I left Lopez on Saturday January 7th, giving me 10 days to get to Quartzsite on Monday January 16th. That was wishful thinking!

Let me backup a few weeks. December is always busy with the holidays. Add to that extremely cold temps (in the 20’s and teens), power outages, frozen pipes, a foot of snow – all before Christmas!! For 4 or 5 days I could not even get out of my driveway (my reliable truck’s 4wd was out of commission) and my driveway is sloped and curved. Then there’s 1/3 mile of winding dirt road (covered by a foot of snow) to get to the county road. Finally, on Christmas eve the snow had melted enough that I managed to get out to the county roads – which were plowed and clear – and made it to the ferry, drove to Bellingham, and got there in time for a Christmas eve celebration with Kelley and Casey and their neighbors.

Returned home after Christmas, called Mike the plumber and he was able to send a guy over who fixed it right away – there was a leak under the house. Continued to try to wrap everything up, pack the trailer, didn’t finish until midnight on the 6th. Once I hit the road, I spent a lot of time getting things put away and organized. It was raining steadily. First night, Saturday, I stopped just south of Olympia, Sunday night I stayed at a Fairgrounds near Salem OR. On Monday the 9th I headed down I-5 to Grants Pass then headed down 199 to Crescent City. By the time I found the RV park I remembered, it was dark, then very windy and rainy all night. When I looked at the weather maps Tuesday morning I saw nothing but wind advisories with gusts up to 50 and 65 mph!! along with torrential rain. I was in the middle of what they called California’s “Atmospheric River”!! For the next 3 days! On Tuesday I signed up for two more nights and moved the trailer to a spot closer to the trees and buildings. I kept the trailer connected to the truck, as an anchor, so the trailer would not be overturned by the wind. By the time I was done with that, I was soaked through because of the winds. Sunna and I spent all our time in the trailer while it rocked and rolled in the winds and torrential rain. Occasionally there would be a slight break, and we’d take a walk, but immediately the rain and wind picked up again and we hurried inside. I could hardly stay standing sometimes the wind was so intense! When I tried to take a shower on Tuesday (first of the trip), the cold water didn’t work! The hot water alone was scalding, so I had to do a sink bath. We couldn’t go anywhere because I wanted to leave the truck connected to the trailer.

Finally on Thursday, I decided that the winds were dying down a little and we would take a chance on driving down 101 then cut across the mountains to Redding. By the time we left at 11:30 the winds were definitely less and we did not run into any serious problems down 101. From Arcata we headed east on route 299. It was a winding road, with lots of ups and downs. About half way to Redding the engine light came on and stayed on no matter what I did. What’s that about? I called ahead and got a reservation at Redding RV Park. They accommodate late arrivals, so we stopped for some groceries, arriving at the park after dark. Friday morning I called AutoZone, who will do diagnostics on check engine lights – and they found a problem with a part that has to do with engine acceleration, not a serious problem they said. I thought I could continue without that getting fixed, until I got to somewhere where I would be for a few days. When I started the engine up after their test, the check engine light was off, and never came back on!! I asked them about that, and they said it meant there really was no problem. just a false reading of the check engine system! What a relief! I left Redding and arrived at Sarah Pattison’s house in El Macero near Davis by 4pm. We had tried to connect with other Bay Area friends, but because of all the weather issues, I kept postponing my expected arrival date. By the time I got there, it conflicted with other plans they had already made, so Sarah and I had a lovely evening together getting caught up on many things. Her husband Tom was off skiing, so it was just the two of us.

Winds were back Saturday, but supposed to die down, so I left Sarah’s around 10:30. Drove down route 99 and spent a night at Kings Co. Fairgrounds in Hanford CA. I was surprised to see the sunset – first one I’d seen on this trip! Everything was very grassy, but with all the rain they’d been having a lot of it was very soggy and some of it was under water. Sunday evening I stopped at an RV park east of Barstow. It continued to rain most of the time. My target had been to get to Quartzsite AZ on Monday, but after we stopped to stock up with groceries, it was getting dark and we were still over an hour away so I stopped at River Island State Park and parked in their overflow lot.

Monday we arrived in Quartzsite, found the Escapees Solos on BLM land off of Plomosa Rd, about 8 miles north of town, and setup the trailer, solar panels, etc., for two weeks of boondocking in the desert. Visited with lots of friends, had Happy Hour where everyone introduced themselves, followed by a camp fire. The sky was clear and the stars were amazing. It felt so good to finally be here!

Note: the photos below are somewhat limited, mostly due to the horrible weather conditions. The last thing I was thinking about was taking pictures! The first of the photos below were of the RV park in Crescent City, as we were leaving!

Click on any photo below to enlarge. There are scroll buttons at the bottom of each image. Click on photo again to close.