Day 18 -- Lodi, California to Carson City, Nevada -- 180 Miles

Lunch with jim and Suzanne and jennifer and Meghan and Brad in Roseville

Day 17 -- Gilroy, California to Lodi, California -- 117 Miles

I decided to post photos of us running our RV through the Lodi truck wash this afternoon because we spent most of the day on the Intersate and didn't stop for photos.

So, tonight we're sleeping in Lodi, California, which puts me in mind of the RV we purchased back in 2013. In that momentus year, Concetta and I had finally decided to retire from our jobs in Nevada State government and pay more attention to recreating and traveling. Our decision to give up working was actually the second time we had "retired" as both of us had left our regular jobs and had gone to work for the Nevada State Legislature.

Concetta had moved from a full-time job with the legislature to a part-time job and really had remained just as busy. When I retired, it was from Nevada's Department of Public Safety where I had been a field trouble shooter for the department's IT unit. After I left in 2008, I signed up to work the legislative sessions which occupied six months out of every two years. Once again, I worked in the IT section and I ended up working for three legislative sessions ending in 2013 when we both retired again.

I bring this up because arriving in Lodi today put me in mind of how we got started RVing after our retirement. In my spare time during the summer of 2013, I trolled through Craigslist looking for a used rig of sufficient size that we might comfortably live in for one to several months. At the same time, we would look at rigs that came on the market in our own area but had not found one we liked.

Then along came a Craigslist advertisement posted in Lodi, California. It was the fall of 2013, and the ad listed a thirty-one foot, Class C motorhome on a Ford Chassis with only 31,000 miles on the clock. That sounded good to us, and Concetta and I called the owner and made an appointment to travel to Lodi to see the rig.

When we arrived in Lodi, we met with the owner, drove the 1996 vintage RV around some rural roads, and decided on the spot to make an offer. The price we agreed upon was something like $13,500. We did notice that the rig lacked a spare tire, and we requested that the owner remedy that problem before we brought our cashier's check and picked it up. He agreed, we shook hands, and then Concetta and I headed for home.

Though it was a lovely sunny and warm fall day in Lodi, by the time Concetta and I had driven a few miles toward home on the challenging Hwy 88, a storm had blown in and, incredibly, snow was being forecast on the radio. We had to drive Hwy 88 over Carson Pass on our way to Lodi, and naturally sought to return that way. But each mile that we drove toward the mountain, the clouds over the Sierra looked more ominous.

Still, though the weather looked gray and ugly, I thought we'd be okay. After all, it had been sunny in Lodi, right?

Well, as we started the long climb into the foothills, things began to look decidedly NOT okay! In fact, random snowflakes began to lightly drift down on the highway, and I found myself clutching the steering wheel more firmly. So far we hadn't been turned back by the Highway Department, but I couldn't help but entertain thoughts of having to return to Lodi for the night.

We had taken our four-wheel-drive pickup which we always insist on driving when we tackle the mountains in the fall and winter. We might not encounter bad weather, but we had to be prepared at all times. I just hoped we wouldn't have to have chains which I carried, but vehemently hated to install.

By the time we approached the summit at 8,574 feet, the snow was falling like Mother Nature had decided to get a year's worth of snow delivered to alleviate the water problem in the West in one night. It had become a blizzard, snow was blowing horizontally rather than falling vertically, and we had reduced our speed by seventy-five percent. Still, we had not encountered any roadblocks.

When we finally topped the summit, you could not see ahead more than a hundred feet. Mother Nature had delivered a full-blown blizzard and no one besides us appeared to be trying to drive in it. Still, we pressed on, and began to descend from Carson pass in low gear, with a prayer in our hearts, and a vice grip on the wheel.

It was at this juncture that headlights appeared somewhere in front of us, and soon a driver approached from the opposite direction in a pickup truck. As his lights bounced off the blizzard and blinded us in the process, I knew that each of us was wondering just what kind of fool would be out on Carson Pass on such a treacherous night.

Inconceivably, as the other crazy driver passed us in the opposite lane, we saw he was towing a boat and trailer. Good God! If there was ANYTHING you wouldn't want to be hauling over a 8,574 foot pass in a blizzard whiteout, it would have to be a boat.

Anyway, the boat owner was soon out of sight in the rearview mirror's swirling snow, and we were left alone to granny-gear our way down the steep mountain road at 10 miles an hour.

Thankfully, Concetta and I soon dropped below the blizzard level and made it the rest of the way home without incident. Come 2014, the newly purchased Fleetwood Tioga in our yard was well-stocked for the open road. Soon, we would joyuously add another 20,000 miles to the rig's original 31,000 miles on the clock. Throughout those many happy miles we would travel from coast-to-coast more than once and see many of things we'd always wanted to see in America.

The beautiful conclusion to this story is that Concetta and I had found the love of our mutual lives, traveled to every corner of our great land in that, rig and a much newer, thirty-two foot replacement, and further cemented our many decades of marriage in pursuit of the things we love. What more could anyone ask for?

Day 16 -- Greenville, California to Gilroy, California -- 100 Miles (maybe)

This morning we needed to head north when we left camp, but we decided to not go back through Salinas on Hwy 101. So, instead of heading north on 101 from our camp in Greenfield, California, we headed south until we picked up county road G13. From there we headed east until we intersected Scenic Byway Route 25. Oddly enough, we almost missed the turnoff for Route G13 as it wasn't announced on the freeway. But since I was feeling just a bit insecure about the tire job yesterday, I thought I should look at the front tire to make sure it was visibly holding air.

Incredibly, as we exited Hwy 101 South and pulled into the town of King City to check the tire pressure, we saw a directional sign for none other than Route G13. Amazed at our good luck, we tarried only long enough to make the tire check, then we headed east on what we took to be the proper route. We did stop just once to ask directions from a couple of men walking along the sidewalk, and the older of the two confirmed that we were, indeed, on the right track.

At that point Concetta announced that she had found our location on the GPS. We were pointed toward scenic Route 25 which sort of parallels Hwy 101, albeit twenty some odd miles east and with a MUCH slower speed limit. The route turned out to be serene and beautiful and largely vacant of any real traffic, and we stopped a couple of times just to look at the rolling hills, verdant valleys, and the occasional small herd of lolling cows.

Almost before we knew it, we had arrived at the Scenic Route 25 "T" intersection where we would begin our low-speed journey north toward the town of Gilroy. As we meandered along at 25 to 40 miles an hour, I found myself wishing that I was driving my old '63 MGB with the top down, just cruising on a Sunday afternoon like I used to do in Chicago back in the early 1970s.

Just before noon, after numerous stops for photos on Route 25, we made the turn and headed west on Route 156 towards our noontime goal: the Mission San Juan Batista which was founded in 1797. Little did we know that we were about to encounter an episode that we would rather have avoided.

Using the direction from the GPS, we pulled into town and easily cruised right up to the mission grounds. But as so often happens to us, the mission and it's attendant state park grounds did not come with suitable parking for our rig. I had only just alighted from the cab and stood looking around for such a parking area when a perky young female park ranger walked up to me and asked if I would have any trouble removing the rig A.S.A.P. I told her I probably wouldn't have any trouble, but exactly where did she recommend I put it.

At first the ranger didn't have any real ideas, but then thought better of it and suggested I go find the dirt parking lot at the north side of the mission property. "It's huge," she said.

So I got back in the truck, made my usual illegal turning and backing manuever into a handy side street, then proceeded to drive back down the main street until the entrance to the "huge" dirt parking lot appeared. Well let's just say that the lot might have been huge on non festival days, but since the Latino community was holding some sort of giant celebration they had sort of filled the dirt lot to overflowing already.

At that point, we should have read the handwriting on the wall and moved on to some less popular attraction. But we didn't. What we did is pick our way across the packed parking lot trying hard not to sideswipe any vehicles until we got to the very rear, less desirable, part of the lot. There I could see lots of space, and we rolled up and parked perpendicular to the rest of the parking lanes. Foolishly, I announced that we'd be fine in our spot, and we could have lunch before going to see the mission.

My downfall was that I failed to consider the mindset of the myriad of parking spot seekers who would do ANYTHING to keep from parking further away than necessary. As we sat there having our lunch, I kept having to leave the rig and advise drivers not to box us in. They looked at me like I was speaking in tongues but would eventually move a few feet away or find another spot entirely.

Lunch done, I set out on foot to see exactly how we were going to exit the parking lot now that it had half again more cars than when we entered. The first thing I saw was that a half dozen parkers had effectly blocked the exit route completely which meant we'd have to exit on the entry route which, I suspected, would be really tough.

But as I turned to walk back to the rig, I saw a perfect out-of-the-way place to move it where no one could easily box us in. At least, that's what I thought. Since we were really interested in touring the mission and didn't want to leave, we decided to move and hope that we'd still be able to exit when we wanted to go.

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Once the rig was relocated, Concetta and I then spent a pleasurable hour touring the grounds, taking lots of photos, and enjoying the ambiance of the setting. In the background we could hear that the intensity of the outdoor mass was really picking up. Since it was around two o'clock in the afternoon, we had hoped that the affair would have trailed off, and people would be leaving by that time. On the contrary, people were still arriving and seeking more parking places.

Hurrying back to the rig, we discovered to our horror that some less-than-clever person had parked his pickup truck directly in front of us. I stopped and looked around at the tiny field of manueverability remaining that I would have to somehow persuade our thirty-two foot vehicle out of the remaining space between the closely-packed cars and trucks. I just shook my head. It looked like we were marooned until the religious event was over.

But hey, my motto is never say die. Jumping into the cab I told Concetta to watch from a distance, and I started manuevering back and fourth and back and fourth to try and get past the idiot who blocked us. Then, when we had moved as far away from him as we could without hitting someone else, I began to edge past his rear bumper which projected alarmingly into the space we needed to use to exit.

I thought I had almost clearned both the pickup truck and the car across the aisle enough to slide between them when I saw in the mirror that the side of the rig had contacted the pickup truck's rubber bumper. As it was, I had been clearing his the truck by perhaps four inches. So, I backed up slightly to separate from him, and I got out. At that point, a woman came up and asked if she could help. I told her to please check the pickup to see if it was open. Amazingly it was, but sadly, we couldn't get it out of gear.

Next the woman volunteered to direct me from in front of the RV. Amazingly, she sucessfully got us out without us hitting anything else. Thinking we were home free, I looked up to see not one, not two, but three cars sitting patiently facing us with the intention, I guess, of somehow preceeding past us or perhaps hoping we'd simply disappear!

Well, it took some persuassion, but the drivers of the three cars finally reversed direction and got out of our way. Then, with more backing and turning and backing and turning, we got headed out of the sole exit that folks hadn't yet blocked. But at that point, a woman drove in the gate, saw us going out, but still kept coming in our direction as if she, too, expected us to magically disappear.

For several minutes she and I sat looking at each other without moving. Convinced that she was holding firm to her position, I got out and approached her window. "This is the entrance, not the exit," she proclaimed with determination.

"That would be fine," I said, "if other drivers hadn't blocked the normal exit. I'm not driving a Volkswagen, you know." I told her. "You're going to have to back up before anyone else enters the lot."

With obvious reluctance, she finally backed towards the entrance, swung into a handy side lane, and let us make our departure. With a huge sigh of relief, we left the "huge" dirt parking lot and headed for Route 101 north and our camp for the night. We were sure glad that it wasn't far away.

Thus ended yet another fabulous, tedious, exiting, thrilling, satisfying, terrifying, educational, exasperating, and damn well worth it day of traveling the highways and byways of America.

After I got into camp, I inspected the "brush" with the pickup truck's bumper and found that it had indeed left a scape and a small dent in one of the locker doors. As Concetta so accurately put it, "every trip leaves the rig just a little more banged up." Well, she's absolutely right.

But my attitude about the bumps and scrapes and dents and even worse problems is this: If I have to totally destroy the rig to travel every back road in America the way we want to see them, the RV will just have to weather the storm. As the old saying goes, "you can't make an omlette without breaking a few eggs," and the Tom Davis motto is, "you can't travel tens of thousands of miles, on all types of roads, backroads, and even dirt roads, and expect to maintain your rig like brand new. Some owners might want to just wash and wax their "baby" after every trip, but that's not us. I say, "bring on the bumps. We're going to keep rolling."

So, ciao for now and get out there and have some adventures of your own!

Day 15 -- Visiting Salinas from our camp in Greenfield, California -- 65 Miles

Today we got to do something that we didn't even know before this morning that we wanted to do! I had been scanning the atlas for quite awhile in hopes of finding some historic place of interest we could visit as we traveled up Hwy 101 in California. But only this morning did I consult the Web for points of interest in Salinas. Almost immediately up popped the John Steinbeck Center as well as the Steinbeck boyhood home. Wow, I thought, what a find.

Traveling to Salinas from our Greenfield camp was only a trip of about 32 miles. So after a leisurely breakfast, we set out to learn about one of America's most celebrated authors. The museum is arranged in the modern style with lots of interactive displays, audio and visual input, and a sort of non-linear course through the building. Most of the verbiage was extra large and easily readable. There are dioramas, antiques, and even vehicles that you could touch. There was even a reconstructed boxcar to go along with a short story about the author's life (photo left).

Both Concetta and I had read a few of Steinbeck's books. She had read "Travels with Charley, of Mice and Men, and the Grapes of Wrath." I had read the latter two and probably a couple more. But we had no idea how extensive the list is of all John's published works. We both felt that considering how much we enjoyed the several books we'd both had read, it was curious that we hadn't pursued many more.

We were actually all set to grab a few of the trade paperbacks that we saw in the giftshop, but the $16.00 price tag deterred us. We decided that we'd just have to search on Ebay for what we wanted in the future.

In terms of a future visit by anyone reading this narrative, if you have a large RV as we do, the Amtrak station parking lot is adjacent to the center (across the street) and when we arrived, it being a Saturday, we found NO cars there. The only other vehicle we found was a big yellow tip truck for moving cars. I'm sure the lot fills up on normal workdays, but even then I suspect that you'd be able to fit your RV into the spaces furthest from the station.

Also mentioned on the Web was the John Steinbeck boyhood home that can be found just a couple of miles from the Steinbeck Center. We learned that the building now serves as a restaurant, but it's gift shop welcomes the browsing public. We motored over to the house and were really impressed with how well the present owner is caring for the old building. I walked over to take a few photos and failed to see a single flaw in the paintwork or landscaping.

After leaving the Steinbeck home I once again started thinking about the need for gas and the need to find a tire guy to do a little job for us. After one aborted attempt at gas, we found a station across the street that was better able to accommodate us. Once the tank was good to go I focused on the continuing tire problem. The truck has a pronouced toe-in, toe-out problem especially on the passenger side. This causes the rig to ride predominently on the inside edge of each front tire.

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This problem was also present in our last Ford rig and seems to be endemic in the Ford van model. On our earlier rig we had to stop in Kansas on one trip and have the tires "flipped" so that the inside edge became the outside edge. This left a more or less brand new tire edge for the rig to ride upon over the balance of the trip.

So when Concetta turned up an open tire store in the town of Gonzales just minutes from our camp, I headed right there. Once we arrived in Gonzales, we had only fifteen minutes to reach the store before it closed. But, it took us nearly that entire time to roll into their parking area. Unfortunately, as we stopped we could see that the sole remaining employee had just locked up the door and was headed for his truck.

But we were about to experience yet another miracle in the luck department. The employee, whose name appeared to be Chutz, agreed to open back up, remove the worst tire on the passenger side, and reverse it on the wheel for us. He did the whole job with a big smile on his face and not a great deal of money. We thanked him profusely and we were soon back on Hwy 101 headed for our evening camp.

Tomorrow we're headed for Gilroy a couple of hours north of us and perhaps another of Father Junipero Serra's missions. We have already lined up a camp in Gilroy so we don't need to worry about finding a camp site on this holiday weekend. We're going to be navigating a very rural "scenic byway" which usually tend to be windy, narrow, and constantly changing elevation. But they also tend to be beautiful beyond description.

Beyond tomorrow we have not the slightest idea of our intended direction. So stick around and travel with us and we'll find out together. So Ciao for now and we wish you many happy travels of your own.

Day 14 -- San Luis Obispo to Salinas, back to Greenfield, CA -- 150 Miles

Today oscelated between extremes of pleasure and pain. On the pain side, we had tires and gasoline. I've been kinda worried about our front tires because our rig wears those expense suckers ONLY on the inside edge and virtually nowhere else on the tire. This means they wear out much quicker than one might expect. It's maddening, but requests for alignment our our thirty-foot rig have always resulted in blank stares. So we drive on them and replace them frequently.

Once, when we were in New Mexico, I happened to glance at the passenger-side front tire and nearly fainted as I saw that the fabric was beginning to show through on the inside edge. Thankfully we were close to a tire store and were fortunately able to buy the very last two tires they had in our size. Thankfully, the store agreed to help us and fairly quicky had us on our way. Today, the only tire store we saw would not have accommodated a 32-foot rig so we had to cruise on by. No other tire buying opportunities were seen the rest of the day.

On the subject of gasoline, we had allowed outselves to get below our mandatory fill-up point of a half tank. When we left the National Guard campground in San Luis Obispo this morning, the guage was resting just above a quarter of a tank. So it was with some trepidation that I headed up highway 101 without the needed pit stop. I had no idea when or where we might encounter a station in the middle of such open country.

Naturally, we could get quite a distance on a quarter tank, but I had no idea just how far we'd have to travel to find a town of sufficient size to have gas stations large enough to accomodate our rig. Thankfully, we found one before the needle had dropped below the one quarter mark, and we were soon on our way some two hundred dollars poorer but with about 32 gallons of added fuel in the tank.

Our intended stop for the morning was the Mission San Miguel Archangel which sits about 10 miles north of Paso Robles, California, on Highway 101. Since we'd never visited the mission before and, indeed, had never even heard of it, we didn't know whether to expect a pile of adobe bricks with a plaque, or whether there might be actual buildings and grounds to visit.

To our immense surprise and pleasure, San Miguel Archangel is simply a fantastic place to visit. The buildings are largely intact. Though some are no doubt reconstructed, the whole mission complex has been maintained in a fairly pristine condition, and work goes on to this day. All the accessible rooms are furnished, and the central courtyard holds a profuse collection of flowers, shrubs, and trees.

We happily wandered the buildings and grounds for a good couple of hours, shot countless photos, but encountered very few other tourists. Only about a third of the buildings surrounding the central courtyard are available for visit. I suspect that church people must still work and even live in the other two thirds.

In my opinion, cream-colored buildings sporting burnt orange terra cotta roofs against a startling blue sky is just about as good a photographic subject as you're going to find anywhere. So naturally, I saw potential photos everwhere I looked. Eventually I ended up with nearly a hundred shots, and I was only getting started. But we just couldn't spend the whole day there and had to make a few miles before dinnertime. We had our lunch in the parking lot, then set off for what we thought was our intended camp in Soledad Canyon near the town of Soledad about ninety minutes north of the mission.

Here's where the the old adage of "best laid plans often go astray" comes into play. Once we got to Soledad we started trying to find directions to the camp. Entering the address in Concetta's IPhone GPS we found a strange discrepancy. It appeared that the GPS thought that Soledad Canyon was four hundred miles away in southern California. Uh, oh!

Further research turned up the fact that we had simply assumed soledad canyon was near the town of Soledad and such proximity was definitely NOT correct! What to do? After some hand wringing and soul searching, we decided to pour through the camp listing book and call any camp within reasonable driving distance. We immediately found that all we could do was leave messages.

While we waited for the hoped-for call-backs, and with no other choice, we got back on Route 101 and headed further north todward the actual town of Soledad. Suddenly, Concetta informed me that she had found a camp obstensibly in our immediate area. As we roared down Route 101, a fairly stiff wind buffetting us like a tiny ship on a storm-tossed sea, we realized that we needed to call as soon as possible to secure a spot. We knew that the coming Memorial Day weekend was going to severely limit our success.

Concetta simply cannot hear voices on her phone adequately when the road's background noise is too strong. The addition of buffetting winds makes the problem even worse. So naturally, I took on the job of talking to Concetta's newly-found potential camp host after she had dialed my phone. As we barreled north on Route 101, I found myself driving with one hand while holding the phone in the other. Due to the noise level, I ended up constantly telling the chap on the other end of the line to please repeat what he had just said. Not the smartest thing I ever did.

Finally we sort of got things straight and made ready to reverse direction since the camp was behind us. This manuever was more hazardous then you can imagine. We started by exiting Route 101 onto a handy farm field side road. Once there we had to back into an intersecting side road, then pull up and sit facing a sort of gap in the center divider of Route 101.

We immediatelty saw that traffic running both directions was just a blur going past at nearly seventy miles an hour. I looked both ways and my heart sank. There looked to be NO way to cross both lanes of the northbound traffic and then merge with the southbound traffic without causing a massive multi-car chain reaction.

Then suddenly a miracle happened, and a huge gap appeared in the northbound traffic lanes. Taking my foot off the brake, I jammed down on the accelerator and charged across both of the temporarily empty lanes and stopped diagonally in the center medium area. Naturally, I could not see whether the tail end of the RV had cleared the northbound lanes nor could I see the southbound lanes at all. I told Concetta to look out her window and tell me when a similar miraculous gap appeared in the traffic flow on her side.

For many minutes we sat there, poised for takeoff, as both lanes of traffic barreled by like Indianapolis race cars right outside our front window. The same thing was happening directly behind us, I knew, and I desperately hoped that my adopting a diagonal stance in the medium had adequately cleared those northbound travel lanes.

Suddenly Concetta yelled, "after the next white car you can go for." Knowing that the traffic gap would we measured in micro seconds, I tensely waited for the white car barrel past, then stomped on the accerator and litterally "flew" into the fast lane headed south. Checking my mirror I found I still had few seconds before the oncoming coming frontrunners reached us, so I turned on the blinker and quickly slid into the slow lane.

I don't think either of us took a normal breath for another few minutes and the tension did not abate either. The chap with whom we had spoken told us that the office closed at 4:00 p.m and it only took the barest glance at our watches to let us know that we had perhaps thirty minutes to follow the directions on Concetta's IPhone, find the camp, and check in at the office.

Naturally, the first thing we did when we reached the appropriate offramp for the camp was to turn the wrong direction and end up on a tiny rural road lined with grape vines on either side. Looking ahead we could see no side roads or pullouts anywhere ahead. So I did what I always do: I pulled off the road and onto the dirt shoulder next to the grape vines on the north side of the road, cranked the wheel over in a sharp left turn so we straddled the road, then rolled off onto the dirt shoulder next to the grapes on the south side of the road. That done we had ample room to head back the way we had come. Fortunately the soil on both sides of the road was pretty firm and I didn't end up running over any grape plants.

When we had reversed direction, we easily found the road onto which we should have made our turn and just moments later we rolled to a stop opposite the camp office. The time was fifteen minutes before closing.

So here we are in what just has to be the best camp we've found this trip, maybe even over several trips. The place is called "Yank's" and every single camp site has a concrete slab to park upon. Everything is immaculent from property line to property line. There's a spiffy laundry building (photo right above), a swimming pool, lots of nice landscaping, modern hookups, and every street is paved. We loved the look of it so much we decided to stay two days. We'll see what we can see around the area tomorrow, then come back for another night before continuing our meandering way home on Sunday.

So that's it for today. We've had a grand adventure today, a few tense moments, lots of excitement, and a whole lot of fun. Hopefully we will continue that plan of attack tomorrow so ciao for now and we wish you happy adventures of your own.

Day 13 -- San Dimas, California to San Luis Obispo, California -- 225 Miles

Today we had to leave last night's truly beautiful camp in San Dimas, California, and head west and north back toward the equally beautiful environment known as San Luis Obispo. We decided yesterday to check the National Guard camp where we stayed about a week ago to see if they had an overnight space left in their spartan, but very tidy camp. Though the Memorial Day weekend is upon us, the camp actually -- an unbelieveably -- had just one space left that they graciously said they'd rent to us for the night.

Because we had to hustle right along and not spend any time stopping for sightseeing, we didn't even bother to get the camera out. The National Guard camp office closes at 4:30 and even though we wasted absolutely NO time we just made the front gate with thirty minutes to spare. We even cut our normally leisure-prone lunch down to thirty minutes which made the crucial diffenence.

Thankfully, we hit almost no bumper-to-bumper traffic the entire way. We picked up Route 210 in San Dimas, Route 134 in Pasadena, and then Route 5 in San Fernando and all three flowed along pretty steadily. We did have the occasional backup, and once we came to a complete stop. But for the most part we truly lucked out in the traffic flow category. Had that not been true we would have not reached the San Luis Obispo the camp by closing time.

Having showered Southern California with that bit of praise I still have to say that if we had to contend with the volume of traffic that we saw today every single day of our lives, I would have moved decades ago. Yes, the climate is fantastic year around, the people are friendly and welcoming, and the cultural scene is second to none, but there's no way we would put up with it. In fact, I didn't put up with it and moved out of the state in October of 1973. I did come back for six months in 1976, but that was a fluke.

When Concetta and I first took up the challenge of RVing across America, we never bothered to make reservations unless we had been advised that the camps in an intended destination city were always much in demand. For instance, when we visited the boyhood home of Sam Clemens (Mark Twain) in Hannibal, Missouri, we decided to reserve a spot. We were certainly glad we did as two different RV clubs hand taken nearly all the sites.

Unfortunately, getting a camp site on the fly has become exponentially more difficult with the advent of hoards of full-timers in camps once designed for travelers. Most camps do try to maintain a few sites for RVers, but you just can't count on it. So traveling has become more difficult as we try to guess where we will be by the end of the day. Still, most times we don't call ahead until the morning of the day we need a site and this usually works. But if we find something we'd like to see, or we hear about a better camp, then we have to call and cancel.

Having said all of that I can tell you that there's nothing I'd rather do than fire up the Fleetwood Jamboree and head out, preferrably in a direction well away from most urban settings. We love to head north toward Wyoming and Montana, the Dakotas, or even Minnesota and the upper penninsula of Michigan. We also love heading for the southwest. Places like deserts of Arizona and New Mexico are beautiful in the spring or the fall. In 2022 we took a fall trip and traveled east toward the Carolinas using Interstate 40. Now we don't usually cruise the Interstates, but on this particular trip we absolutely adored the fall colors as we bisected Tennessee.

Day 12 - San Diego, California to San Dimas, California - 120 Miles

Return from San Diego. Stopped at the San Bernardino Pioneer cemetery to look for family members and found them straight away.

Day 11 - All Day in San Diego, California - No miles

Breakfast at Angie's house. Lunch with Debbie Joyce and Frances Montisano, Dominic and Debbie Montisano in the morning. Trip to Nursery for potting soil and to buy a San Marzano tomato plant. Dinner with Dick and Nancy Malcangio

Day 10 -- All Day in San Diego, California -- No Miles

Ceasar Chavez Park, Italian club membership meeting

Day 9 -- All day in San Diego, California -- No Miles

Angie's House, visit to mission San Diego de Alcala, visit to Old Town and Moron Battalion Museum

Day 8 -- Santa Clarita, California to San Diego, California -- 191 Miles

Today's goal was to drive to San Diego in time to make our evening reservation at the Santa Fe RV Park about two hundred miles away. We had only two other goals in mind and that was to fill the petrol tank and to drop off three sacks of California-oriented books at the library in my hometown of Altadena, California.

The old Altadena Public Library on north Lake Avenue (photo left) was just about my favorite place on earth back when I was too young to drive. Mom would tell me she was headed down Lake Avenue to the old "Market Basket" store, and if I wanted to come along she'd drop me at the library, and I could shop for books while she was shopping for groceries.

My main areas of interest back in those elementary school days was history in all its forms. I loved reading about Mel Fisher and Robert Marks and their separate searches for sunken Spanish treasure ships. I also loved reading about western history including everything from the Civil War to western mining camps and ghost towns. Thanks to Dad being a sailor in World War II, I loved reading about that epic conflict as well. For a time I loved science fiction, but that area of interest waned about 1962. Every time Mom would drop me off, I'd be ready with an armload of books when she came back to retrieve me.

The old Altadena library was the epitomy of what I loved about historic library buildings. It had tall ceilings, heavy wooden tables and chairs, subdued lighting, and knowledgeable librarians who demanded absolute silence. Even now, some 65 years later, I just adore that type of library. Unfortunately, along came the 1960s and libraries decided they needed to evolve with the times. The feeling of solitude and silence of the libary experience was banished in favor of a brightly-lit, single story building with modern plastic library tables and orange plastic chairs. Silence was still sought, but was not rigidly enforced. Consequently, yours truly never again visited the library with the same sense of research fascination and intrigue.

But lately, as I was combing through my many stacks of history books at home, I found I had quite a large collection of California-oriented tomes that probably should be made available to some history-loving current Altadena resident. Knowing that the Altadena library had a small area for the sale of such donations, I put together a score of books dating from the early twentieth century and foreward, and Concetta and I dropped them off this morning. As an added bonus, we visited the sales corner ourselves and came away with three books on CD that we hoped would entertain us while we're cruising in the RV.

The day was pretty bleak and foggy as we cruised through my beloved Altadena, so I wasn't tempted to shoot any photos. Sadly, it continued to stay that way through lunchtime and into the afternoon. Finally when we were getting close to San Diego County, the sun finally showed its face, but it was way too late to be stopping for photos.

So, tonight we're holed up in the Santa Fe RV Park which seems nice but which has no cable TV available for us to watch the Master Tournament of Champions games tonight on Jeopardy. But the site was reasonably level, and we have a freeway right next door to provide a continuous volumne of "white noise" for our sleeping comfort. As an added bonus the light rail trains going by are a tad less noisey and not all that frequent.

Tomorrow we'll be visiting relatives which will be fun but probably won't generate blog entries so it will be a few days before I get back to you my loyal readers. So ciao for now and happy travels of your own.

Day 7 -- Trip from Valencia Travel Village to the Ronald Reagan Museum and Return -- 100 Miles

Today we did something we've been wanting to do for many years and that is to visit the Ronald Reagan Library and Museum. Traveling in California is ALWAYS a chore with its super high gas prices, zillions of impatient drivers buzzing you on every side, and "freeways" clogged and tedious to drive. Still, since our main objective this trip was to visit relatives in both our extended families, it seemed like the best time to visit President Reagan's domain high in the hills near Santa Clarita, California.

Concetta worked hard to find the closest full-hookups camp to our quarry, but it was still an hour away by freeway. But we dutifully packed up this morning, assured the camp hosts that we'd be back, and set out into the unknown. The first thing I did was turn the wrong way right out of the park which had us approaching the Reagan facility from the east instead of the GPS-recommended west. No matter, we easily found our way and only irritated a half dozen speeding drivers in the process.

We knew a problem awaited us when we got to the museum because their website clearly said that RVs were NOT to park in the regular parking area. We were directed to park on the approach road which unfortunately was on a hill. Well, we try never to park on hills as the refrigeration system is only happy on level ground. But when we reached the parking lot, it appeared that only about 25% of the spaces were occupied, and we could easily park across a measly three or four and inconvenience no one.

So, parked safely in several spaces and as far away from the other vehicles as possible, we made ready for our walk across the grounds. And that's when a knock sounded on the door. I stepped out to find a couple of security cops smiling at me and all set to inform me that I had to park elsewhere. But when they saw my U.S. Navy hat and a smile that matched their own, they backed off telling me I had to move.

Of course I informed them that my refrigerator was not going to be happy if the rig wasn't allowed to remain level, and that caused them to scratch their heads and look around for a possible solution to our problem. In the end they allowed us to back the RV into a single space that had lots of room behind it for the extra-long tail end of our rig to hang over (see photo top right). That done, they could see that the forward part of the RV didn't really take much room over what a large car would occupy.

They asked if they could have my name and phone number just in case they ran out of spaces, and I gladly supplied them with the information. In the end the rig sat just where we parked it for the entire day and the lot still wasn't nearly full when we got ready to leave.

This afternoon, as we were about to leave, we ran into one of the two cops whom we'd talked to that morning, and he turned out to be the lieutenant in charge. He was so friendly that he walked us all the way back to our rig and talked about his life and his career and

the two kids he was raising as a single parent. His name was Tony, and we certainly enjoyed his company and the obvious concern he professed that we should have a terrific day at the museum (photo bottom left).

The Ronald Reagan Library and Museum is 430,000 square feet of the most incredible experience you'll have anywhere. They have everything from the President's personal journal and quotation collection, to his Airforce One Boeing 747 and his Marine Helicopter. The grounds are beautiful, the displays are creative and not too overwhelming, and the staff is perhaps the most friendly and helpful we have ever encountered on our many road trips.

They have a shop full of wonderful books and other memorabilia and they have a cafeteria that produced a lunch for us that totally knocked our socks off. We split the Rueben Sandwich and fries and I had a cup of coffee. We thought our lunch was the best cafeteria food we'd had in years.