Hi all,

We are off again!

This trip, which we expect to last about two months, starts in Escondido, CA for about a week.  We will then head east to our friends Fred and Judy Pfafman's brand new home in Greers Ferry, AR, about 100 miles north of Little Rock.  We will spend a few days there and then the four of us will head out in our two motorhomes to Perry, GA where we are attending an FMCA (Family Motor Coach Assn.) convention.  We will be exploring GA, and FL before and after the convention.  Some of the details are yet to be determined.

As usual, if for any reason you would like me to NOT send you these emails, please let me know, and I'll remove you from my "trip list".

Thursday, Feb 24, 2005 
We finished loading the refrigerated and frozen food this morning and made a leisurely departure heading toward Escondido about 1:30 this afternoon.  Within the first couple of hours we drove through several rain showers.  There goes the fresh wash job on the motorhome!  We stopped at our favorite overnight stop in this area at the Flying J truck stop in Ehrenburg, AZ.  This is in Arizona, less than a mile from the California border.  We parked in our favorite spot there and set up for the night.

After our Saturn transmission problems on our last trip east, we purchased a Honda CRV, which is now our tow car.  We drove the Honda to check out the area north of Ehrenburg, then went into Blythe.  After our Del Taco dinner we went back to the motorhome.

Friday, Feb 25 
We got up this morning, ready to continue on to Escondido, but first we bought over 90 gallons of diesel fuel for the motorhome for almost $200!  And I thought this was free overnight parking!  However, this if the first fuel we have bought since buying it here on our way to a campout at Agua Caliente County Park last month.  We enjoyed that campout with our Ramblin' Recs friends from our Escondido church, then drove to Ajo, AZ where we visited long time friends Dick and Sylvia Vetter.  From there we went home.  Upon arriving home, we found a fresh 4 inches of snow.  I got the motorhome over the "Prescott curb" on the 3rd try, then had no problem backing into the motorhome garage.

(Back to the present) It was sunny and mostly clear today and we had an uneventful drive to Escondido.  We pulled into the RV spot off the driveway of our good friends Merle and Alden Avery where we will stay until next Friday.  We will be visiting with Debbie and seeing several of Betty's doctors while here.  We will also visit with some of our friends.
 
 

Can you imagine a more beautiful place to park?  This is our temporary home in (actually, off to the side of) the Averys' driveway!

Saturday, Feb 25 to Thursday, Mar 3 
I am skipping most of the boring details of our stay in Escondido, but an interesting thing happened last night (Tuesday night).  We were driving across town to have dinner with Gordon and Mary Alice Boyce, and ran into a huge amount of traffic on Valley Parkway.  When we arrived, Mary Alice asked if we got caught in the mess from the police action on Grand Ave.  They had roped off a several block area and detoured all the traffic to Valley.  It turned out that a fire truck, which had been outfitted with a radiation detector in the post 9/11 hysteria had triggered a radiation alarm as it passed a Mercedes.  After the officials had closed off the area and detained the Mercedes and its occupants, it was finally determined that an occupant of the car was a cancer patient, and was on his way home from having a radiation treatment!  That was enough to trigger an alarm!

A very quick summary of our Escondido stay is:  Frys Electronics, Camping World, Boston Market, Costco, Betty's doctor, another Betty's doctor, Muffy's doctor (vet), Agrusa's submarine sandwitches with the Boyces, Muffy's groomer, Freeway Trailer, Sonrise RV, Harbor Freight & Tool, Camping World, Frys Electronics, Sears, the new Mexican restaurant "Mi Guadalajara", Betty's dentist, Betty's orthodontist, and Fish House Vera Cruz with Debbie and the Averys.  This is in addition to the places Betty and Debbie went on their various excursions.

Friday, Mar 4 
In spite of KUSI's weatherman, John Coleman's promise of "NO MORE RAIN!", it was wet yesterday and today in the morning.  It actually rained this morning after we were up.  We had not toured Lake Hodges since arriving.  After many years of being very low, it filled and started spilling over the dam a couple of days before we arrived.  We drove down to the dam this morning, and sure enough, water was pouring over the spillway.  Next we drove south on I-15 over the Lake Hodges bridge.  This was much less spectacular.  During the many years since the lake has been full, "bough to bough" trees have grown in the lake bed.  Now that the water is up, it truly is on both sides of the freeway, but it is very hard to see through the trees.  The water comes 1/3 to 1/2 way up the foliage of the trees.
 

This is the Lake Hodges dam spilling into the creek below.  The Averys' home overlooks the other end of the lake from high above.

We pulled out of the Averys' driveway around noon and were headed to Barstow shortly afterward.  We had a number of showers on the way, and traffic on I-15 was horrendous!  We had stop and go from well south of 91 to about I-10, and then again before we reached Victorville.  Even with the terrible traffic, we made our 150 miles in 3 hours 15 minutes.

Within minutes of getting parked at the Flying J in jBarstow, the skies lit up and opened up.  We had a very active thunderstorm right over us!  It poured then it hailed.  For at least 15 minutes 1/4 to 3/8 inch hail was pouring from the sky.  There is a grass area between us and the street, and when the hail would hit it, it would bounce.  Looking out it looked like popcorn popping!  You could not really see the hail coming down, but when hit, it bounced from 6 to 12 inches in the air, and you would see these hundreds of white balls jumping at once.

It is now 8:00 (OK, it really is 7 California time, but we already changed the clocks for AZ time.), and after several more cells came through it is now quiet and dry.  No more "easy" days for a while.  We go almost 400 miles a day for the next several days.  Tomorrow we head to Winslow, AZ

(Oops, I spoke too soon, it is now raining lightly again.)

Saturday, Mar 5 
It rained pretty much all night, and was raining as we left (at 5:30 AZ = 4:30 CA), but rained very little once we got on the road.  We had been concerned about passing through Flagstaff, as it is over 7000 feet and they had predicted rain and snow.  We had neither!

Leaving that early gave me a couple hours of darkness to test my "new" headlights.  They are wonderful!  I recently got fed up with the poor performance of my lights and did a project to improve them.  It worked!

We arrived in Winslow around 1:30, after driving about 400 miles.  An early start really helps!  I put in a small fortune in fuel again and moved to our "free" parking spot.

Tomorrow we head to Albuquerque (I have actually learned to spell that now), Moriarty, or Santa Rosa, NM, depending on how things go.  They are predicting rain the whole way.

If anyone is masochistic enough, you can see write-ups of a number of my motorhome projects, including the headlight rework, on my web page at:

http://myweb.cableone.net/rsmason

Click on the link for "Our Motorhome Projects" .  I also have all my old trip reports posted at that site, and will have this one with pictures as I get them posted.

I think I will send this tonight.  The next several days will be boring (I hope!) as we continue to drive to Fred and Judy's.  We should arrive there on Wednesday.

Till next time,

Dick and Betty

Sunday, Mar. 6
We left Winslow around 8:30 this morning, having our shortest day until we reach Fred and Judy's.  We had a number of rain showers the first half of the day, but then it dried out nicely.  There were winter driving condition warning signs posted, but the closest we got was during a detour around a big rig accident, we saw slush on the opposite side of the side road on which we were routed.  I was glad we were no earlier, as when we passed the accident there was a huge backup of folks not fortunate enough to have been routed around the area.  After about 20 miles paralleling I-40, we re-entered it and continued normally.
 

Life just doesn't get better than this! Muffy, our cat sleeps on her favorite  pillow while we travel, and gets a sun-bath to boot!

Upon reaching Albuquerque, we decided it was better to drive through the city on a Sunday afternoon than on a Monday morning, so we continued on to Moriarty.  We pulled into a TA Travel Center, still labeled as Rip (off) Griffins.  All the Rips (except 3 in Texas) were recently bought by TA.  This is the same station where our Gulfstream was towed many years ago when the u-joint failed.  Other than that repair being far too expensive and defective, all was fine.  We parked a couple hundred feet from where we were back then and had a good night's sleep.

Monday, Mar 7 
We were away by 6 this morning, getting another chance to test my headlights.  They are still great!  The sky was cloudless for the first 5 hours or so, then we got a few small cumulus clouds.  We drove almost exactly 400 miles today to Sayre, OK, spending most of our drive crossing the pan handle of Texas.  The one problem today was wind!  We had 20 to 30 mph, quartering headwinds most of the drive.  Our motorhome handles very well in wind, but it is still stressful and tiring.

We pulled into the Flying J in Sayre, put a slightly smaller fortune in fuel than before and parked in a nice RV spot.  The diesel here is less than $2 for the first time this trip (but not much less!).  There was a dump station right at the RV fuel island, so while the fuel was pumping, I dumped my tanks and cleaned up and put away all the paraphernalia.  I washed up and the fuel was almost finished filling.

With the nearly constant sun today, my solar panels had the house batteries fully charged by about 1:30!  I have managed to fully charge them each day so far, even with overcast skies, but never this early in the day.

Tomorrow we head to Russelville (to the Flying J, of course) to park for our final night before reaching Fred and Judy.

Tuesday, Mar 8
Well, I lied!  We did not stop in Russelville.

Since DirecTV sent us a new access card about a year and a half ago, our satellite TV has taken a while to give a picture when powering up after a long period without power.  Usually, the first time we used it on a trip it would take about 10 minutes.  It was then usually good the rest of the trip.  This trip, it has taken from 30 seconds to 30 minutes EACH time we removed power, which is every time we turn off the TV.  We are on battery power!

I spent a total of about 1 hour 45 minutes on my cell phone talking to DTV tech support last night.  The final result of our conversations was that I feel I have a bad access card and they feel I have a bad receiver.  After much discussion, they offered to ship me a new receiver (bad option when we are on the road), or a $50 credit (always a good option) so I can buy one myself.  There is a Best Buy in North Little Rock, so we changed our destination to a city park where we stayed after picking up the Saturn our last trip.

We left Sayre at 6:45, had a smooth, dry, nearly windless, eventless 460 mile drive to Burns Park in North Little Rock, pulling in about 3:15.  This is the first pay campground we have used this trip.  It is a very nice, fairly small campground.  Many of the trees are bare, some are evergreens.  In a few weeks it should be really beautiful after the bare trees are green again!  Even as it is, it is a very pretty campground.
 

We are parked in Burns City Park Campground in North Little Rock, AR.

We drove into town, located Best Buy, and bought a new receiver (and access card) for the same $50 they credited me.  A stop at Cracker Barrel for dinner then allowed us to return to camp.  The new sat receiver worked fine after registering it with DTV. 

Tomorrow, we have an hour and a half or two hour trip to the Pfafmans'. 

Wednesday, Mar 9 through Saturday, Mar 12
We arrived at the Pfafmans' in the rain.  Their new house is beautiful!  They have been in it less than two weeks and already they are better organized than we are after two years.
 

This is the Pfafmans' new home in Greers Ferry, Arkansas.

During the several days we were there we completed several projects on the Pfafmans' motorhome and house.  Their CB antenna needed about 2 1/4 inches removed before it tuned up correctly, then it was great.  We also replaced a strip along the bottom of a compartment door where a curb had jumped up and attacked it.  This was a little more challenging as we had to take a stock length of extrusion and trim it to precisely fit miter corners and angled ends.  I sure missed my machine shop for that one.

After doing a couple of other small tasks, we decided when and where to go on our way to Perry, GA, where we need to check into the FMCA convention the afternoon of Saturday, Mar 19.

Sunday, Mar 13
We left Greers Ferry this morning at precisely 8:00 as planned.  We left Arkansas, briefly passed through a corner of Tennessee at Memphis, and into Mississippi.  We drove the beautiful Natchez Trace Parkway for about 40 miles today, pulling of at the Tishomingo State Park.  We pulled into two adjacent sites right on the edge of their lake.  It is beautiful.
 
 

We are parked at the edge of Bay Springs Lake in Tishomingo State Park in Mississippi.  This park is adjacent to the Natchez Trace Parkway.
	I caught some ducks swimming on the opposite side of the lake with my 10x telephoto lens.

Monday, Mar 14
We left camp at 6:59 (one minute ahead of schedule!) for our longest travel day together.  We have about 350 miles to Jackson, GA.  We left camp and again drove on the beautiful Natchez Trace Parkway, entering Alabama before we exited.  We had a nice 4 lane highway which turned into 2 lane plus construction (heading toward 4 lane), then 4 lane again as we entered the Birmingham area.  Then on freeway we headed for Atlanta.  We skirted Alanta about 2:00 GA time (We lost another hour today as we entered Eastern Time Zone.)  We had no delays in either city, but both were very stressful as we had to make several transitions, never knowing if they would be right or left exits, which lane would exit before getting there, etc.

We pulled into the Flying J in Jackson at 3 PM.  We are introducing Fred and Judy to Flying J overnights!  We went back a few miles and had dinner at Cracker Barrel, then went to Sam's Club.  When we got back, Flying J was a zoo!  Motorhomes and trailers were parked everywhere!  I'm glad we were early!

I am back in native Verizon coverage here and can get my email by cell phone for the first time since Burns Park.  Verizon has 4 ways of making a data connection.  They have a brand new broad band coverage that is in a number of major cities.  I cannot get that.  Then they have National Access, a service that is somewhat faster than typical dial-up service and Quick-to-Net, a service that is about 1/4 to 1/3 the speed of dial-up.  You can also dial your regular ISP, but that is limited to the very slow speed.  The three slower methods of access are available on all Verizon towers (native Verizon service), but may or may not be available in Extended Service areas (most likely not).  This is where Verizon leases time on other company's towers.  Technically it is roaming, but if they have a contract with them, it costs no more to use.  Burns Park was an extended area, but did allow a slow connection.

Tomorrow we will head to Fort McAllister State Park in the Savannah area, where we will stay a couple of nights, then down to the Brunswick area.  We will drive back to Perry from there. 

Till next time,

Dick and Betty