Smoke Gets in your Eyes and other travel notes

Bakersfield, CA

WHEW!!! These last two days have been really something! We left Canyonville early on Thursday morning; however, we stopped in Grants Pass for an hour or so and then in Medford for lunch, so we really didn't get wrolling until about 1:00 p.m. Up and over the Siskiyou's, across Lake Shasta, which is, by the way, very, very low! We wrolled through Redding and into the Sacramento valley and into SMOKE! California is on fire! Apparently there are fires all around the valley and I have never seen it so smokey. I felt like I was sitting next to a campfire! Cough, cough, sputter, sputter. We finally stopped for the night at one of our favorite little RV parks, the Camper Inn and Golf Resortin Dunnigan. We have stopped here several times and like it. I managed to drive 338 miles yesterday....so much for taking it easy! And we have arrived in hell...it was 107 today and didn't cool off last night very much.

Up this morning and off we go...I was a little concerned about having to drive the rig through Sacramento, but it was a piece of cake...didn't even have to use the brakes traffic was so smooth. We drove to Santa Nella and stopped at Andersen's Split Pea Soup restaurant...another one of our favorites. In the parking lot I discovered I was going to have to back the rig up into a parking spot....ulp...backing the rig up and I don't usually go in the same sentence. But, what the heck...and I DID IT! I was so jazzed after I did it...I actually backed up this behemoth rig and didn't hit anything and got it where it was supposed to be! WOO HOO! I am getting more and more confident in my ability to drive the rig and being able to handle it. After a big bowl of soup (yum, it is sooo good) and a break, off we go towards Chowchilla to visit my parents.

For those of who don't know, my parents retired to Chowchilla many years ago, and this is where they are buried. Everytime we get near here we make a detour to go to the cemetary and put flowers on the graves. For some odd reason, it always makes me feel good to visit here...almost peaceful.

Then we hit Hwy 99...and we were very surprised to see it had been resurfaced since our last trek down it. We were both dreading it as it has in the past, been very rough. Of course it is still choked with trucks, but since we were one of them, we were comfortable driving it. And yes, it is still smokey...very smokey! When are we going to get out of the smoke??? Who knows! We are in Bakersfield tonight and I don't know where the fires are around here, but it is smokey. I drove 350 miles today....didn't intend to, but I was feeling good and so was Al so we just kept going. We pulled into our RV park at 7:00 p.m and it is hot, hot, hot! 101 at 7:00 p.m. ARG! Doesn't it ever cool down? Not until Janurary apparently! And of course, our RV park is very near the railroad tracks...I mean, honestly, where else do you put an RV Park???? The one last night wasn't real close to the tracks, but we were right on I-5 and across I-5 are the tracks. However, after living in Odessa for so long, trains don't bother us! We are immune I think.

Tomorrow we will be in Palmdale/Acton for a couple of days visiting Billie and Dan and seeing some friends for dinner tomorrow night.

Al is feeling very good....of course, he isn't driving at all. No driving for him for a while, at least until he see's his doctor in Tucson next week. I am enjoying driving....I even got a couple of "thumbs up" from some other drivers today!

Ric started his 60 mile breast cancer walk today. We are so very proud of him and he has raised $7800 for the cause. He walked 20 miles today, 20 tomorrow and 20 on Sunday....good for him. He has really trained for this walk and has done so well.....I can't imagine walking 60 miles in 3 days. I am told there is a web cam that is active for this walk, however, I can't find it.

Dogs and cats are surviving well....a little hot for the cats in the trailer in the afternoon, but they seem to be doing okay with it. We stop and check on them every so often to make sure we don't have "baked cats". So until next time...we are wroamin'.