California Certainly Has Mountains

We have climbed more mountains this past couple of weeks in our travels south than we ever have before. At least that’s what it seems like.  We don’t go looking for mountains.  Matter of fact, we would like to avoid them if at all possible.  However, if we’ve been trying to avoid them, we’ve not been doing a very good job.

Remember our overnight stay at the Bakersfield Wal-Mart?  Even though it was noisy it was still a perfect place to stay.  For one thing it was free.  Free is almost always good … not always but almost always.  Even though we were kept awake for hours by our neighbor running his generator well past midnight and the local midnight motorcycle riding, we still had a great place to stay.

Photo at rest area showing what could happen with  flash floods.

Tehachapi was certainly ahead of us. When we think of heading south we usually figure we will be crossing two out of what we consider three major mountains.  The first one starts in southern Oregon as we climb the Siskiyous into California.  After that we either go over the Grapevine in Los Angeles or head a little east through Bakersfield  and take the mountain pass at Tehachapi. 

Well, we really had that figured wrong this time.  We certainly outdid ourselves with mountain climbs.  We didn’t do the Siskiyous.  Instead we climbed up and down and around and then up and down and around some more as we headed south on Hwy 101 along the Oregon Coast into the very dense foggy California area. 

Once we got through the fog and the mountains of the northern California area, we had smooth sailing for many wonderful miles on the I-5.

Our stop at the Bakersfield Walmart was the end to the fog and the flat gorgeous freeway system.  We had mountains ahead of us.  Boy … did we have mountains ahead of us and it wasn’t just Tehachapi.

Thursday was designated as the day of the climbs.  It started with Tehachapi and a 14 mile uphill climb.  Actually, that was the easy climb.  Once we got on Hiway 15 towards Las Vegas there were two more climbs.   One was a 16 mile climb that we could swear went straight uphill.  Well, I know it was 16 miles and it certainly seemed we were going straight up.  Tehachapi was definitely an easier climb than this one!

Once we reached the top, we got to go straight down for another ten miles … well kind of straight down.  Finally we were able to  exit into a rest stop.  Our stop was just a break.  We had another mountain to climb. Was it never going to end?  We were beginning to wonder for sure.Finally we crossed the border from California into Nevada and the road leveled out.  We were at Primm Valley with their casinos and outlet mall.  We had arrived.  Or, was it we had finally left California?

Well, all we cared about was pulling into a place to stay.  We were done for the day.  Buffalo Bill’s had such a place.  We moved in along with a few more trucks and five RVs.  We were here for the rest of the afternoon and even the night.  It seems we have been gone from our summer resting place for weeks but actually that’s not the case.  It just seems that way.

With new casinos to check out and an outlet mall to walk through, we had our afternoon planned.  Well, none of the casinos offered us free $$$ to play … so, we didn’t. 

The outlet mall didn’t tempt us with any sales either.  However, it was a great place to walk and the air conditioning was not pulling our batteries down.  I did say air conditioning because it was quite warm.  However, the heat isn’t supposed to last.  In a few days these temperatures will drop and once again Mr. Heater will be used to warm us up.

To begin with we weren’t quite sure where we were going to head from Primm Valley.  We discovered the Thousand Trails park in Las Vegas was undergoing a major renovation.  Half their sites were being upgraded.  Thus, there was no availability.  However, there are lots of places to stay including the Boulder City Elks and even Lake Mead had RV spaces..  It didn't take us long to get settled in.  We were in our new site well before noon.

   

Boulder City has a quaint historical downtown area with lots of antique stores, unique shops and cute diners.  For lunch we decided to try the Southwestern Diner which offered outdoor seating.


We’ve been here and done this before. The reason we decided to head this direction this time is because cousin Shelley is now living in Las Vegas.  It's always nice to have others to do things with. We also hope to spend a bit of time exploring Lake Mead.

Our southward journey is on hold for now.  Eventually we will continue our migration but not for a while.

‘Tis life on the road.

Some people come into your life as blessings. Others come as lessons.