Getting to “The Yosemite”

“Let’s go!”  The anticipation for Epic Trip 2016 became almost too much to bear. So, I decided to “stage” the RV and set up at Spring Creek Park in Tomball.  I organized, cleaned, unpacked, and organized some more.  We were ready to roll!  Then rain, rain, and more rain and we had little choice, but to postpone our departure for a day.   This was a schedule “disrupter”.  We had originally planned to spend a night each in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona before making our way up to Lake Mead in Nevada.

That wasn’t going to happen and we decided that Nevada could wait until the end of our Utah trip in early next year.  My sixth sense had influenced me to not book any sites for the first several nights of our trip.  This was a good thing as it allowed us flexibility.  For each day we had a best case, a probably, and worst case for distance covered.  We made our “probably” distance the first day stopping in Sonora.  We were parked next to

Mike from Idaho, a widower, and his dog Buddy Sue.  Mike was on his way to Jacksonville to see his sister then on to Missouri for a reunion with his submariner buddies.  They had not all been together since 1964 when they were in their early twenties.  Of the many positives of RVing the people you meet is at the top.

The following day we were off by 8:30AM.  After suffering a flat in El Paso that cost us over an hour in lost time we decided to stop at the Las Cruces KOA and call it a day.

White Sands

The nice front desk attendant at the KOA let us borrow saucers (the kind you sit on) and wax (the kind used to make the saucers go faster).  We were on the road to White Sands by 7 AM (our kids can’t sleep late…more on this later) and sledding by 8.  We played in the cool sand for an hour then headed back to the KOA to load up and hit the road for Arizona.  By this time Reim and I were the unhappy recipients of colds and were starting to feel horrible.

White Sands is a really beautiful place and the origins of the sands are interesting.  Learn more about the geology of White Sands National Monument by clicking here.

“Wow!”

That was the exclamation we heard from the kids over and over as we pulled in to our “best case” distance site at Picacho Peak State Park north of Tucson. The park is located at the base of Picacho Peak and is dotted with giant Saguaro.

From Wikipedia: “The saguaro, is an arborescent (tree-like) cactus species, which can grow to be over 70 feet (21 m) tall. It is native to the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, the Mexican State of Sonora, and the Whipple Mountains and Imperial County areas of California. The saguaro blossom is the state wildflower of Arizona.”

Reim and I had both come down with colds and we both wanted to get some much needed sleep.

We tossed and turned all night and around 4:45 we awake to rapid steps of small feet coming our direction.

The kids opened the door to the bedroom and announced that they were wide awake and wanted to go outside and play.  Too weak to argue I make a cup of coffee and move the party outside.  The sun was coming up and Reim joined me.  After the coffee kicked in we decided to GO!  We still had over 700 miles to cover over the next two days to reach Coarsegold, CA, which was our first major stop.  So, we jumped on this opportunity.  We were on the road at before 7AM.

Once west of Phoenix it was what seemed like endless crappy desert scenery.  There is beautiful desert scenery and there is crappy.  This was definitely the latter.

California

After a few hours of driving we crossed the border into the sovereign nation of California (this is sarcasm).  After confiscating a couple of my Halo oranges we left the border inspection stop and enjoyed (more sarcasm) a maximum 55 mph speed limit for trucks and vehicles towing.  It was more crappy desert scenery until we reached San Bernardino.  The mountains and greenery was a nice break for the nothingness that surrounded us for the past five hours. I think I was cranky due to feeling like hell.

After the mountains we had to traverse part of the Mojave Desert and more crappy scenery until we reached more mountains southeast of Bakersfield.  We pulled into Orange Grove RV Resort at 5:30 PM.  10+ hours of travel…we made some major progress.

Luke and Ireland are superstars when it comes to most things, but especially with travel.  They rarely complain about sitting for hours as long as there is an infinite supply of road trip snacks (aka junk food).

The kids picked oranges from the trees surrounding our RV.  We grabbed a couple of pizzas and hit the sack.  Since we were left with a relatively short drive the next day, and we couldn’t check in at our next stop until the afternoon, we took our time the next morning.

After four days of fairly grueling travel we had 2.5 hours left to reach Coarsegold.  This would put us about 25 miles from the south entrance to Yosemite National Park.  It was an uneventful drive up to the KOA.

We arrived, checked in, got set up and headed to the grocery store.

Tomorrow we visit “The Yosemite”…

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