Our last day in California - until next year. We got the RV ready and here’s Nancy getting the beds ready.
Hey, looks like she’s resting while Gary works to get the RV ready. Nope, she’s actually working here. We have Sleep Number mattresses on our bed in the RV and when we go over mountains where the pressure is less, our mattresses puff up to 100 and are really hard. When we go into valleys, they air pressure is higher and the air mattresses go to 0, really soft. It took us a while to figure this out several years ago and, now that we know, we take care of this before we leave. Today we are going over the Sierras which are pretty high and we’re letting the air out so there’s nothing to puff up and explode.
After this hard task, while Gary went to dump, I went in to talk with Betty. (Actually, the dumping story is an interesting one. One of Betty’s neighbors has a dump on his curb which ties into his sewer line and he uses this when he returns from his RV adventures. He told Betty that we could use that before we left and we visited with him about this. What a nice gesture and we certainly appreciated it.)
As I was talking with Betty, her sister Judy came in and then finally Sibyl came in. We had a simply delightful chat and then Gary came and joined us. But, finally it was time to go and we said our good-byes, hooked the Jeep up to the RV and took off. Our first stop along the way was at a Flying J to get gas and propane for the journey back to Iowa. Then we were off, finally. But it was close to 11:30 and we were running late.
Now, route 99 through the middle of Californai is an awful road, extremely bumpy, even the patches have patches and, every time it hits a bridge, the levels change at least an inch. I can’t stand this road. It puts me on edge and rattles my teeth. What it’s doing to our RV, I don’t even want to imagine. Then, we hit the traffic tie up. For 4 miles we were at a slow stop and go. And, then we found out why: rubberneckers in front of us checking out an accident off the road on a side street. Come on, people.
A right turn at Sacramento (someday we’ll have to stop in Sacramento where there is a world-class railroad museum) and we were heading east. We were off rte 99 and onto Interstate 80 and the quality of the road improved 400%. No more teeth rattling jarring bumps. This is a beautiful road, passing through mountains that still have snow on them, huge pine trees, jutting rock formations and marvelously blue lakes.
Inexorably up and then we passed the crest and were heading down in to Nevada. Our goal for the night was Fernley, just past Reno where we would turn eastward tomorrow. Here, at 7:00, we stopped for the night. We had read that one of the casinos permitted overnight parking but it was Friday and we didn’t want to block their parking lot on a busy night but - we took a detour into their dining room for dinner. $2.99 for the breakfast special: 2 eggs, 2 pancakes, 2 strips of bacon or ham and an order of country fries or hash browns. Well, that price was too good to pass up and, besides, we now won’t have to stop for breakfast in the morning. Not only that, but I won’t have to cook and wash dishes at 8:00 tonight. Perfect plan. And, surprisingly, it was pretty good.
Here’s a neat caravan we passed on the way. Note that the bikes have a ‘chase’ car driven by the wife of one of the guys, I imagine.
We then drove on over to a big vacant lot in front of the Walmart and parked along with several trucks. Here we will spend the night.
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