A new Newell world record!

7:11 am - Sunday - April 7th - Olancha, CA - 39° F, humidity 58%, wind 2 mph out of the west by southwest......cloudy today with a forecast high of 60° F....heading back into winter...lol!  On this date in 2015 TLE and I were hiking the Honiker Trail down to the San Juan River near Goosenecks, UT......

I was awake around 4:30 am thinking about how many miles I would have to drive Saturday, and decided getting an early start would give us plenty of time to make multiple stops along the way, and still arrive at our destination between 3, and 4 pm.  I was up by 5 am, so we could roll our wheels before 7 am.  You're thinking, that sounds like 7-8 hours of driving, and you might be close.  Since we decided not to drive in the side wind on Friday afternoon and cover at least 120 miles, we had to add those miles to Saturday's already long drive to get our selves back on schedule to arrive in Likely this Wednesday. 

We managed to haul anchor around 6:36 am, arriving at our first stop of the day, the Travel Center in Salton City where we would dump a week's worth of effluent from our waste tanks, then take on 70 gallons of fresh water, and finally top off our propane tank, which we have not filled for nigh unto a year.  We arrived at the Travel Center (Marina Drive and HWY 86) around 8 am, and proceeded right to the dump station.....

....where I attached the sewer hose (to dump) and the water hose (to flush the tank), then proceeded to pay for the dump using the handy POS card scanner at the dump station....

....the old POS scanner required you to be able to read the display screen in direct sunlight, which was almost impossible.   Now, all you have to do is tap your car, and you're done.....nothing to enter, nothing to read.  Once you pay, the cover on the sewer connection can be opened, and you can begin to dump.  Within 20 minutes we were done with stage one, and then it was on to stage two.....refill our fresh water tank....

.....this is always the most time consuming part of the three stage operation, and it took around 25 minutes before the fresh water tank was full.  Then it was on to stage three, top off our 60 gallon propane tank.  It's been a year since we last topped off this tank, and I was expecting to pay for 40-50 gallons.....

....surprisingly we took on just 32 gallons of propane.....WOW!  We've only used half our propane capacity in 12 months!  That is a new Newell world record!  On the other hand, it means we didn't have to pay too much, but remember, it is California.  Propane costs close to $5/gallon here, and we paid almost $150 for just 32 gallons....ouch!

We were back on the road by 9:45 am after this major, but oh so necessary rest stop, and on our way northward.  Within minutes we passed by the Mecca Travel Center (ARCO) where diesel is selling for $5.49/gallon....almost $2 more per gallon than we paid in Yuma......

.....in order to reach our destination (Rest Area at COSO Junction just south of Olancha, CA) we took 9 completely different highways.  We left Yuma on I-8, then headed north on HWY 111 to 86, to I-10, to HWY 62, then 247 to I-15 merging onto 58 to US-395.  We drove a route we have never driven before since it involved fewer long climbs.  Just to get to I-15 in the Pomona Valley we would normally climb to Banning Pass out of Palm Springs, which is about a 25 climb, then descend into the Pomona Valley only to climb Cajon Pass, which is another 20-25 miles...so 50 miles of climbing.  We opted to leave I-10 near Palm Springs and take HWY 62 into Yucca Valley which involved a single 20 mile climb, and from there it was only 4, or 5 short duration climbs to get us to US-395 at Kramer Junction....

Passing through Morongo Valley HWY 62, on our way to Yucca Valley

On California 247 heading to Barstow and I-15

Super bloom north of Kramer Junction

....we took another long stop at Kramer Junction (58 and US-395) before driving the final distance to COSO Junction (south of Olancha).  You can see snow capped Mt. Whitney in the distance as we near COSO Junction.....

....we arrived at COSO Junction Rest Area around 3:45 pm...you can see an extinct volcano just to the south of the Rest Area.....

We quickly found a pull through spot in which to park for the night

.....once we had parked, and leveled the Newell I turned on the inverter to power up the Winegard satellite dish so we could watch the two NCAA Final Four matches.  The sky was clear when we arrived, and the views of the easter Sierra Nevada Mountain Range were spectacular as always....

.....I managed to catch a picture just after the sun slid over the Sierras.  In all we covered 376 miles finding ourselves almost half way to Likely.  This was one of our longest driving days in some time, but now we are positioned to be in Likely by Wednesday giving us 3 days to set up camp before opening day at the golf course.  Last year we covered 368 miles from GNHS to Bishop on our first day of our drive to Likely.  We haven't done that amount of mileage in one day since our first year on the road, and now we've done it two years in succession.  Are we regressing?

Both Final Four games were close matches for most of the game, but each winning team began to pull away in the final minutes leaving just UCONN and Purdue standing at the end.  They will play the final game of this year's edition of March Madness on Monday evening.

Thanks for stopping by!