May 17 - Hurricane, UT

Day 6 - We had a beautiful drive through the Utah countryside today. Pictures somehow cannot do it justice. Anyway, the pictures I take can't. The cliffs in the distance were bright red and we came upon them rather abrubtly. Absolutely stunning. We caught up with Carrie and Jerry and had a nice lunch at Fargo's located in subarb of St. George, UT. Then we traveled on and set up camp in Sand Hollow State Park outside Hurricane, UT. Sand Hollow is a beautiful little park located just before you enter Zion National Park. We enjoyed our dinner under the picnic shelter. Just beautiful.

May 16 - Mesquite, NV

Day 5: Next stop Mesquite, Nevada. Due to the lack of a suitable road system for cyclists to Mesquite, (cyclists are not allowed on interstate highways and I-15 is the only way you can get from Mojave to Mesquite) Carrie and Jerry had to ride with us to Mesquite. We pulled into the Casablanca Casino RV park in Mesquite about 5:00 pm, very weary from a long day’s drive and very glad our air conditioner was working. A long hard day or driving.

Tired cyclists (who's that in the middle?)

May 15 - Mojave, CA

Day 4: On Saturday morning after getting the cyclists off on the next leg of their journey (by the way, it reminds us of trying to get the kids off to school) Joe decided to, once and for all, get that darn air conditioner fixed correctly. Finding a major automotive service open on a Saturday morning in a large unfamiliar city can be a challenge. Nevertheless, he wound up in a Firestone dealership, open for business and willing to get it repaired that day. First, they ordered the incorrect part, then returned that part for another one, Joe drove out with a new compressor and leaner pocketbook, but really nice, cold air coming from the air conditioner vents. Now it is about 2:30 in the afternoon, and we still have to hook up the trailer and rendezvous with Carrie and Jerry in Mojave, California. We stayed that night again in an RV park that was pretty much a routine RV park, which had been established in the early 1950’s by a retired Marine Corps Sgt. Major. The site was not the best in the world but was in a beautiful desert setting and we had the only tree in the park in our front door. The day ended on a happy note because we had an excellent meal at a Mexican restaurant in the nearby small town of California City.

Carrie relaxing after a long day's journey on her bicycle

Lou whacked her head on the large branch of the tree in the picture and had a dent in the center of her head for several days. However, she didn't have any long term damage.

May 14 -Bakersfield, CA

Day 3: On to Bakersfield - - - - a bustling town of over 300,000 population, located in a drab desert of southern California. Least you think all is sweetness and light, for the past few days our blessed old truck air conditioner was having major problems. Anyhow, we arrived at a very nice RV park with all the nice amenities. The cyclists erected their tent on the lush, green lawn beside our trailer. That evening they went to bed. In the wee hours of the morning the sprinklers came on and they had a wet experience, having to move their tent to a dry RV pad next door. Ahh- the joys of camping.

May 13- Red's Roofing

Day 2: After getting the cyclists started down the road, we got ourselves together and started toward our next destination, about 100 miles south to Hanford. We were now in the land of California “happy cows.” Every few miles we would encounter a huge diary operation with milk cows penned up in fenced enclosures, standing on manure piles up to their ankles. All they do is stand around, eat and produce milk. No green pastures to roam in or flowers to smell as the commercials would have you believe. We are sure happy we started drinking only organic milk several months ago. Late in the afternoon we arrived at Red’s Roofing in the country outside of Hanford. Red and Marjorie Cooper are members of the Escapee RV Club that we have been members of since 1997. As do quite a few of Escapees, they have an RV site on property that is open for use by other Escapees free of charge.
Red proved to be a warm, welcoming and caring person who restored our faith in humanity. He lived on the family farm and he overwhelmed us with fresh strawberries, cherries picked right off his trees and fresh grapefruit for breakfast. To other Escapees, we would highly recommend that you stop by and see Red if you are in that area.

May 12 - Arkansas or Bust (and we'll probably be busted by the time we get there!

May 12: Fully loaded with bicycle parts, tubes and extra bicycles, off we go to be support team for Carrie and Jerry in their cross-country trek to their cabin on Crooked Creek south of Flippin, Arkansas. Foretelling of things to come we wound up going in the wrong direction on a California freeway. Finding a means to turn around proved to be quite an experience. Needless to say this was done with much concern on both of our parts. Our travels on the first few days took us generally through the San Joaquin Valley of central California. It is amazing how much of our food supply is grown here. Most of it appears to be part of a mega-farm operation, no doubt run by corporations. We arrived at Los Banos, CA (Spanish for “the toilets) in time to get camp set up for the weary cyclists. Somehow we missed finding our charges on the road even though we traveled the same roads. Turns out they had lunch in an orchard and at the time we passed the orchard they were having lunch.

Lunch in the orchard

Our lovely campsite was in a grassy area, shaded by Eucalyptus trees in the county fairgrounds. It is not uncommon for fairgrounds to accommodate RV parking during the non-fair seasons. This fairground was well managed by a full time staff and was kept in pristine condition. We were pleasantly surprised, as not all fairgrounds are this well managed.