Day 2 – Friday 555 Miles

 

Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.

 

This is where we left off  on yesterday's post  ….

It seems we had a visitor overnight that decided some of the things on our trailer would be better off in his possession than in ours.  After cutting our bungees ….. he borrowed a few items.  For some reason I doubt he will have the courtesy to return them.

My little GoPro Camera ready for travel. 

 

Just what did our thief borrow?  Well, he borrowed two 5 gallon gas cans and one jack.  I’m glad he didn’t take my bike.  One gas can was empty and the other only had about 2 gallons in it.  We just can’t figure out where he came from and we certainly don’t believe any of the other RV’ers would have stooped that low.  Usually RVers leave other RVer’s possessions alone.  Well, most do and we’d certainly much rather give them the benefit of the doubt.

 

Needless to say we pulled out earlier than planned after discovering the theft.  We were ready to go but the sun wasn’t up yet.  Neither of us like traveling in the dark.  Rain was due to start about 8:00 and we wanted to get out of there before it did.  Our route was taking us away from it and not into it.  We thought that was a good thing.  However, as most weather forecasts go, you just might imagine that the weather man was wrong.  It was raining as we pulled out.  It was also dark. I don’t do well in those situations.  It’s hard to see.  It was about then we also discovered that the instrument panel lights in the motorhome were out.  Aargh!

 

There was lots and lots and lots of construction. 

Down the road we went.  We were happy when the sun started to peek through and when we finally got out of the rain.  We were also happy when we discovered that snow was predicted in the mountains around us the day after we would be going through and not the day of.   We hadn’t had good omens so far but that was a good one.  Maybe things would improve.  Maybe they would.  That’s what we were hoping.

On a nice day you can knock out the distance between Ashland, Oregon --- the beginning of the Siskiyou Mountains and Redding, California -- the end of the Siskiyou Mountains -- in no time.  It's actually a very pretty drive.  If the roads are clear, it's a fairly easy drive.   We usually stop in either Yreka or Weed.  This time we made a stop at the Pilot station in Weed.  It sure was breezy.  The attendant who filled our propane tank said the name of the town is Weed for a reason.  The letters stand for  --  Windy  Every  Every Day.

 

Our original plans had called for traveling through Sacramento on Sunday.  Sometimes I wonder why we even make plans.  They rarely work out. We had a lot of original plans.  Our stops rarely work out either.  We hit Sacramento during work traffic ….. 5:30 PM on a Friday night.  That’s a lot different than the low-traffic Sunday.  We didn’t plan that at all.  Even though there was a lot of traffic it wasn’t bad.  I remembered the last time we traveled south through the city we just stayed in one of the left lanes with the “Trucks OK” sign above the lane.  It took us through the city without any turnoffs or slow downs for entering traffic.  It worked very nicely.

 Sacramento

Down the road we decided to go.  We were heading to the Lodi Elks.  At least, that’s what we thought.  When we got close we figured the Stockton Elks was just a little farther down the road.  Why not head there?  Close to Stockton …. we decided to head just a tad farther.  It was the Modesto Elks we ended up at.  It was dusk …. almost dark but not quite when we pulled into our site.  What a wonderful park with pull-thru sites.  The plan is to get out of town before the next set of rain clouds come through. That’s the plan but you know how well we do with plans.

 

“Caution! Dummies are everywhere!”

Friday was a 555 mile day.  We don’t like days like that.  Again, we were beat.  I went to bed at 8:30.  Terry was already there.  I slept for ten hours.  Saturday wasn't going to be a long travel day.    After all, we had an appointment to keep.

 
Modesto Elks

Timing is everything at the Elks.  This lodge had 8 RV sites.  Five of those sites were full.  It was Friday.  We knew by the weekend all the hookup sites would be gone and overflow would be busy.  The Modesto Elks is frequently used by snowbirds on their routes to and from and this is their busy time.
 

Hmmm.  Just noticed that our battery charger doesn't seem to be charging this morning.  Oh oh ... hope it's not another problem.


‘Tis life on the road.