A Fiery Start to Our Day

Frankly, our day rarely starts out with the ability to capture a fiery sunrise.  We had just entered Central Time Zone before our stay last night at the Balmorhea Saddleback Mountain RV Park.  With the time being 7 am, and the first hint of light starting on the horizon, I started the coffee pot, and nearly climbed back in bed.  Ten minutes later as I sat at the foot of the bed, Marcia says, "Time to get up!", and so we did.  The park was fairly quiet considering it is so close to the Interstate, and also that trucks park behind the Valero Gas Station where a few had refrigerator trailers which kick on and off all night long.  But it really did not bother either of us...we noticed the noise when we needed to use the facilities, and especially when super bladder doggie needed to go out at 2:30 am.  (quick scan for snakes and I let her out)

We were about half way to Fort Stockton when we noticed a black smokey cloud trail headed from the south to the north over the highway.  Five minutes later as we made a few minor turns with the road, and we see this.  Hmmmm....what is going on up there?

YIKES!  Now that is a Fiery Start to ones day!  The driver was off to the side with some trucker who had stopped short of his burning rig.  Knowing that Diesel does not explode, I felt it was better to go through, on the far left side, instead of stopping and taking space where fire trucks will need to do their work from.  Still a bit scary for a few seconds...  Credit to Marcia for getting this shot of the burning truck. A good 5 minutes later we see the first of what was 7 fire trucks headed west on I-10 from Fort Stockton.  Nothing about it in the news as I write this, and who knows if the trailer ended going up in smoke too???  If so, that toy that made it off the ship coming over from China just went up in smoke!

We pulled into Fort Stockton 15 minutes later, and there was not a fire truck in sight...sure hope nothing catches on fire around here.  Fill up with gas at $3.059 per gallon, the cheapest we have paid in a LONG LONG time!  There was no where to park for breakfast, so we continued to the first picnic rest area (no toilets, although there were signs all over the lawn and walls of picnic facilities that it was being used as such.)  After a quick breakfast, we headed on and about 25 minutes later we came to a real rest area.  It was there that Indy enjoyed the little red leaves from that beautiful tree.

Another 30 minutes or so and we pull into another rest area and what do we see????  GRASS!  Real green grass that is soft to the footsies of poor deprived Indy who has not seen real grass for days!

From there on it was much the same, mixed with a bit of a rain shower here and there, and temps that never climbed above the low 70's, mostly in the higher 60's.  Stopped at the Cracker Barrel in Kerrville, which is where we are now.  We both had a chicken meal, and we are tucked in the back parking lot for the night, no other RV's in sight.  Tomorrow is the big challenge...driving through San Antonio AND Houston all in the same day, and on a Monday.  Wish us luck (although we have done it before...)

Meteor Crater to 'HOT' Needles to Bakersfield

Ok, I will include the pictures to Needles (yesterday) and then to Bakersfield (today's trip).  Above is a look at the San Francisco Mountains, or San Francisco Peaks (depends upon who you talk to) which sit just north of Flagstaff.  I think our highest elevation was around 7,300 feet, and on the other side of Flagstaff it drops considerably.

For some reason (talking with Marcia about who can remember what) I did not take pictures of the Williams area.  This drive along I-40 is one we have driven many times, so you could just use our search box in the far right column and search for Williams.

As we get closer to Kingman, the trees get very short, more like bushes, but there are some nice mountains to see through the drive to Kingman.  A few years ago a 'con-man' tried to tell us that we had a major oil leak under our motorhome.  (See Scam Alert, Kingman Az)  I joked with Marcia telling her I was going to pull off and try and find him and let him know our motorhome has been fine with the "leak".

One thing I did not know about Kingman is that the airport is a mini-graveyard for some older planes, especially DHL freight and Delta Airlines.  After WW2 it was one of many scrap locations for airplanes, but they all hit the scrap iron heap ages ago.

In some of the above pictures you can see how nice the roads were...unfortunately as we got closer and closer to California the roads were real bumpy bad.  Nice way to remember a state that you just drove 350 miles through.

The Colorado River, yes, the same river that runs through the Grand Canyon, is the border between Arizona and California in this area.  Here is a shot out my window, and the river is just visible above the guard rail.

Here is the bridge crossing over the river on I-40.

And we would give you a better look of the river except this bridge out Marcia's window obstructs the view...and out my window is no better.

We got through California Customs, I mean Fresh Vegetable Check Point and they allowed us to carry in our 1/3 head of lettuce and a few Cherry Tomatoes that we promised was our dinner for the night.  Here is a picture of our camp at Fender's RV Resort in Needles.

If ONLY a picture can show you how hot it was.  At this point we were the only ones in the front area...and it was about 106 degrees.  Later a 5th Wheel came to our left, it took them a good 20 minutes to pull in, 30 minutes to set up which included them turning off our 30 amp breaker because "They thought it would make their 50 amp go stronger".  I wish I could say they were new at this...but they were not.  As Marcia says, "You Can't Fix Stupid"  It hit 111 degrees right about the time they turned our breaker off.  I will stop talking about it or mom will wash my mouth out with soap when she sees me tomorrow...

Our motorhome is parked just out of the picture to the right.  Past that community building, there are some camping sites for those who are staying longer than just a night or two...they overlook the Colorado River.  Needles is only around 500 feet in elevation, a big change from the 6,000 plus just the night before.  Along with it, you get LOT MORE HEAT!

We got up at 4:30, and hit the road by 5 am.  That is NOT our norm, but HOT TIMES require abnormal behavior.  A few miles down the road, and about 1,000 feet higher, the temps are down to low 70's from the 80's we woke up to in Needles. 

I take this picture out my window of the my mirror just to show Marcia the sunrise, and ...

...she HANGS out her window, gets this picture.  Unfortunately, I hit a very large bump, and she fell out...but I just left here there along the side of the road.  WELL, she really wasn't hanging out, but she did take a good enough picture that all I had to do was rotate the image just a bit...it really turned out better than I expected.

Just like with a sunset, if you turn the opposite of where the sun is setting you sometimes get a nice picture of the last rays of sun hitting a mountain, clouds, whatever.  Here, we are headed opposite of where the sun is rising, so it is a great view which lasts for nearly 30 minutes.

To some the Mojave Desert in California is just plain ugly.  To me, it depends.  Depends upon the time of day, where you are at, and if you are in the mood to see the amazing beauty that lies right in front (or in this case, off to my left) of you.

Here is another example off to my right that Marcia took.

And sometimes it just seems to go on and on and on, seems to last for ever.

In April 2012 we stayed in this rest area, 60 miles east of Barstow, for the night. 

Got this picture of Bubba (left) and Skruffy (right) looking out at the vast wasteland, wondering if they will ever see grass again.

Today I pulled up right where we had stayed eight years ago...

Here is Skruffy just last year, looking out at the vast wasteland for her last time...

"Hey Dad," she says, "I found some GRASS!"  I am sure she has lots and lots of grass where she is now...oh, how the memories still hurt so very deep, and yet bring joy at the same time.

We got to the Orange Grove RV Park in east Bakersfiled by 11:30.  It is HOT, but only 101, although it was suppose to be 103...I never saw it make it that high.  It is 6:15 and it is still 101, but I am confident that it will start to fall real soon.  It is suppose to drop to 76 this evening, cool enough, with this low humidity, to open windows and vents and circulate outside air...but that will come when I get up in the middle of the night.  Tomorrow, we will be under that big tree in Sandy and Arny's backyard!