Arizona to California and North to B.C.

Now that's a long drive...............

As usual our guardian angel sat in the truck with us and got us safely through an interesting (to say the least) ride from Mesa West and North.  This morning we're having coffee at a very nice resort called Eagle Wind here in  Aldergrove B.C.   http://eaglewindrv.ca/photo-gallery 

And did I mention it's snowing?  Yes it is.........

Our first day out was uneventful except for a killer headwind.  We normally get about 8.5 mpg when we're towing but I think we likely got about 5 on that leg of the trip.  :-(   By carefully planning our fuel stops the most we had to pay was $4.13 but we saw it posted as high as $4.79 in parts of California.  We had filled up in Arizona so we avoided buying any diesel in CA.

First stop was at a place called Quartzsite Arizona.  This was something I was really looking forward to.  One of the RV organizations we belong to is called Escapees http://www.escapees.com  where I spend far too much time on the forum seeing what others are up to.  Quartzsite is a small town on the Arizona California border where people spend days/weeks or more camped in their RVs in the open desert.  Many have solar panels, others have generators, others just use a bonfire.  Trucks come out from town to bring you water and pump out your waste tanks.  It was fun to see but we quickly decided we'd stick to RV parks.  We spent the night just West of Palm Springs in Banning California.

 Quartzsite isn't a very big place

Out in the desert - no services.

There are RV's out there. 

From Quartzsite we were both looking forward to seeing the Palm Springs/Palm Desert area although we didn't have plans to stop or stay.  Neither of us had ever been there so all of our opinions were based on what others have told us and what we had learned from the movie theatre.  You could say we were anxious to see what all the fuss was about.  Now - I know one can't make decisions based on what they see from the freeway but about all we saw driving through there was the biggest wind farm I've ever seen.  Imagine the Bob Hope Boulevard sign framed by windmills.  I guess we'll have to go back but I certainly don't feel any particular urgency to do so.

Now the fun began.  We were travelling on I-10 West and wanted to connect to Hwy I-215 Northand then on to I-210 West to go across the top of Los Angeles through San Bernadino, Pasadena, and Burbank so we could catch I-5 North to B.C.  Well that's just what we did, no mistakes, no wrong roads, perfect drive, EXCEPT nobody told me how bad California roads are.  I thought we had some bad roads back home in Manitoba but they're smooth as glass when compared to this.

California has a law that requires all vehicles towing something, anything, including the heavy duty trucks, to use the right lane only and at 55 mph.  The result is unbelievable congestion in the right lane and all those heavy trucks have beat the right lane all to _____.  Sorry to be so blunt but it's the truth.  It's was brutal to have to tow our rig almost 1000 miles on roads this rough.  We talked to one fellow, from California, who said he was ashamed of the roads in his state.  I understand his opinion.  Our other option was to go further East which meant we had to deal with higher elevations, snow, and ice.  Note to self (again) "don't go North until you can stay East of California."

So now that I have that off my chest back to the trip.

We were now coming North out of L.A. and into the hills patting ourselves on the back for surviving the madness unscathed.  We stopped for our daily (when travelling) cup of coffee from McDonald's and "life was good."  Oops, oh no, we didn't know about the Tejon pass.  I still had half of cup of java when I started having to downshift hard and fast.  We were into a serious climb, some places at a rate of 6%.  This chunk of I-5 goes climbs from L.A., and close to sea level, to 4144 feet at the top.  We were down to 20 mph in places and at that I was passing semi's most of the way.  If you're Canadian this road reminded us of a super size Coquihalla Highway in B.C.  It's a road built on top of the mountains with dramatic climbs and descents.  If you interested this 10 minute video takes you through the whole road.  www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrSGw7Mosic  It was fun and we're really glad to have had the opportunity to drive it.

After the Tejon pass and descending "The Grapevine" we were into hundreds and hundreds of miles of agricultural heaven.  There was a big sign at one point that said "California feeds America."  That probably is an exaggeration but they sure do grow allot of stuff down there.  Many of the trees were blooming as we drove through and in places it was a sea of white or mauve, and always mixed with that beautiful green.

A few oranges on their way to ?

Trees in bloom

Mile after mile of perfectly trimmed orchards

We knew we were headed into some tough weather so we decided to spend an extra day in Red Bluff CA, at the Durango RV Resort.  The sun was shining, and a day off is never a "bad" thing. www.durangorvresorts.com/  If you find yourself in the I-5 on N. California this is a place we would highly recommend.  The place is very nice but the staff are fantastic.  They did everything they could to make our two days there a pleasant experience.

That was the end of our nice weather, from here to Vancouver it was wet, extremely windy, and thankfully, uneventful.  Beautiful country and much better roads.

Snowing in Weed California

We did get above the snow line for awhile but it wasn't snowing at the time :-)

From there we were into Oregon, Washington, and the Canadian border.  The Canada Customs officer was really good to us.  He asked a few questions and let us go without any search at all making it one of our best crossings ever.

If you follow this blog you may remember we stalled at the border last year.  It took seven hours and a bunch of aggravation to get out of there.  When our truck started this time Bernie and I were VERY relieved.

So we're here in B.C. looking forward to a month with our family and visiting some friends we haven't seen in far too long.

Thanks for stopping by and please do leave a comment when you can.

Neal and Bernie