Category: Our RV Lifestyle

8:55a, 46,566k getting an early start cause today is the day we go to Costco. True to us it is a 5-minute drive from the RV camp, yet we still manage to take a wrong turn. Around a building we go… We do make it and thankfully the parking lot is relatively empty. We park in the back and stock up on stuff, back on the road at 11.  Today’s destination is Bakersfield.

We opted to take the scenic old Pacific Coast Highway until we had to turn inland. We drive through several cute towns with extremely narrow main street. Allan gets to use his air horn for the first time. Scared the crap out of the lady who was inching onto our road without looking. Allan decides his nerves have had enough so now we head to the main highway, I5.

We have a choice to turn left into a marina, not for us, or right we can’t tell where that goes so right we go. Whoops, this is a military base, complete with an armed guard at the entrance.  There is no way we can U-turn in the street.  Turns out it’s Camp Pendleton’s housing area. Mary-Ann jumped out and sweet talked the guard into letting us drive in and turn around but not before he called for armed backup to make sure that was all we did. Got turned around and headed back to a safe I5.  So happy to be back on the highway.

It’s getting late so we stop at the KOA in Bakersfield for the night. We did not expect it to be as cold as it was, little did we know it was just going to get colder.

We did Traegar dinner, relaxed by the fire and we anxious to get to Vegas.

 

Back to the trolley this time heading to Seaport Village.

Had lunch at the same restaurant the sleazy bar scene in Top Gun was filmed,  Kansas City Barbeque. Unique place. Allan found a beer as good as RR, named Red Trolley, brewed in San Diego 😊

Toured around for the day then headed back.

Last day here, on the road again tomorrow.

Beautiful sun filled day, unlike yesterday, off we go to Old Town San Diego using the trolley. Whoa!! in some areas the rails are so high you almost feel like you are flying.          Old Town was much fun, looks like you are in a Mexican town. There were lots of “interesting” people some yelling louder than others. The stores are all touristy but that’s what we are so all is good.

 We ate at the highly recommended, Café Coyote and were not disappointed.

Many seem to fly a flag at their RV site, we stumbled upon a flag store and bought Bailey’s first flag.

We walked around and came upon a bar, go figure!

We did consider going to Tijuana as the trolley takes you nearly there but didn’t want to take the chance of getting stuck in Mexico due to the unrest.

Such a fun day, now back to the trolley and home.  Must admit it is colder than we thought it would be so got a good deal on these.

Merry Christmas to all!!

Rain rain rain, then more rain! B2 wants to go out to play but rain, rain.  We fill the time playing crib and cards.

B2Rain

 

 

 

 

Finally, the rain stops, off we go for a walk to the liquor store, yep it’s opened here on Christmas Day to finally get some Bailey’s! Started raining again on our way back but we’re happy we have Bailey’s. We can now formally introduce Bailey to Bailey.

 

Allan did Traeger us a turkey   Dinner was delicious.

A visitor to our park.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ended up the evening in the hot tub.  Love hot tubs 🙂

 

Travel day to our next park San Diego RV Resort in La Mesa, California.  La Mesa is a suburb of San Diego.We selected this park because it is on the San Diego trolley line, we can hop on and go everywhere.

We leave at 9:25a, mileage 46,207k.  Still need groceries so off to Walmart arrived 11:55a, back on the road again at 1:30p.

All of Bailey’s parts are working well.  Such a nice change, but not as exciting.  The drive was uneventfully picturesque.  We travelled through Ripley, Blythe, Brawley, Ocotillo, Imperial and several more towns.  Imperial and Ocotillo are wind turbine rich.

Arrive in La Mesa 3:40p.  Super tight corners and our first back in site. Allan handled it like the pro he is. Nice sunny day.

 

Overnight what do our ears hear but pitter patter, splish splash not …

Santa doesn’t splish splash.

It’s a torrential downpour!!

 

Arrived in Goodyear, AZ on Friday December 21st @ midnight thirty.  Restless night awaiting our Bailey reunion. 

8:05a Walking from the Marriott to Palm Storage it’s sunny but cool 5c. 

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While we were gone, Tim Baker of Baker Mobile RV Repair made repairs for the issues we had last trip.  Fingers crossed this trip is a bit less eventful mechanically. 

Bailey is filthy!  We can barely see out the windshield with the sunshine and the rear view camera total blur off to Blue Beacon Hand Truck Wash.  Arrive at 8:50a several tractor trailers ahead of us but we need to be clean so we wait.  Our first Holy Shit of the trip, weird sound coming from the back, rodent attempting to make its escape??  We see a flock of birds fly off – Solved birds on the roof not trapped between as it sounded like.  Relief.  Keep waiting.  10:11 yep over an hour wait and we’re up next…

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And we’re clean now just to the drying station

Finally off to Costco what were we thinking? Costco on the Saturday before Christmas – simply no room for Bailey in that parking lot. 

A few photos from the drive

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Arrived at Arizona Oasis shortly after 3:00p.  Prepared Bailey, slides all worked wonderfully.  Allan was so happy to be reunited with his Traegar.  This is our appetizer, jalapeno stuffed with cream cheese. wrapped in bacon.  Had hamburgers for dinner then relaxed in the hot tub.  What will tomorrow bring? 

Ehrenberg, Arizona

A day of relaxation at Arizona Oasis RV Park. The park was nice enough except for the occasional sewage smell. Park says they are aware and are working on it.  We walked to the local convenience store and purchased a PowerBall, let the dreams begin. During our walk we come across some cute signs. Had chuckles at the sign in the window but did heed the warning.

Wouldn’t it be nice?	Arizona Christmas Tree

 

 

Arrived yesterday our final camp ground, Apache Junction for this trip.  Allan’s project yesterday was to determine how the TV  works (last camp ground had plug in cable, so easy peasy).

Up goes the antenna and the fun begins.  All we get is static, snow snow snow.  As it turns out the TV needs to be reprogrammed from Cable to Antennae.  A quick scan of available channels and we are up and running.

Notice the raised antenna on the drivers side.

Now time to start packing up, first thing to do is stow the antenna, but wait, it does not want to stow. We keep getting blinking lights indicating that there is an obstruction. There is no obstruction. Read the manual, now know how to manually retract. The problem is it requires me going on the roof. Anyone who knows me, knows that I don’t like heights. Fortunately we have Coach-Net road side assistance so we eventually call.  Service is on the way. I keep playing with it knowing the problem is it won’t turn, so it can’t stow. Finally it turns and yahoo it stows. Everything else closes as expected. Check out is 11:00 AM and it is 10:58, we made it.

We are only 1 hour away from the storage facility, need to stop for fuel and bleach for the holding tanks. Walmart and Love’s, here we come.

Arrive at the storage facility to find our code does not work to open the gate. just add this to another misadventure for the week. We get to our spot, plugin the 15 amp power to trickle charge the batteries. Still need to finish registrai0n for storage. Really nice people here. She sure looks a little tighter in here with the slides closed.

This weeks adventure took us through  the following states.

Good night Bailey, will see you again in December 22 when this blog will start to be updated again.

 

Started out at 815a.  On our way to Apache Junction, AZ.  Happy to say for the first time in our travels the kitchen slide closed without any resets.

Arizona here we are.

So much fun cruising until…  Jacks Down Alarm sounds, have a listen  JackDown

At least we didn’t need this, hate to imagine what it feel like to see the end of that run off lane.

Next up!!  Flying tire!  A pick up didn’t secure his load and a tire came flying out.  Pretty hectic as the 2 highway lanes had cars and trucks all around.  The tire bounced over us, hope it didn’t hit a vehicle behind us but that is wishful hoping.

One hour 4 minutes to the campsite, we’ll enjoy chilling.

22c I wish I could bring it back to Toronto.

Wake up about 6, didn’t have the heat on  so a bit chilly. Made a pot of coffee, gotta love it.

Off to Walmart for our first grocery haul.

Packed up good to go attempt to bring in the slide… takes 4 resets  as newbies this is unsettling   Will it or won’t it close.

Entered Texas ar 910m, darn it missed taking a photo of the welcome sign.

Another first!  Poured us a second cup of coffee while Allan was cruising down the highway.  I’m getting my sea legs.  Amarillo 84 miles.

Driving was relatively uneventful but then this.. stay alert, don’t drive if tired it’s just not worth it.

Driving and driving anxious to get to our first camp ground.  Up to till now we were boondocking.  I’m sure there will be much more learning happening.

Following Oklahoma photos, please ignore the squished bug windshield.  Wind turbines galore..

Welcome to New Mexico, finally a sign I managed to get.

 

Driving through Albuquerque we see this drone monitoring traffic, it was fairly noisy.

My job as co-pilot is rough, I get to call out the incorrect exits to take have done that twice already.  Once ending us up in a seedy looking areas with tight turn.  My other job beat another level 🙂

We are heading to our first campground.  So far we have only boondocked (RV speak for parking anywhere without amenities).

Grants AZ is our first campground.

Our first setup was not without incident but Allan got it done.

In and around the camp ground.

A little story 

Now we have some chill down time is this Allan playing Candy Crush?

Dinner time!  Allan so loves his Traegar!

NMVideo 

And that does Tuesday and Wednesday.

Travel day tomorrow, heading Apache