It is always hard to leave Oregon, but our plan for this Winter is to visit new parts of the country and it's a long trip cross-country to Florida (especially the way we like to travel). So it was time to say goodbye and hit the road again. Click here for posts about our Oregon stay. We left Fern Ridge Shores at noon on October 15 and arrived in Bakersfield California on the 17th. That was pretty fast for us -- we don't travel long days, but we have been over this road many times and there was nothing we wanted to spend any extra time visiting. We stay at Orange Grove RV Park whenever we travel to California and it really is a very nice place. Usually when we're there, we've been able to step outside and grab a few delicious oranges right off the trees, but it was too early this time -- they were still green. We rented a compact car so that we could drive to Long Beach to see my Aunt and cousins. We left the Freightliner at the Rental Agency Parking lot; the guy in the RV next door to us took a look at the little white car and said "Looks like your truck shrunk."
My Aunt is 100 years old and is more informed on politics and current events than we are. She is also generous about sharing her knowledge of old family history. She's a great role mode and we had a wonderful visit. Because it is on the water, there is no smog in my Aunt's neighborhood, but it was heavy the whole time we were in Bakersfield and on the trip to her house and back. Although Orange Grove is a great park, we wouldn't want to spend too much time in Bakersfield because of that depressing smog. We were now traveling on Route 40. It overlaps or parallels the old Route 66, so all of the towns sounded very familiar. We stayed at a park called Black Bart's. It's an older park, but the spaces were long and we didn't have to unhook, which is always what we aim for on overnight stops. The RV Park is adjacent to Black Bart's Steakhouse and Saloon. Of course we had to try it, especially since we received a 10%-off coupon for dinner upon check-in. Dinner was a fun experience. The waiters are all performance students at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff and they took turns performing in a music revue. Our waiter sang the signature tune "Route 66" and whenever he came to the line about Flagstaff, all of the locals cheered. The food was good too and service excellent (even though the staff was doing double duty with the entertainment plus serving a couple of long tables of bus tours). So this was a very fun overnight stop. When we left Grants, we got on Route 40 again and it was long, straight and monotonous. There was no interesting scenery and very little traffic. I was afraid Bill would fall asleep out of boredom. (I don't think he did, but I'm not sure, since I slept a lot of the day.) That night we were at Tucumcari, one of the very few places in New Mexico that I haven't fallen immediately in love with. The name seemed to be the cutest thing about it. So that made it easy to leave the next morning and head on to the second part of this road trip, which would bring us into some states where we'd never stayed and a whole bunch of new places to explore. In mid-October of this year, we were still enjoying family, friends, and beautiful Oregon weather at Fern Ridge Lake. The Lake is actually a reservoir and the Corps of Engineers was getting ready to "pull the plug" as they do every year before the rainy season starts. Here's Bill getting ready for the last boat ride of the season. Our son-in-law met him on the other side of the lake and pulled it to their house and barn, where we store it.
My Aunt's home is in a beautiful neighborhood on a Canal. The streets are narrow and winding and certainly not made for baby Freightliners, so renting the car made sense.
Our next and last stop in California was in Needles where we stayed at Desert View RV Resort. This was a nicely designed park with flowering hedges between each spot -- and nice long spaces. It was definitely still summer here (maybe it always is). Quite a few people winter in this area because it is very close to the Colorado River and Laughlin, Nevada (so you could have your choice of outdoor or indoor sports). But although the park was very nice, the scenery around it is barren and desolate. And still a little bit smoggy, so we were happy to be leaving California after one night here.
We stayed the next night in Flagstaff Arizona. It wasn't a long day, but a hard driving one -- all mountain passes and lots of construction projects and wind most of the way. Quite a difference from Needles -- we were up in the mountains and the air was beautifully clear, but (no surprise) cold! We had to dig out the fall clothes again in order to take an evening walk.
On Thursday, October 23, we reached Grants, New Mexico. This is where we visited the Acoma Village of Sky City. (Click on the link to read our post about it.) We loved our visit here. We stayed at Bar S RV Park, a small and very reasonably priced park (about $15.00 per night). There's no website, but this was an excellent place to stay for a few days. There were some train tracks nearby, but they didn't really disturb us at night and the park was clean and convenient.
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Posted by: palm springs hotels | October 29, 2009 at 07:36 AM