Date 11/17- 11/20/2024
Odometer reading 76,795- 77,873
Miles driven 1,078
It has been a while since the motorhome has seen some miles, and a couple years since we’ve made the trek south. The reason? We were busy building a new home!
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| New home under construction Nov 2023-June 2024 |
First things, we had to get the motorhome back in condition after much neglect. The list included- new water pump, repair a leak in the water heater bay, change oil and filter, grease the chassis, re-caulking the roof/wall seams, wash roof and exterior and get the dash air conditioning looked at.
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| Our motorhome waits quietly for this new travel season to begin |
I could do all but the air conditioning myself, and thought I might get lucky and find the problem and fix the A/C myself too. By the time I had finished all my wiring and control checks, and realized I couldn’t fix the A/C, the earliest I could get in to a local shop was November 15th!
Our motorhome being a rear engine, meant that the queen bed in the rear of the coach had to come apart so the mechanic could access the engine underneath. To save mechanic’s time we took everything apart and took the bedding into the house. No point in loading until after the appointment - right?
Wrong! The shop had the air conditioner repairs done the same day so we rushed back home to finish loading up for the season. We were facing a very narrow window if we were going to get over the mountain passes before the first big winter storm hit our area. We worked so intensely we don’t have any photos to share.
We departed home at noon in a driving rain
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| Wipers sling rain as we head for the freeway |
We headed to Interstate five and turned south
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| Siskiyou Pass on I-5 Elevation 4,310 ft |
We breezed over the Siskiyou Pass on the border of Oregon and California with the rain still coming down, but importantly, no snow on the road! At Mount Shasta, we turned off on California 89 and headed west toward Nevada.
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| Docked in the Susanville RV Park |
By 6PM we were docking up in Susanville RV Resort, and the weather was cold and windy. We didn’t hook up anything but the electric, as the forecast was for 28° Joan rustled up a quick dinner of corned beef hash and we turned in early.
Monday morning, we were up early and off to the Lumberjack restaurant for breakfast, then walked over to nearby Walmart to get a micro SD card for our dash cam.
On our way back to the RV park, we tested our shoe skating on the frozen puddles.
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| High plains near Honey Lake, California |
9AM sees us off on Hwy 395/95 to Reno. Thankfully today is sunny and bright (if cold) and windy but not so forceful as to have us skittering us all over the road. And best of all the snow is staying up there in the foothills, leaving us a nice dry road.
Joan expertly piloted us into the Shell station on Red Rock Road just outside of Reno. This is no mean feat when you consider that we are 56 feet long and 26,000 pounds rolling. Joan checks Gas Buddy, Google Maps, and satellite photos to be sure we can get in and back out without having to ever go into reverse. Our tow setup does not allow backing up without first un-hitching the car.
Joan deftly navigated the arterials of Reno and somehow squirted out of the metro heading east on I-80 through Sparks and skirting along the beautiful Truckee River
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| Golden aspens along the Truckee river |
We have always liked heading south along this route because the roads are well maintained, the traffic is light (outside of the large cities that is!). Turning south at Clark, NV, on the patriotically named USA Parkway (state route 439) we navigate through a HUGE industrial distribution center. We read names like FED-X, UPS, Walmart, Switch, Tesla, James Hardie, and several dozens more. It’s also a good place to find some fast food- and we can easily find parking in a universe built for trucks! We decide on a couple burgers on the run as we’ve got a lot of distance to cover between here and Goldfield, NV where we’ll tie up for the night.
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| Goldfield, NV RV Park |
We arrived at our destination in the dark, the wind was whipping and it was 23 degrees. We pulled into a space plugged in the power cord and headed indoors for dinner and an early turn-in. (I took this picture in the morning 😊). Before we tucked in for the night I ordered a Bluetooth donegal on Amazon for our classic radio in the bus. We want to try out the Amazon locker drop-off, so we chose a location in LasVegas to pickup our prize.
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| Goldfield, NV |
Tuesday dawned bright and cool, and we headed out for Las Vegas on US Route 95
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| Home for the night at Las Vegas RV Resort |
The pickup at the Amazon locker at a 7-Eleven on Charleston went smoothly and before noon we had checked into the Las Vegas RV Resort.
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| Charging the battery on the toad |
The battery on our towed car had drained and would barely start the car in Goldfield, now at the La Vegas resort it wouldn’t even turnover. The gate attendant kindly used his jump box to get us going, and once at the site, I put the battery charger on. We’ll see if it continues to be a problem…
Wednesday morning we left Las Vegas and headed for Phoenix, AZ, our destination for this first leg of our trip.
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| Our route for the day Las Vegas to Phoenix |
A quick stop for fuel at Railroad Pass Casino just south of Las Vegas.
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| 76 Station at Railway Pass Casino in NV |
At 60 feet long we don’t fit into the usual gas
stations as they are built nowadays.
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| Not a quick fill on this diesel tank |
Unfortunately we are not welcome at the truck lanes either, and the fast fill nozzles in the commercial truck islands are way too fast for our standard filler neck. We end up having to wait for a chance to get in on the outside lane of the gas station and hope we can maneuver out without causing too much chaos.
We continue down US Route 93 across the “new” high bridge down river from Hoover dam. The view would be spectacular 890 feet above the Colorado River in a steep rocky gorge- however the bridge designers decided to make sure travelers could not see through the bridge rails (walls). The transit across the 1500 foot wide gap over the river canyon is about as exciting as going through a tunnel.
I’ve blogged about this before, US 93 is slated to become the new Interstate11. Our best guess is that the road department see no reason to fix the deteriorating road bed if it is going to be torn up for a new 4 lane, so it is terrible! We do get one nice surprise as we are bumping along.
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| New Starbucks on US 93 ! |
A brand new Starbucks out in the middle of nowhere. (Well apologies, it’s somewhere to the 50 or 60 people who live and work here- but we never saw a town name). White Hills maybe? That’s what we see on the map near where we are.
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| Joan enjoys the warm sun on Starbucks patio |
We are hungry and the coffee is mighty welcome. We have our usual mochas and a hot sandwich on the sunny veranda
Feeling satisfied we continue our trek down US 93 to Wickenburg, AZ . Forgot to mention we crossed into Mountain Standard Time as we crossed over the AZ state line, and just like that- Poof! We lost an hour out of our travel day. US 93 ends in Wickenburg and US 60 heads east-west (ish). We take the east fork for a few miles before turning due east on State route 74 Morristown- New River Highway. Aptly named, because we’re headed for New River.
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| Tucked in for the next month in New River, AZ |
By 4PM we are safely ensconced in our destination RV resort, Casa de Cordell in New River. We’ll be here for about a month before continuing our road trip. Tomorrow I get to install a new spa at our host’s house. Should be fun!
Your traveling friends,
Jeff and Joan
