Home again....

 7:33 am - Sunday - April 26th - LPG&RVR - 40° F, humidity 68%, cloud cover 86%, wind 2 mph out of the northwest....heavy cloud cover with rain forecast throughout the day....forecast high is 48° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were in Washington D.C. visiting Arlington National Cemetery, and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.....

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Changing of the Guard

Arlington National Cemetery

.....we spent two weeks in and around Washington D.C. seeing everything on our bucket list.  The view this morning....

....the park is completely empty except for workers, but that will change on Friday, May 1st, which is opening day.

We've overnighted at many Rest Areas, truck stops, and Walmart parking lots over the years, and it's always a mixed bag as far as noise levels.  We typically overnight at the Honey Lake Rest Area near Janesville, CA heading north, and heading south, so we're there two nights every 12 months.  One time we had trucks running their refers (refrigerated trailers) all night long, and it was not a good experience, however, this time we had the best experience ever.  We had two semis on our passenger side running nothing, and one semi on our driver side running nothing.  They shielded us from other trucks who were running stuff, and the result was an amazingly great night's sleep.  

We could have pushed on two more hours Friday, but that would have had us arriving late in the day making it impossible to get into our site before dark.  We knew rain was on the way to Likely, so we wanted to arrive early Saturday to get into our site, and begin setting up.

A beautiful sunrise over Honey Lake greeted us around 7 am Saturday....

....after posting my daily post we were on the road by 8:30 am heading ever northward on US-395.  Our distance to LPG&RVR was 85 miles, and over the course of that distance we were passed by just two vehicles.  This part of US-395 is SO remote, there is hardly any traffic.  Sometimes we can drive 2o miles into Alturas and not see a single vehicle.  The miles quickly melted away, and before we knew it we were turning right onto Likely Place at 9:59 am, and just 1 mile from our home for the next 5 months.

Our good friend Claude Banker was on hand to great us....he spent the winter here.  Just as last year, he is in site #54, right next to us.  After a short chat we unloaded the Beetle, then dropped the trailer from the Newell so Claude could use his Chevrolet pickup to move the trailer into position.  We really have a difficult time maneuvering our trailer such a tight space, and it usually takes us 30, or 40 minutes to do so.  With Claude's help it was done in 10 minutes....

.....a few days ago while we were still in Bishop I texted Claude to see how he was doing, and during that back and forth 'conversation' jokingly suggested he might spend a 'few hours' leveling our site for us before we arrived.  Well, guess what....he did!  He did a great job, but while we were discussing how we were going to figure how to duplicate our position for the Newell from last year TLE suggested we just pull out the large artificial turf piece and place it where we knew it should be placed along the rock border we built around the turf last year.  Brilliant!  We did just that and had the Newell in position within minutes.  In less than 90 minutes we had both the trailer in their spots for the next 5 months.....

Club Car Village #20 ready for service!

As you know there is a lot of 'setting up' left to do in site #55, and that will take a number of days

....there is still a lot to do, but we were so excited we decided to meet over at the restaurant, which has new operators this year, who arrived in early April, and are already serving food!  We arrived there around 12 pm to find Claude, and Bob (Longacre....a very good friend)....

....the food and conversation were wonderful.  Bob regaled us with one joke after another, and kept us laughing the entire time.  We met Art and Sonny who are operating the restaurant on a concessionaire basis this year, and had an immediate connection with them.  This promises to be a great LPG&RVR summer!

After lunch TLE and I went out to fetch my Club Car Villager #20, and found the battery was not up to starting the engine, so we got a charger from the 'Caddy Shack', and plugged it into the cart, then walked home. About 90 minutes later I returned, and the cart started and ran perfectly!

The rain eventually arrived around 8 pm, and it continued on and off for the rest of the night.  As I write it is sprinkling again.  We should have rain into the early afternoon before it begins to clear, so we'll be staying indoors until that happens.

Thanks for stopping by!

Five Eastern Sierra Passes.....

 7:04 am - Saturday - April 25th - TWW - 41° F, humidity 50%, cloud cover 52%, wind 6 mph out of the west by southwest.....partly cloudy skies today with a forecast high of 65° F here at the Honey Lake Rest Area off US-395.  We find ourselves less than 2 hours from LPG&RVR.  On this date in 2018 TLE and I were in St. Louis, MO.....

Left to right: Moi, TLE, Kay and Creig (pronounced Craig)

.....having dinner at 4 Hands Brewing Company with TLE's brother, Creig, and his wife Kay.  You've only met TLE's sisters before, but she also had two brothers....Creig and Read.  The view this morning....

....sunrise over Honey Lake in the background.

We always have a time in mind for when we want to begin our driving day, and on Friday it was to be on the road between 8 am and 9 am.  It was a chilly morning in Bishop necessitating the use of our block heater (heats the coolant in the block of the engine) to heat up the big Detroit Diesel 6v92 for the first time in half a year.  The switch for the block heater is in the bedroom right above the head of the bed, so I usually, around 4, or 5 am on departure day, lean over and flip the switch so by the time we leave a few hours later the 6v92 will turn over and fire immediately.  Having access to 30 amps on each leg of our 50 amp system allows us to run our 2 electric heaters, the block heater, and our electric kettle at the same time....they each draw around 10 amps.

I had already disconnected from the water source Friday evening, so all I had to do after finishing my daily missive was to shutdown Starlink, and then unplug from shore power.  I fired up the big Detroit Diesel 6v92 around 8 am, and we were on the road by 8:10 am heading northward on US-395.

Our initial goal for the day was the Walmart in Indian Hills, NV (just south of Carson City) where we would do some shopping at the Walmart and Trader Joe's, which is in the same parking lot.  If you have followed our blog for any period of time you know that between Bishop, CA and Indian Hills, NV there are 5 summits we must climb, and descend.  The first is Sherwin Grade which begins about 15 miles north of Bishop.  It is around 8-9 miles long, and involves a continuous 6% grade topping out at 7,000 feet above sea level.  The second, just past Mammoth Mountain Ski Area is Dead Man's Summit (8,047'), then the grand daddy of all summits/passes on US-395....Conway Summit which at 8,143' above seal level is the highest point of the entire length of US-395 from the Mexican Border to the Canadian Border.  Then there is Devil's Gate Summit just north of Bridgeport reaching 7,519' feet above sea level.  The last pass, just past Topaz Lake, NV is Simee Dimeh sitting at a mere 5,978' where you begin a slow, long descent into the Carson Valley.  From Bishop to Indian Hills it is about 150 miles, but due to all of the summits, and climbing and descending them in mostly 2nd gear at 32 mph, it takes almost 4 hours, but the views are amazing....

Leaving Bishop

Beginning the climb up Sherwin Grade

At the top of Sherwin Grade near Tom's Place

Crowley Lake

Beginning the Conway Summit climb

Mono Lake

Mono Lake and Lee Vining in the distance

Conway Summit

.....it was basically rinse, wash, repeat for a little less than 4 hours.  I set the cruise control and just hung on to the wheel.

We reached the Walmart in Indian Hills around 11:55 am.  Our Jello plan was to shop, and then spend the afternoon and night in the Walmart parking lot (it used to be legal to do so until this year), but we were met with 'NO OVERNIGHT PARKING' signs, so that changed our plans immediately.  We usually stay at the Tahoe/Douglas Elks Lodge in Gardnerville, but spending just one night does not overcome the difficulty in backing into their RV sites, so on the spot we made a new plan.  We would spend a little over an hour there shopping, and for me taking a nap, before continuing on another 2 hours to the Honey Lake Rest Area in Janesville, CA where we have overnighted numerous times over the past 4+ years, then arrive at LGPG&RVR Saturday morning.  It's about 88 miles from Honey Lake to the golf course....

The Walmart parking lot

.....by 1:15 pm we were back on US-395 northbound through Carson City and Reno.  Road construction has been ongoing on US-395 through Reno, and north to the California border over 10 years, and it is still not complete, but it is close....maybe in 6 months when we head south again it will be FINALLY done.

Once we escaped the road construction the drive became fun again as we crossed back into California just north of Border Town, NV.  The drive to Honey Lake was without incident and took almost exactly 2 hours....

Starlink deployed

Doesn't she look pretty!

....we found a nice pull site near the back of the Rest Area, parked, leveled, and settled in for a nice afternoon/evening.

Thanks for stopping by!

A laid back day.....

 6:52 am - Friday - April 24th - Bishop, CA - 37° F, humidity 28%, cloud cover 70%, wind 3 mph out of the northwest.....very cloudy today with a forecast high here in Bishop of 71° F.  On this date in 2025 TLE and I were in Walker, CA....

TLE and I split the Walker Burger

.....having a world famous Walker Burger....best cheese burger in the Eastern Sierra!  The view this morning.....

.....look at the fresh mowed grass!

Thursday was a laid back day at the Tri County Fairgrounds in Bishop, CA.  After finishing my latest blog post entry, and eating another of those wonderful Apple Fritters from Eric Schat's Bakery I headed outdoors to clean the exterior all of our windows, plus windshield.  It's been a while since I cleaned all of them at the same time, and it was long overdo.  While I was thus engaged the lawnmower guy came out to mow the grass where we are, so I needed to move our water hose, and a few other things so he could do his job, then returned to cleaning windows.

Other than that I spent part of the morning puttering around in the trailer, and then reading, and napping.  Around 3 pm we got dressed and took a walk over to Whiskey Creek for a late afternoon lunch.  It's about a mile walk each way.  It took just under 20 minutes to walk there, and we were pretty much the only people there (dinner service begins at 4 pm), so we chose the alfresco option for dining....

Not a bad view from the alfresco terrace

I'll take a 22 ouncer Blue Moon, thank you!

Bacon wrapped shrimp for our appetizer

Fish tacos for moi, and the 'Sunshine Salad' with salmon for TLE

.....we ordered their bacon wrapped shrimp for an appetizer, then fish tacos for moi, and their Sunshine Salad with salmon for TLE.  To chase the food I ordered a 22 oncer Blue Moon.  The food, as always was amazing.   As it neared 4 pm customers began to arrive for dinner service, but up until then we had the place to ourselves.

We took a leisurely walk home knowing that Friday we would be hauling anchor once again to continue our northward trek back to LPG&RVR.  We had planned on arriving there Sunday morning, but rain is in the forecast for Sunday, so we're speeding up our itinerary to arrive there Saturday morning.  Normally we would stay two nights in Minden, NV then continue our trip north, but we do not want to arrive in the rain like we did last April.

Thanks for stopping by!

Traditions....

 7;35 am - Thursday - April 23rd - Bishop, CA - 39° F, humidity 23%, cloud cover 9%, wind 6 mph out of the north by northwest....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 70° F.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I were having our customary/annual first dinner at Lake Tahoe Pizza Company.....

....right across the street from Tahoe Valley Campground where we worked for 4 summers.  The best Anchovy Pizza ever!

Speaking of traditions, TLE and I have this tradition when in Bishop, CA to walk over to Eric Schat's Bakery on Main Street for pastries and coffees our first morning.  We pass through Bishop twice a year now....when we're going south and when we're going north...usually in October and April of each year.  As I have written more than once over the years, US-395 is our 'mother road'.  We have driven it from Hesperia, CA all the way to I-90 in Washington State more than once.  Our favorite section of this US Highway is the 147 miles stretch from Bishop, CA to Carson City, NV.  In years past when we worked at Tahoe Valley Campground we always drove US-395 to Tahoe.  It is not a fast way to get to Lake Tahoe, but it is the most beautiful way to get to Lake Tahoe.  On this day we began our walk over to Eric Schat's Bakery around 11 am.  It's about a 10 minute walk at the most.  Typically it is standing room only, but on this day it was very uncrowded....

....usually you have to wait for a table.  TLE changed things up a tad Wednesday by getting a scoop of Lemon Gelato to go with her House Brew coffee, but I stayed with my long time favorite....Apple Fritter....

Two more apple fritters in the bag for Thursday and Friday

....on our walk home we stopped off at Reagan's Sporting Goods to check out their 50% off sale, but did not find anything without which we could not live.  We were back home by 12:30 pm.  As we walked down the entrance road to the fairgrounds I noticed there was snow on the White Mountains too from the recent storm.....

.....around 2 pm I headed outside to wash, for the first time in 6 months, the Newell.  I wanted to wash her before we left TWW, but the 7 mile drive out to US-66 is very dusty, and felt like I would be wasting my time. Being here in Bishop for 3 days was the perfect opportunity to put a smile back on her 'face'.....

.....TLE took a couple of pictures of me near the end of my work.  For the first time in 6 months she looks beautiful....

....in all it took me around an hour to wash off 6 months of dirt and grime, but I got her done without feeling exhausted....lol.

Around 4 pm TLE and I walked over to 'Upper Crust Pizza' on Main Street down near the Smart and Final Iris grocery store.  TLE didn't partake in pizza on this day, but chose an appetizer of Chicken Wings with a side salad.  I ordered their standard pizza (sauce and cheese) adding anchovies, black olives, onions, mushrooms, and pepperoni.  As happens to me from time to time I neglected to memorialize our dinner, but it was great!  This is our second time dining at this pizza place.  They make a mean thin crust pizza.

We were home by 6 pm after a quick stop at Smart and Final Iris to pick up some milk, and cheese.  For the next hour+ I napped off my food coma....I ate half of that medium pizza....lol.  For evening entertainment we watched another episode of 'Survivor Season 50', and were in bed by 10 pm.

Thanks for stopping by!