.

We found this a great place to stop and do our final dumping and bringing water on board until we get back home to Kelowna.  Last year we did the final dump in Yuma and had a long 10 days till we got home.  I like this much better and it is a very small peaceful park.  We really seem to be drawn to the water.

It didn’t take Colin long to cross over to the cabins and a fellow guitarist.

Soon Colin and his guitar were both there.  James’s wife is from Monterrey, Mexico.  Such a small world, eh Chris?

You won’t believe it but we only drove 43 miles today.  Tomorrow we have to start putting on some miles or we will never get home 💡

It remained windy and cool yesterday morning in Quartzsite.  It certainly was great for sleeping at night.  Carmeh was anxious to get out and hunt first thing in the morning.

First the girls cuddled together in the sun coming in the window to warm up.

Then Colin put on a heavy jacket to go sit outside and supervise Carmeh while Caeli and I stayed inside.

We finally went for a long walk despite the cold.  I put on capri pants and wore a heavy jacket as well.  Last year when we were here it was way warmer and even at 4:00AM it was still 77F with all the windows open ( don’t ask how I know that 🙂 ).  Such a change in the weather this year.  There must be a cold front North of here.

Our RV always looks good in the desert light.  Funny we never have given a name to our rig as so many other RVers have chosen to do with their RV’s.

A much cheaper price for water than we paid in Yuma if you chose the well water.

A strange location for a picnic. They are literally on the side of the road.

Our first stop was Parker to pick up a few groceries at Safeway including our duty free alcohol purchases.  I find the prices there to be very reasonable.  Colin found some nice dog toys at a great price at the Dollar Store.  By the way that large gravel lot across from Safeway is being turned into a gas station.  There is plenty of parking behind the Safeway store and you can get out the other end near McDonald’s without having to turn around.  Good thing we filled up our propane in the big Q @ 2.40/gallon because in Parker and Lake Havasu it was 2.99/gallon.  We only used 7.8 gallons all winter on the Isla.  We use electric for the fridge as well as hot water.

From there we continued North to Lake Havasu.

Good shot of the Colorado River with Buckskin State Park beach on the right. We used to camp there all the time but not the last few years, just hasn’t worked into our schedule.

The reason for the short drive this day was to get to the 3T’s RV Repair facility.  We have used them in the past to once replace our jack springs and another time to replace our balancing cylinder ( used to regulate our hydraulic slides ) and now we needed a new brain and a new motor.

Our steps broke on our way to the Isla last December and this is how we had to travel. If you recall, Eric our RV guy in Mexico repaired the motor but it did not work because it would not turn off , so we also required a new brain.

So here we are set up at 4:30PM Wednesday waiting.

Our appointment is for 7:30AM Thursday so it stands to reason to take advantage of their free electricity and wifi.  However we did not know that we would be quite so close to this guy.  We are situated on a level pad on the very sloping driveway built just for overnight purposes.

One of the perks is the great view of the Colorado River. Of course we are facing the sun.

Colin took our sunscreen off so we could watch the sun set. Love the reflection.

Will this be our last sunset this trip?

I hope not but we did savor it just in case.