Rested, Laundered, Mama

 

After driving some 3,250 miles over 9 days, visiting three groups of people, staying in four Cracker Barrels, one driveway, one rest area, and one free desert campground...needless to say we were just a bit tired.  On a trip like this, the hardest part is typically the Big Cities, and last 200 miles.  Tallahassee, Mobile, Houston, San Antonio, and LOS ANGELES...with the two hard ones being Houston and especially L.A.   Thank goodness, we have had a couple of good nights sleep.  However, I took a nap on Monday and when I awoke, it took a minute or so to know where I was.  I thought I was at a rest area taking a nap.

So Sunday we went over to visit my Granddaughter, who is 2 years 9 months old...and when she calls and says, "I am excited to see you Grandpa"...it makes all those miles worth every inch of them!  After a nice visit, we went to see mom.  I was so relieved that she knew me as soon as she saw me.  She turns 95 in just a couple of weeks, and things in her mind are a bit confused, to say the least.  She thinks my brother Roger is her brother Jimmy, who died in WW2 on a aircraft carrier that was hit by a massive Kamikaze attack. Last year she called me "Al" many times, which is my Dad, who passed on Thanksgiving Day in 2019.  She refers to my Sister Sandy and her Sister Mary...I think you got the point.  But she is, for the most part, pleasant to be around. We saw her again Monday, and will see her again tomorrow.

Today was laundry day...we both have enough clothes for two weeks, but I have found that the laundromat we use here in Sacramento area is not as busy on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.  Today was not exception to that, and I was able to load the washers, get them right into open dryers, and out the door in about 90 minutes.  Went over to a Safeway to stock up on some food and water, and the day was complete.  Did not like hitting the shopping cart in the parking lot of Safeway, but it is nothing that a sticker can't cover up...maybe something like this...

 

 

More California Fires, Auto Breakdown

Summer life in California is always full of fires.  It is such a large state, with 40-50% of the land full of forests.  Despite being out of the drought, fires are still a huge issue here.  California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection has over a $2 Billion Dollar budget.  The state of Arkansas only has a $5.3 Billion Dollar general-revenue budget.  Yesterday, while Citrus Heights hit 110 degrees, about 60 miles north the “Wall Fire”, which is along Chinese Wall Road five miles north of Bangor, Ca., was burning, engulfing 250-300 acres.  By midnight they upgraded the fire to 1,000 acres, and by morning it was estimated closer to 2,000 acres.  As of 2 hours ago from this posting, it is at 4,400 acres and is about 20% contained.  Thursday another fire was half way to San Francisco from Sacramento, but it was contained, for the most part, within 24 hours…but it too burned 2,700 acres.  This “Wall Fire”, however, is a real butte…seriously, it is in Butte County. 

With this heat lasting through the weekend, it looks like it will end by Wednesday…the day we are headed out of here.  In California you have two choices to cool of by…either head to the high country, or head to the coast…we are choosing the latter.  By Thursday we should be much cooler.  For 6-8 weeks we will be traveling along the coast, up into Oregon, perhaps into Washington.  We are leaving the tow car at my sister’s house.  Hope to find places that we like, camp for a few days…perhaps a week…then head on.  We have been along the coast a few times now, so we don’t need a car for day trips.  This will be different for us…just taking it one day at a time…cooler days we hope.

Took Bubba to PetSmart where I needed to buy a couple months of food…and he needed to have his nails cut again.  The PetSmart closest to us did not have the food last time, so I drove an extra mile to Roseville’s PetSmart this time (didn’t even check the one here in Citrus Heights…kind of like one of those ‘take that’ type of things).  On the way back I see these two cars on the road leading to the freeway…one hit the other from behind.  The guy who hit the couple in the car in front of him must be very unlucky…all of his airbags went off…yet it was just a minor hit to rear of the other car.  So not only will he get a ticket for hitting a car from behind, but also face a huge car repair bill which “might” total out his car “if” he has insurance on it.  Well, it was hard not to chuckle at this guys bad luck…why I do that is beyond me…I think since I have had my share of bad luck it is nice to see it is someone else and not me.  But I paid for it because I did not get halfway home and my battery light comes on.  3 miles from the freeway exit, another mile to my sister’s house, and luck was on my side this time because I made it. 

Turns out to be a serpentine belt, and our initial feelings are that it is only the serpentine belt…until we get it on tomorrow we won’t be sure.  Also need an air intake hose, which they had to order…hopefully we will have it running again sometime tomorrow (I have needed to replace this hose for a good year now).  So instead of doing laundry tomorrow, we (Arny and I) will be working on the HHR, and we (Marcia and I) will have to do laundry Tuesday morning in place of Marcia’s haircut that we had scheduled for that time period.  I’m taking dad to a Dr. Appointment Tuesday afternoon, so there is just not time to get Marcia's hair done...she is just going to go with longer hair for a few more months unless we find a place along our route that the motorhome can pull in at where she can get her hair cut at.  Still planning to leave on Wednesday for cooler pastures.  😉

Laundry Day, Camping World “$tuff”

Never a fun thing to do, but this morning we loaded up all the laundry and headed over to the closest Laundromat.  Lucky for us, the Laundromat is nearly within a stones throw of the RV park, along with a gas station, mini market, and a few other things in the strip mall.  Unfortunately, it was not very clean, but our clothes came out clean so that is what counts.  I have seen worse Laundromats, Marcia has not.

We needed a few things from Camping World….got out of there for just over $120.00, and another year of Good Sam membership for free.  Why for free, don’t have any idea…he just said, “You want a free year of Good Sam Membership?”, and I nodded my head. Better not have any strings attached!  Even after 7 months, we are still replacing a few things that burned in our last motorhome in the storage fire (click here to read about that, and be sure to see this one too).  Got two refrigerator bars to help hold things in place so when we open the door things don’t come out on us, needed a new outdoor porch light, got another hose, this one lays flat when there is no water in it so it takes up less room, a bar to go across the screen door so Marcia can shut the door from inside easier, and her big find was….

…this Collapsible Salad Spinner which will take up less space than the one we brought from home (and will leave at home from now on!).  Oh, and I nearly forgot….the ONE item we went there for….

….a new sewer cap since some un-named male member of our team forgot to put the cover on when we left Mesa Verde….by the time we got here, the only thing left was that little screw cap and the plastic rope connected to the motorhome.

 

The hardest thing was to put that darn porch light on….not because it was hard, but because I don’t have a ladder.  I finally got the GoGo out and stood on the seat, which almost got me high enough.  I did get it on, but it will need to be worked on when we get home because I did not have enough wire to put in on the right side up, or right side down, well, up is down and down is up, but it gives me light for when the four legged friends need out at night which happens more and more often now that night comes earlier, and day comes later. 

 

We are at Cochiti Lake, and just a few miles away is the Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument.   So before we leave, we are going to visit this place again…I say again because we did drive up to it on our way to Greek dinner on Sunday and found out that Marcia would need to wait in the car because the trail is very sandy.  One more day here, and I’ll bet that I will be sore when we pull out of here headed closer to Arkansas.