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.

Champion Cyclist

We are at our daughter's home in Clayton, CA. Our grandson, Ned, is a student the University of California at Davis. He is a member of the university cycling race team and last week-end won 1st place in his division the Western Collegiate Conference championship race. Way to go, Ned.

May 4 - 5 Finally There

Departing early on May 4, by early I mean the sun is barely peeking it’s head above the eastern horizon, we left the cold, windy lava beds and headed for (hopefully) warmer climate. Our holding tanks were full, our water tank was empty, the batteries were low and the generator was out of gas. It was time to leave.
We did not take time to eat breakfast before leaving so we stopped when we got to Weed, CA to eat. We had a wonderful meal at the Weed Café. Lotus had been suffering from a gastro-intestinal problem for a couple of days so we went to the Alpine Vet Clinic, Dr. Grace Roberts, in Weed and had her examined. We left there poorer but Lotus had a whole bag of meds and we all three take our meds together daily.
Weed, CA is at the base of an 11,000 ft. inactive (not extinct) volcano known as Mt. Shasta. Inactive means that it could blow at any time, but what a view out your bedroom window in the meantime.
We spent the night at Orland, CA and arrived at Lathrop in time to have some maintenance on our slide-out room in the trailer. It was another expensive day.
These two days were mostly travel time to reach our final destination at Lathrop, CA and the Sharpe Army Depot campground. We will remain here for about a week, making final preparations for our trip back to Arkansas supporting (?) Carrie and Jerry on their bicycle trip to their cabin in Flippin. Our blog will be inactive for a few days until we begin traveling again.
We are still struggling with the placement of photos. If anyone has any idea how to accomplish this mighty act, please let us know.
Thanks and God bless all our readers.

May 2 and 3 - California Here We Come!

As we said farewell to Oregon and crossed the border into the California nation with fear and trepidation, what could possibly happen. Could we strike gold, or become snowbound in some mountain pass, we might even be forced into the opium trade in the far off Orient. Anyhow, after missing several turns trying to find Lower KlamathWildlife Refuge, we wound up in the Indian Wells Campground at Lava Beds National Monument in northern California. We will tour this tomorrow as well as the wildlife refuge we finally found, so stay tuned.,
May 3 – Lava Beds National Monument
Rising early in the morn, we set out to see the Lava Beds. They are almost indescribable and our camera is not capable of taking photos that do them justice. At one time way back when, there was major volcanic activity throughout this part of the continent. There were also large shallow lakes in this area, resting place for the semi-annual migration of birds along the Pacific flyaway. The area was also home for Modoc Indians until the white man arrived in the 1800’s. The white man promptly drained the lakes for rich farm land and complained about the Indians until the army drove them out to reservations in Oklahoma and the migratory bird population has been greatly reduced due to loss of habitat and hunting.
A great example of these lava beds is aptly called “The Devil’s Homestead”, a dark foreboding plain of jagged lava rocks. Another feature throughout theses particular lava beds are caves.
The caves are formed by hot, molten lava about 1800° F. The outer edges and surface of the flow cool rapidly and begin to harden. This “outside shell” acts as an insulating material, while the remainder of the flow beneath it remains hot and fast-moving. The flow continues on somewhat like a river that keeps on flowing, even though the surface has been frozen over. When the eruption stops and the river of lava drains, a tunnel or tube ─ the outer shell − is left. We were able to tour one of these caves but most of them were beyond our capabilities. There are over 500 known caves throughout the Monument.










There were many other features we encountered, such as “chimneys”, “castles”, and the petroglyth section where the Indians had carved drawings onto the rock wall of a large cliff. No one knows what the drawings mean, much like we don’t know what modern day graffiti means.
We returned to our campsite late in the afternoon, weary but with our spirits refreshed by witnessing once again a magnificent portion of God’s creation.