Long and winding road.....

 7:33 am - Tuesday - October 19th - Alturas, CA - 24° F, 88% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the south.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 59° F.....the view this morning.....↴

......on this date in 2014 I was atop the lighthouse at Cape Blanco a rain squall pass over the Cape.....↴

Our ambitious goal for Monday was to reach Alturas, CA some 263 miles south of John Day, OR.  Unlike Saturday only two passes stood between us and Alturas, and they both came at the beginning of the day.  We were rolling our wheels south on US-395 by 8:30 am, and within 5 minutes began the ten mile climb to Starr Ridge Summit standing at 5,152' above sea level, and some 2,100' higher than John Day.....

......the grade was not too severe enabling us to maintain 33 mph in 2nd gear the entire distance.  Once over Starr Ridge only Devine Ridge summit stood between us and Burns, OR.  We only dropped down about 300' after summiting Starr Ridge, so the grind back up to 5,340' above sea level took little time.....

....once over Devine Ridge summit the views opened up considerably.....

....it was just a matter of setting the cruise control at 60 mph, hanging onto the steering wheel, and guiding the Newell down the 'straight as an arrow' US-395 mile after mile.....

.....we stopped for about 20 minutes at one of the rare Rest Areas on this stretch of US-395 to take a break, and clean the windshield.  Next up was the narrow, winding road along the eastern shore of Lake Abert.....a very large, and long dry lake bed....

Lake Abert on the right

....due to the tight turns along this 20 mile stretch of US-395 we were limited to speeds of 35-40 mph.  Soon we were past the lake and the road widened and straightened out the rest of the way to Alturas.....

.....the 263 miles just melted away, and soon we were crossing into California once again, and a short time later arrived in Alturas at Sully's RV Park on the southern edge of town....the time?  2:30 pm.  It did not seem like 6 hours had passed since we left John Day.  No doubt the ease of the drive made the time pass quickly.  As we cruised mile after mile of smooth, straight highway with enormous views we were reminded why we love US-395....

.....once again we arrived at an RV park without reservations, and managed to snag one of the last two pull through spots long enough for our 62'.  The view out the front window is certainly worth the price of admission.....

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Bath time.....

 6:56 am - Monday - October 18th - John Day, OR - 46° F, 65% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the west.....cloudy today with a forecast high of 58° F.  On this date in 2018 we arrived in Campbellsville, KY at Heartland RV Park to work the 'Peak Season' one last time......↴

It has been at least a month, if not longer, since I last washed the Newell and trailer, and since the temps were forecast to be in the 70's I decided to give them both a much deserved bath.  By the time I finished putting away my washing tools it was after 1 pm.  Hmmmm, what else should I do?  

I still had lots of energy left so I took time to replace the female fitting on one of our fresh water hoses (the shorter one).  We carry two fresh water hoses....a 15', and a 25'.  Which one I use just depends on how far away the fresh water hose bib is.  Sometimes we have to hook both of them together, such as when we are staying at the Fontana Elks Lodge, to reach the hose bib.

Another task I had been procrastinating on was to move the wheel chocks in the trailer forward a few inches so we would not have to remove the bike rack from the VW to close the rear ramp door.  The old bike rack hae a slightly lower profile, but the new one sticks out about 2 inches further than the old one.  We've had to take the bike rack off the VW since we left SRRVC to close the door.  I ended up moving them forward 2.5" and that was perfect.

Around 3 pm TLE and I went shopping at the local grocery store (Chester's) to get some Eggnog....it is that time of year again, and I love a little Eggnog and brandy in the evening.  When we got home we inserted the Beetle into the trailer and shut the ramp door....we had about .5" to spare....perfect!  After that I dumped our black tank, and put away the water and sewer hoses so we can make a quick start Monday morning.  It's going to be about 20° colder on Monday, and rolling water hoses up on cold mornings is nigh unto impossible.

We want to be in Carson City by Wednesday in order to have lunch with two of my cousins, Lois and Liz, on my mother's side.....they are the daughters of Uncle Bob who passed a few years back.  At any rate it is about 500 miles to Carson City, and we want to get there Tuesday, so were going to put in a couple of long days, for us anyway, on Monday and Tuesday, which will require an earlier start than normal. We'll probably layover in the Carson City area for a couple of days to visit the local COSTCO, Trader Joe's and In 'N Out Burger, of course.

Thanks for stopping by!

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Climb every mountain......

 7:39 am - Sunday - October 17th - John Day, OR - 52° F, 39% humidity, wind 6 mph out of the east by southeast....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 70° F.  Fall colors are in evidence here in John Day, OR at 3,000' elevation......↴

.....on this date in 2015 our daughter, Kate, married Nick....we could not be happier.....↴

We love to drive roads we have not yet driven, and our plan for Saturday was to continue a little further east of Pendelton on I-84 to US-95 and take it south to I-80.  You may recall that we drove US-95 south from I-80 near Fernley, NV all the way to I-15 near Las Vegas last February during our 1 month vacation from SRRVC.  We really try not to drive the same secondary roads more than once, but there is one US Highway we never get tired of driving and that is US-395.  Back in 2015 we picked up US-395 just south of I-90 in Washington and drove it all the way back to SoCal.  We had never driven the section from I-90 to I-80 until that year.  Well, fast forward to October of 2021 and TLE suggests we revisit the northern section of US-395, foregoing the northern section of US-95 until another day.  As I have written previously, US-395 is kind of our 'Mother Road'.  When I was still in single digits age wise my parents drove us up US-395 from SoCal to Lake Tahoe every summer.  Over the years TLE and I have spent a lot of time along this Eastern Sierra Nevada highway spending time in its quaint towns (Olancha, Lone Pine, Big Pine, Independence, Bishop, Mammoth Lakes, June Lake, Lee Vining, Bridgeport, Walker, Topaz, Gardnerville, Minden, Carson City, etc.), so when TLE made the suggestion to drive this northern section of US-395 again it did not take much to get me on board.

We departed Wild Horse Casino around 9:45 am, stopped at their fuel station to take on 30 gallons of diesel at $3.61/gallon ensuring that we will make it to a much better price Carson City in a few days.  We then merged onto I-84 westbound back to the US-395 exit, and then proceeded south on US-395.  The section between Pendelton and John Day, OR has a length restriction of 65'.....we are 62' long.  This is a windy, twisty up and down road where you traverse from one summit to another......

Nice to be back in 'big view' country

.....our first climb of the day began immediately after we left I-84 and took us all the way to Battle Mountain summit sitting at 4,270' above sea level....TLE took pictures of most of the summit signs, but I am sure there were one, or two more than shown below......

....then came Ritter Butte Summit at 3,993' above sea level......

......then Meadow Brook Summit at 4,127' above sea level.......

....and then the coup de grâce.....Long Creek Mountain Summit at 5,075' above sea level.  This was a long, winding grinder running from 6% to 9% grades.....the final mile was 9% putting me in first gear for the first time since the summer of 2020 on the Million Dollar Highway.....we chugged along that last mile at 17 mph in first gear....

....the last summit of the day, and then it was a 2,000' downhill plunge to John Day, OR sitting at just 3,000' above sea level.....

Just past the final summit of the day

.....we haven't been much above sea level for the past year except for our one month trip south back in February, and it was so good to see the 'big views' once again.  We arrived unscathed at the Grant County Fairgrounds in John Day around 2:30 pm, where we stayed back on October of 2015....it's as beautiful as I remembered....

.....we choose site #10, a pull through site with a good view of the southern sky, plugged in and deployed our Winegard Traveler automatic HD dish.....there was much college football still to watch on this Saturday.  

Around 4:30 pm we walked into town to have some dinner and brews at 1188 Brewing Company (Yelp gives them 4.5 stars on 112 reviews.....back on October 30th of 2015 they had a 4.5 rating on 21 reviews).  The last time we  ate there back in 2015 it was just a hole in the wall place, but we loved the brews and food.  It was nice to return 6 years later and find they had more than doubled their square footage, were flourishing, and were still serving great brews and food.....

Cool totem pole we passed on our way to 1188 Brewing

....we chose a window seat, and within minutes had two pints of beer....

A Porter for moi, and an Amber for TLE

.....for entrees I chose their French Dip, and TLE their Caesar on Nitro......both were splendid!  We'll be in town for a couple of days before continuing our trek to SoCal.  Fall has truly arrived in John Day, OR....

.....on a side note, Grant County, OR has had just 12 deaths, and fewer than 1,000 confirmed cases of you know what in the past 21 months.....nothing safer, and more healthy for you than rural America!

Thanks for stopping by!

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High desert......

 8:06 am - Saturday - October 16th - Pendelton, OR - 40° F, 80%  humidity, wind 6 mph out  southeast.....mostly clear skies today with a forecast high of 76° F.....first temps in the 70's we have seen for a couple of months!  On this date in 2015 TLE and I attended the wedding rehearsal, and rehearsal dinner for our daughter Kate......↴

We awoke Friday morning to more overcast skies, and temps in the high 30's....not much different than Coupeville.  We have never spent the night in a Rest Area, and our first experience was mixed.  We should have taken more care to park on either end of the parking area to be sure there would be only one truck, or RV next to us, but we parked in the middle.  We did get an RV spending the night on our passenger side, and throughout the early evening trucks came and went on our passenger side, but then around 8 pm a semi truck pulled in with a refrigerated trailer, and the refrigeration unit was running.  We hoped he would be there for a few hours, but we were wrong....he was there all night long, and didn't leave until 6:20 am.....ask me now I know.  Needless to say, it was very loud all night, and neither of us slept well.  Oh well, live and learn.

Our destination for Friday was an ambitious one.....Pendleton, OR.  The estimated mileage for the day would be 206 miles.....the most we have driven the Newell in one day since last February and March on our one month vacation from Seal Rocks RV Cove.  We took a walk around the Rest Area before merging back onto I-90 eastbound.  Much to our surprise we saw an ad for the Elks on their local billboard, and a picture of our Newell.  I took a picture of the billboard with our Newell in the background.  As it turns out, this is the same Rest Area my brother-in-law, Glenn Parker, stopped at last summer.  He also saw the Elks ad, and sent me a picture of it. Somehow, unwittingly,  we managed to stop in the same exact Rest Area....what are the odds?

There she is....Elks Lodge, Lompoc, CA

We were on the road just before 10 am, and within 20 miles we left I-90 for I-82 which would take us to I-84 and Pendleton, OR.  Within minutes of leaving I-90 the landscape became much more arid, and the vegetation was that of high desert......

.....we stopped at several Rest Areas throughout the day, and one of them happened to be near a Starbucks, so we walked over and bought a couple of Frappuccinos.....Mocha for moi, and Vanilla Bean for TLE....haven't had one of those for way too long!  

Around 2 pm we crossed over the Columbia River back into Oregon, and within 10 minutes merged onto I-84 where we had just 36 miles to our destination.....Wildhorse Casino just 5 miles east of Pendelton, OR....

......Wildhorse offers both dry camping area right in front of the Casino, and an RV park back behind the Casino.   We had not yet decided in which we would stay until we arrived.  When we saw how crowded the dry camping area was we opted for the much quieter RV park option.  As has often been the case over the almost 10 years of travel, we arrived without reservations, and we were able to snag one of the few remaining back in spots, which just happened to be 62' long.....

.....when backing into diagonal spots like this I am totally blind, and am completely in the hands of TLE for direction as I back.  The gravel pads for these back in sites are quite narrow, but TLE got me into the site in one try.....I'm not kidding!  Beginning to end it took less than 2 minutes to get into this site.

We spent a QUIET evening watching the Boston Red Sox play the Houston Astros in the first game of the American League Championship Series, won by Houston 5-4.  It was so blissfully quiet I slept for 6 hours straight before I turned over!

We'll be leaving our current location in about an hour, so time to get ready to roll....thanks for stopping by!

When you shop Amazon, please use our link (below) to access their website.......we will appreciate every purchase you make using our Amazon Affiliate link, and  remember, using our link will not add one penny to your purchase, plus we will receive a small commission which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!