Wednesday, May 14, 2014

We found it!

Tuesday morning we awoke to......wait......29 degree temperatures, although clear blue skies.  We were starting to wonder if we would ever find ourselves in a land where no heaters were required before 11 am, and after 5 pm.....we are getting so tired of the cold.  I know, cold is a relative term, especially for those of you who reside in places where it snowed in the last few days.  For those of us who routinely seek out t-shirt, shorts and flip flop weather 29 degrees is a "little it" out of our comfort zone......no, wait.....I have to be honest......a "little bit" is a gross understatement.....WAY, WAY out of our comfort zone!

We merged back on to I-80 westbound around 9:30 and quickly put Elko, NV in our rear view mirrors.  Our driving distance for Tuesday was just over 270 miles.....a longish day for us....well for me, since I'm the one who guides our coach down the highway.  TLE acts as our "in flight", voice activated concierge....if I have a question about, say, what our altitude is she will look it up.....we do have an altimeter, but it works off atmospheric air pressure, so I need an independent reading to adjust it if necessary to current conditions.  If I'm wondering about a place to eat lunch, or dinner she will look it up.  If I need my water refilled, or a snack she will take care of it....all I have to do is hold on to the steering wheel, and guide the coach down the road.

We took our first break at the 65 mile mark, and our second with 140 miles to go.  At the second rest stop we took our traditional 1 mile walk around the facility 4 times before continuing on.  If only there had been another rest stop available after 60-70 more miles it would have been a perfect day, but the next rest stop was 105 miles west of our second stop.

We both love the wide open, giant expanses here in the western U.S., but sometimes you need a break from staring at "BIG".  At any rate we came upon the final Rest Area on this day's journey around 3:15 and took a 20 minute break.  Whilst TLE took a nap, I walked around the coach doing my usual daily tire inspection and found all to be in order.  No unusual tread wear, no tires running way hotter than the others......just like we like it.

The last 35 miles were essentially down hill to Fernely, NV, our destination for Tuesday.  Why Fernley of all places you might wonder?  Well, Fernley is the site of one of Amazon.com's 3 fulfillment centers where they hire what they call "CamperForce" people.....nomadic folk such as we are.  We needed to check out the local RV parks Amazon has contracted with to host their CamperForce folk.  There are only two parks in Fernley itself, and the others are any where from 10 to 30 miles away.  We prefer to be as close to the Amazon facility as we can, so it is important to us to be able to get into one of the two parks in Fernley.  Right now we are on waiting lists at both those parks (Desert Rose RV Park and Fernley RV Park).   The next closest park is in Fallon, and then you get into the Reno/Sparks area.  Since we are on waiting lists for the close parks we are going to visit the others until we find one where we can at least confirm a reservation.....hoping all the while that we will transition from "waiting list status" to "confirmed reservation" status at one of the local parks.


We decided to spend a couple of nights at Desert Rose RV Park, and arrived there just about 4:15.  We did not make any reservations as this is the off season, and were able to get a spot easily using our Passport America card for a 50% discount off their daily rate.....we paid just $39 for two days here.  While I was checking in I asked if they could check my "waiting list" status and found out we were #5 now on the list....we started out on "page 3" of their waiting list two months ago, so we have moved up a lot....in fact before I finished checking in another camper called into cancel their reservation, so now we are only 4 away from getting a spot here at Desert Rose.  Nevertheless, we will do our due diligence Wednesday and get a firm reservation at another park, and then hope that in the next 5 months we get our spot here.  Desert Rose is a nice park, with concrete pads, good WiFi, cable TV, a nice community room, and a large laundry.....and only 4 miles from the Amazon warehouse.....Yelp gives them 4.5 stars and we would agree.....so far!


We had barely finished setting up for our two day stay when TLE put on her concierge hat and found a great Mexican place for dinner.....we both just felt like Mexican Tuesday night.  We settled on El Guadalajara and headed over for dinner about 5 pm.  Yelp only gives them 3.5 stars on 21 reviews, but I noticed the last 6, or 7 reviews done in the last year were all in the 4-5 star range.  We would rate them at a solid 4 stars......fresh food, prompt service (even though they were quite busy) and nice ambiance.  There are several Mexican restaurants in town and we hope to sample a few of them when we are back in town in November.

It was a perfect ending to a longish day, and what do you know?  We have finally found warm weather.....at 5 pm it was 84 degrees with a projected low of only 51 degrees......wonderful!

On Wednesday we will visit with our CamperForce representative, Amanda, and hopefully get a short tour of the facility, then we will head out to check out the other RV parks in the area......life is good!

Thanks for stopping by!

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