Long Travel Day

We're not big fans of driving through big city traffic. Let's face it, that's one of the things we RVers usually do not look forward to. But, in order to get to Paso Robles from Brenda, Arizona, we would not be able to stay out of all of the LA area traffic. A week or so ago, I posted a query on the RV-Dreams Forum, asking for input and advice about the roads and traffic. One of the replies was from a reader who is just getting started on his fulltime lifestyle. He's familiar with this area and gave us specific roads to take, and even a nice rv park in Bakersfield where we might stop.

We decided to get underway early, just after 8 a.m. Mountain Time, just in case we got into a lot of traffic and delays, even though the routing Grant suggested would keep us out of the main part of LA. And, we crossed into the Pacific Time Zone early in the morning.

Here's another state line sign.

We saw hundreds of theses wind generators today. They remind me of gentle giants, quietly and gracefully spinning.

Interesting rocks just popped up. We were heading into some rain and very thick fog during this part of the trip.

I'm not sure, is this a Joshua Tree?

We originally planned to stop at Tehachapi, which would have been about 310 miles for the day. In our previous lives, that would not have been a terribly long travel day, but we're trying to slow down now and not travel more than about 200 miles per day. Jim was still doing fine and suggested we keep on going the extra 50 or 60 miles to Bakersfield and try the RV park Grant suggested.

The route we took got us out of the worst traffic, we left I-10 at San Bernadino, so we missed a lot of the LA rush. Traffic really wasn't bad, but the roads were another story. We got bounced around on some rough areas.

We pulled into the Orange Grove RV Resort about 1:30, just as it started sprinkling. Rain is supposed to continue all night. What a neat place this is! It is an orange grove! We're completely surrounded by orange trees with the most delicious, juicy, sweet oranges I can remember tasting in my life! We're welcome to pick what we want for our immediate use. What a treat!

This tree is close enough we can just open the window and pick an orange.

Here are Jasmine and BoBo, sitting nicely for a change.

This is our last quick stop. We'll be in Paso Robles tomorrow, where we'll celebrate Christmas and New Years with family. I'll even get out our Christmas tree, which is still decorated from last year. It's small enough to fit in a small, round, plastic trash can, so it's been safe and protected all year.

Our journey today was a fun adventure, thanks to the interest and advice of a fellow RVer. We hope to meet Grant and Kathy at the Wine Country RV Resort, when they come in to stay a couple of nights while we're there. Thanks, Grant! We look forward to meeting you!