The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

No drama, not one bit!

The Great Valley surrounded by snow from the eastern slope.

On the road this morning by 9, we looked up the road ahead and in spite of the heavy clouds and snow peeking through here and there, we weren’t the least bit worried. Snow level 4,000 feet, pass level, something just below that. Our outside temperature reading was something like 48 degrees. No ice at that temperature for sure. By the time we actually drove into Tehachapi, most of yesterday’s heavy snows had melted, with dirty brown piles around on the sidewalks, but the roads were perfectly clear.

West of the Tehachapi’s, green valley rangeland

It only took an hour, and suddenly we were on the east side of the mountains, looking back at the beautiful snow and basking in the brilliant sunshine coming through the windshield. We decided again to skip Barstow and go directly south on 395, varying our route from last December to just add a little bit of interest. After gassing up at Kramer’s Corner, still just 3.89 per gallon, I took over the driving duties.

…

East of the Tehachapi’s, open desert

Relocating Garmin Girl to the middle of the windshield where I could drive and navigate at the same time, I settled in ready to tackle LA traffic. The southern route crossed Cajon Pass, and it was fast and steep. I had forgotten how much of Southern California is really mountains rather than the basins that I remember. The wild crosshatch of faults running in all directions, with uplifts and mass wasted hillsides, huge crevasses of eroded slopes, and wild shifting geology makes for an incredible landscape. Today, for the first time in more years than I care to remember, Riverside was crystal clear and we could see mountains all around us in all directions. Almost as amazing, the traffic all the way was light and easy, with many folks kindly making way for the MoHo to change lanes when needed, and giving me plenty of room to navigate.

Garmin Girl did a great job getting me through the interchanges, and Mo tackled the I-phone and paper maps to try to figure out why the GPS units kept wanting to take us all the way east on I-10 to Indio before going south to Borrego. I kept saying, “The GPS is programmed for fastest, I think the phone does shortest, and the map isn’t detailed enough.” Mo was determined that we should go south and cross on 79, but I was a bit worried about that route since I knew there was a pretty steep drop-off into Borrego Springs. What the heck, it’s an adventure anyway, and we crossed Highway 36 last month and we decided it couldn’t be any worse than that.

So south we went, turning east on the Temecula Parkway and traveling through the beautiful wild country toward Warner Springs and Julian. Just before Warner Springs, in a huge broad valley, we came upon huge drifts of “goldfields” a common wildflower in the California foothills. The sheets of yellow stretched all across the valley, and with the snow covered peaks all around it, the contrast was incredible.

The 22s route east from Highway 79 is paved, two lanes all the way, and not nearly as narrow as the coast mountain range roads we traveled last month. The grade IS steep, and the hairpins are dramatic, but it’s over fast, maybe fifteen minutes from the summit to the basin floor at Borrego. The automatic downshift transmission, “torque converter” Mo thinks that what it is called, but whatever the name, it does a great job of holding her back and keeping us from having to use the brakes. We rolled into the State Park just in time to hear that the last spot had been taken.

I know there are a ton of places around Borrego to boondock, but without an internet connection, I didn’t have access to all that information at the moment, and it was late. Instead, we stopped in at the Borrego Holiday Home Park, reviewed by Laurie last month, and by 5 we were settled in to a nice site on the east side of the park facing open desert for 27 bucks, full hookup. I originally planned to stay at the State Park, but this was so simple, and we are only going to be here one more night, so tomorrow will be a day of exploration and we will just come back home to our little cozy spot here.

I told Mo that from now on I need to try to remember all those places I have read about, and if we even have a slight chance we might boondock, I need to have maps and locations and coordinates! Especially late in the day after driving freeways.

Tomorrow we will explore Anza Borrego State Park, and with a good weather forecast, I am really looking forward to a day in the sun.

A gorgeous day on I-5 (and a few minor glitches)

Gotta thank everyone for all the encouragement yesterday, both on Facebook and as comments on my blog post about the break-in. I was even surprised at how comforting it felt to have people noticing and sending along good thoughts. A couple of folks mentioned our good attitude toward it all, but again, as we looked around last night at how unscathed we were, it was impossible to not have a pretty good attitude.

This morning, even though there were huge clouds all around the San Joaquin Valley, we saw promises of brilliant sunlight peeking through. Although we didn’t get up till 6:30 or so, I had been lying awake since four, watching the perigee full moon through the sky visible below the back bedroom shade. All sorts of scenarios went through my mind, still trying to figure out just how they managed to do some of the weird things they did. So yeah, that good attitude held up fine with the lights on, but in the dark of night, not so much.

We got up, neither one of us much in the mood for breakfast, and checked out the weather on the internet. Didn’t look real good for us no matter which route we follow, so we just decided that driving down the open country of I-5 on the west side of the valley was more agreeable than bumping along on my least favorite road, Highway 99, even though 99 would have been a shorter route. Our latest plan was to amble toward Bakersfield and then check again about the passes, and probably camp somewhere this side of Castaic and the Flying J on the interstate.

Of course, with so many little things missing, we also decided that a shopping trip to Camping World, south of Bakersfield on 99 was a good plan, and we still hadn’t completely let go of our wish to travel via 58 to Tehachapi and our friends. Speaking of friends, Loree is at this very moment sitting in Tehachapi, and her photos of the snow there looked a bit daunting. Either way, a night of boondocking was on the agenda.

The drive south on I-5 was actually breathtaking. With all the storms, there isn’t a bit of smog or pollution in the air, and the wild cloudy skies with brilliant sun breaks only intensified the spring green of the annual grass rangeland of the western perimeter of the Great Valley. I said to Mo, “I have to get some real photos, not windshield shots, this is just too gorgeous>.” She replied, “Well, I can’t pull over here in the middle of nowhere, but I’ll keep watching.” In less than 2 miles, we saw a sign indicating a “vista point”. Perfect! The exit wound up a high hill right next to the interstate with an amazing 360 degree view of the entire valley north, east, and south, and the coast range rising to the west. In addition, we found ourselves looking down on the California Aqueduct just below us.

A true engineering marvel, whether you love it or hate it, and stretched out to the horizon parallel to Interstate 5, it was all that made California what it is, especially Southern California. With my 3G connection and 5 bars on the I-phone, I managed to learn more about the aqueduct that I even knew growing up in California when it was being built. In a nutshell, the magnificent snow melt of the Sierras flows down the Feather River to Oroville Dam, west to the Delta of San Francisco Bay, then south through a mind-boggling array of pipes, tunnels, pumps, over mountains, through mountains and ending up supplying the outrageous water needs of the bread basket of the world in the San Joaquin Valley and the entire metropolitan area of Los Angeles. I even read that the water Rick and so many others are drinking while supping at Palm Springs restaurants comes from the gorgeous Feather River high in the Sierras.

Once again on the road, the pavement was smooth enough for me to knit, and the storms coming and going made for great entertainment. A bit after noon, we thought lunch might be nice and stopped at a quiet rest area with thoughts of starting up the generator and cooking some grilled cheese sandwiches. Mo said, “Probably would be a good idea to start up the generator anyway, since it’s been sitting awhile”. UhOh. Good thing we did. She started easily and then ground right down to a stop and wouldn’t start again. Mo checked under the rig for any sign of what might be the problem, but no luck. She did say that the intruders were messing around in the generator bay, and who knows what they actually did. The sound felt like it wasn’t getting gas. Maybe something is cut or gone, but either way it wasn’t something she could figure out so we called Camping World. Wouldn’t you know, they are booked up until Friday! We don’t have our battery charge indicator, and certainly aren’t comfortable boondocking without the generator, so Camping World gave us the number of Pacific Power in Bakersfield, and thank goodness they said to come on in.

It was another hour and a half in to the shop, and lo and behold, it was a shop dedicated specifically to generators, with Onan on the window signs. We pulled around to the back bay as directed by a crusty old guy who wasn’t the least bit talkative. He pulled off the cover to the generator, harumphed a bit about how Dynamax didn’t make it easy to work on, and made some mumblings about us having it in storage too long and the carburetor was probably just glazed up.

Mo told him about our vandals, and he crawled under to find the fuel line to the generator was cut. Seems as though the robbers couldn’t manage to siphon the gas directly from the gas tank, so evidently thought they could get it out of the generator gas line. Must not have worked, but they weren’t completely awful people because they actually plugged up the cut hose with a piece of pipe so all the gas wouldn’t run out on the floor and cause an explosion. Our fixer man re-connected the hose, pushed the starter, and the generator roared to life. Perfect. Only after all this, did the guy actually start to talk a little bit and laughed with us about the good outcome. I told him I was part of the RV blogging world and would put in a good word for Pacific Power on Buck Owens Boulevard in Bakersfield. Great service where we least expected it.

Back on Highway 99, we traveled just a few miles south to camping world to check out some goodies, and found another voltage meter to replace the one that was stolen. By this time is was after 4pm and we were definitely ready to settle in for the evening. Looking at the snow ringing the entire valley, we finally decided that we would take our chances traveling 58 directly east to the desert tomorrow morning. A quick search on Streets and Trips yielded an RV park not too far out of town along our route and within an hour we were parked and settled in, just in time for the huge thunderstorm to hit.

You wonder why I am so amazed at our good luck? I have had other times in my life where something that looks like a streak of really bad luck is combined with amazing good luck that gets me through it all by the skin of my teeth. This has been one of those streaks for sure, a time when I know someone is watching over me. As we left Pacific Power this afternoon, Mo turned to me and said, “How likely would it be for us to just randomly decide to use the generator in the middle of the afternoon?” How likely that we would be within a few miles of an Onan specialist. How likely that the vandals didn’t let all the gas drain out after cutting the fuel line, and how likely that the whole thing didn’t just blow up completely. How likely that we would decide to travel highway 58 and then hear that there were heavy snows and landslides on I-5 and it was closed down anyway!

Yup, so far, this has been one heck of a lucky trip.

Vandalized!

Anyone who has ever been robbed will understand the sick, sinking feeling that hit me when I realized that something wasn’t right as we opened the door to the RV storage shed in Redding.

Our trip south this morning began right on time, even though we had a good six inches of snow dumped on us last night. We were packed and ready and on the road by 8, making our way down our unplowed roads to the highway. Traveling south toward Mt Shasta and Weed on Highway 97 was a bit challenging, with long rows of trucks lined up putting on chains. We saw a few California Highway Patrol enforcing the chain up, but with four wheel drive, we were waved on through. For quite some time, I noticed that there wasn’t a single line of tracks through the snow coming toward us and we were the only ones on the road. As we approached Weed, however, the traffic got a bit crazier, with some folks flying through and others crawling along. We actually saw a few unchained trucks going very slowly, and wondered how they got past the CHP. After we stopped for the mandatory agricultural check at Dorris, I hit the button to roll the window back up and nada, nothing. The window was not going up. I had Mo put Jeremy back in his cage, we donned hats and gloves against the wild snowstorm coming in the driver’s window and continued south. I wondered just what this trip was going to be like if we couldn’t close the window to the car, but the wondering only lasted an hour or so, because with some extra coaxing and a prayer on my part, the window finally went all the way back up. Silly.

Mo and I don’t do fast food a lot, but it’s a bit of a tradition to pull into South Weed for a McDonalds McMuffin breakfast. This morning the trip took so long that we almost missed out, and once there, we were amazed at the deep, wet snow. Inside the store we found dozens of Japanese families, with kids running and playing everywhere and long lines for the food. What? Weed? It is never busy!?! With coffee in hand, we asked a young woman next to us if she knew where everyone was going. Seems they were all on some kind of tour bus from Vancouver, BC,which didn’t have chains,and they had been sitting around for over three hours waiting to get back on the road.

The drive over the pass was a bit harrowing, but not too bad, and it was with a sigh of relief that we pulled into the high locked security gates at Redding RV Storage. Mo unlocked the big doors and when we slid them up, I noticed that I smelled gasoline. “That’s weird,” I thought. Then I looked toward the back of the shed, and again thought, “Why is the door open back there?” “Wait, there isn’t a door back there!?” But the light was streaming in, the gas cap was off and drooping, and as I looked more closely, I realized that I was looking through a gaping hole in the solid metal wall at the back of our shed. We looked around in disbelief, trying to see what might have been taken, assuming that someone wanted the gasoline. Then we realized that the back storage area was open, the side storage areas were open, and when Mo looked inside the cab, we saw all the maps and papers strewn all about. With trepidation, we walked back to the main door, left ajar, and stepped inside to find the entire contents of the MoHo dumped and thrown all around the interior.

It took awhile to figure out what was gone, what was destroyed, what was left. The sick feeling and shaky knees didn’t go away for some time, for me at least. I called the Redding police, who were not available “because we need to deal with life threatening situations and don’t have enough personnel at the moment to take a report” Someone will call you later. I then called the owner of the storage facility, and got an answering machine. Within a few minutes, though, he called me back and they came right over to asses the damage. He kept saying,”This has never happened before!”, and then of course had to mention right away that our contract stipulated that we were the ones responsible for insuring the contents of the units.

He opened the back gate of the facility to check out the long wall where one set of units backed up to a long hill above the highway. Sure enough, a second unit had a similar hole where the burglars had used some kind of sawzall to get through the metal. In that case, however, there were boxes right up against the wall and they weren’t able to get in.

After the owner left, we began cleaning up the mess and listing what was missing. The more we looked around, the more amazed we were at what was taken and what wasn’t. They unscrewed the face plate of the DVD/stereo, but didn’t take the unit. They completely emptied our drawers and cupboards, but only stole my Leatherman tool. They didn’t touch the two bottles of whiskey or any of the food, they left the binoculars lying on the sofa, but stole a ring Mo had left in the dash that belonged to her grandmother. They stole the battery charge meter plugged into a socket by the door, the portable inverter, and all of Mo’s electrical volt meters along with our solar panel from the back storage area. For some stupid reason, they stole our fold up picnic table, the kind that has the slats on top that roll into a nice bundle, but then they left the two hundred dollar telescoping ladder right in place.

Much later this evening, the Redding police finally called for a report, and the officer wasn’t the least bit surprised at the erratic, completely unpredictable list of stuff taken and not taken. He said it was obviously a meth burglary, and that Redding was the “meth capital” of California. I wonder how so many different places can claim to be the “meth capital”. They said that about Sonora when I moved there, and they say that about the rural county in Missouri where my son lives, and they say it about Klamath Falls sometimes as well.

The officer said that people on meth are usually looking for money, jewelry, drugs, anything small and light that they can sell. What they take sometimes makes no sense at all because they are all drugged up and completely weird. That surely was the case here. Once we finally got the place cleaned up, it hit me hard that we were incredibly lucky. Nothing had actually been vandalized, no real damage to anything. They didn’t break things, tear doors off, put rocks through the windows, or scratch the paint. Everything seems to work just fine. They didn’t touch our house batteries, or take any of the engine parts, or bother the nice flat screen TV. They took down our little pillow that says “Home is Where You Park It” that we had pinned up on the wall and left it on the couch. ???

I am sooo grateful, and after we traveled south for a couple of hours, the heavy pall began to lift and we kept saying how incredibly lucky we had been. We slipped through the huge California storm without any major problems, even with torrential rains south of Sacramento. For the first time, Mo got to see the Yolo Bypass north of Sacramento in full flood stage, an amazing feat of flood control doing just what it supposed to do. By 7pm, the Technicolor lights of Flag City RV Resort showed up on the gray horizon signaling an end to this long, slightly crazy day. Everything again seems normal, and yet I still feel that moment of incredulous disbelief when I looked back at the gaping hole in the wall at our storage unit. I sure am glad we are taking the MoHo all the way home this time.

The Best Laid Plans and all that

After posting yesterday about our departure plans, I continued to check the internet for road conditions and weather cams. Our original plan included visiting some good friends in Tehachapi, traveling east along Highway 58. After reading about 6 inches of snow accumulation and predicted winds on Sunday of 40 plus miles per hour with gusts to 85! yes that is 85 mph, we thought we should possibly reroute. Next plan, instead of driving over 58 toward Laughlin, we could just stay south on 5, get through LA hooking up to the 210 and the 10 heading east and go straight to Borrego Springs, saving Laughlin for the latter part of the trip and skipping out on our visit to friends. That’s a bit sad since we haven’t seen them since 2007.

So, once again to weatherunderground.com and the web cams and the severe weather reports. What??!! 85 mph gusts at Bakersfield, Frazier Park, and 6 inches of snow possible over the Grapevine on Sunday??? Big Sigh.

Jeremy doesn’t care whether we are traveling or home, just as long as he can be warm and snooze.

So here I am this morning, in my jammies typing away on the computer instead of driving south to Redding as planned. We wrote all our friends along the route saying, nope, not this time. We are packed and mostly loaded, watching the weather. At first we thought we might wait until Monday, but looking a bit more closely led us to deciding on a Sunday departure. Yes, high winds and rain all the way to Sacramento tomorrow, but not 85 mph. We will hole up tomorrow night near Lodi, amble south on 5 toward the Grapevine and hole up again at a truck stop and wait to see what the road is doing on Monday morning. Sooner or later we are going to get to all that hot sun and warm temperatures that everyone is talking about, right?

One of the very best things about retirement and the RV life is the ability to re-route, re-plan, and stay flexible. Today, instead of driving, I am going to cook up a bunch of stuff for our trip that I hadn’t the opportunity to do last week. Today the house will be filled the the smell of pulled pork in the crock pot, some chocolate chip and some peanut butter cookies, a big pot of spaghetti sauce to freeze, and a luscious turkey pot pie with a biscuit topping made from some of our leftover freezer turkey. I won’t have to cook for a week while we are on the road!

It’s snowing and we are leaving tomorrow!!

Today winter returned to Rocky Point with a vengeance. Just a few days ago, while doing our bi-weekly wood haul to the back porch, I noticed stiff little green spikes poking up through the old leaf litter in my flower beds: rows and rows of miniature daffodils along a stone wall, and several large groups of naturalized bigger daffodils under the aspens down by Mo’s handmade water wheel.

Yesterday Mo drove over the mountain to Medford to pick up a nice little greenhouse for us from Harbor Freight. Super sale price for a 10×12 structure made with sturdy aluminum framing and some kind of semi-rigid plexiglass walls. I am sooo tickled about this. Last year we spent most of the summer trying to outsmart the deer and guess what, the deer won! We also live in the mountains, where nights just don’t warm up enough to ripen things much. Even the lavender that I planted at my old house back in Klamath Falls (where my daughter lives now) grew five times as big as what I can grow here.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………… Isn’t this just the picture of optimism?

This year we will put up the greenhouse in late spring and I will use it as the main garden, safe behind walls that will keep the deer out, and warmer at night so I might actually get some tomatoes and peppers, and yum! some fresh basil, and… and…and… Since we plan to be traveling in Alaska during June and July, I am curious to see just what kind of garden will greet me on my arrival back home August 1st. I will optimistically plant goodies in raised beds filled with rich soil, make sure everything is ventilated well, and Mo will hook up an automatic watering system. We will have someone caretaking the big house and mowing lawns, but I certainly wouldn’t expect them to handle the greenhouse garden. Even if it all goes to seed, or gets too hot, or if the rabbits and voles find their way inside, it will still be a great experiment, and I’ll know better what to do next time.

Ah well, for now the snow is coming down in thick huge heavy flakes, piling up on the trees until the blustery winds dump big solid white cascades of cold wet stuff. Better make sure you aren’t standing under any trees out there right now. Mo brought up the bins for loading up clothes and food and all the other “stuff” we need for our 2 1/2 weeks on the road and I am making lists and checking off items as we load them up. I think I do need to make a “real” list, something permanent somewhere, and then I can just check everything off as we load up, whether it is in the baby car or in the MoHo directly. This time will be the last for awhile that we have to haul things back and forth, because after this trip we are bringing the MoHo home again. Let’s pray that early April doesn’t send another snowstorm like this one. If so, we might have to come up with another plan as we travel toward home on 395.

Tonight we will brush the snow off the hot tub for one more soothing soak before getting a good night’s rest in anticipation of an early morning departure. Tomorrow should be great fun, in spite of the predicted rain. After picking up the MoHo in Redding, 160 miles south, we will continue south on I-5 to Sacramento, where we plan to stop in for a visit with Laurie and Odel at Cal Expo before we settle in for the night a bit farther on down the road toward the desert and sunshine!!