What Happened Here???

As I left Tucson, right off the bat I got fuel.  I'm a top of the tank driver, since I've really no idea just how much fuel I have or how far I can go.  Supposedly I have a 100 gal tank and I get 11-13 mpg.  That being said, I never go further than 600 miles at the most before fueling up.

Pilot on Rita Road in Tucson was $2.62 a gallon.  Not bad says I.  This is going to be a cheap trip!!

I took my normal Butterfield Stage route off Highway 8 and was shocked to find my parking spot all fenced off.  What happened here??

It looked like a bomb exploded.  The entire RV park, fuel station, hotel (if there was one, I can't remember) and restaurant were completely destroyed.  Nothing!!  Even the dinosaurs were gone!!  Lucky for me there was room for two rigs to pull over and ponder the wreckage.  Remodeling?  They've torn the entire thing down to the ground!!

I dined on 6 Oreo cookies for lunch, having completely forgotten to plan for the occasion.  There's no way I was going to dig through that packed to the very brim freezer for something to eat.  

The people of Arizona do not know there is a stay at home order, or maybe there really ISN'T for Arizona.  The highways were as crowded as normal with both trucks and cars.

As I pulled in to Quartzsite, the RV parks were not completely empty as normal for this time of year.  The temperature was in the high 90's, but doable with only one AC unit running.  The kids and I were tired after five hours of driving.

Early the next morning we were off again as I hit the Arco Station to top off my tank.  Fuel here was $2.36 a gallon.  Seems to be the perfect time for a trip.  Luckily road construction was limited to this.  I have no idea what they were doing.  As we headed down into Indio California, I noticed all the trucks were heading OUT of the State, as were cars and RV's.  No surprise there.

This was an interesting distraction.  I think it had a hundred tires on it and could only go 50 mph.  I honked and waved as I went by.  Yay for our military guys!!  The bad news is that wind dogged me the entire trip.  At one point I even had to slow down to 55 mph!!  

Along the way, there was still snow on the mountaintops, but I couldn't get any good pictures.  If you saw that picture on the internet of the smog in L.A. that has now gone away because everyone is not driving, don't believe it.  It's all a lie.  It's just as smoggy as ever ... maybe even MORE so.

As I got into Banning, Beaumont and up Cajon Pass, traffic got even worse.  It's business as usual in Southern California.  

I stopped in Kramer Junction for lunch, but this time I had a plan.  Canned chicken, stolen apple from Jonathan, pecans that I only found because they fell on the floor when I opened the drawer and mayo atop a hotdog bun wasn't bad at all.  Better than Oreo cookies anyway.  Somehow my last piece of cake disappeared also.

By the way, that bypass is WONDERFUL, once you figure out how to get on the freeway.  That's when this huge truck load of garlic passed me.  I wanted to flag him down since there was no garlic available in Tucson that I could find.

After seven hours of tough driving with winds STILL beating me up, we landed in Bakersfield.  The Orange Grove RV Park is open for business if you call ahead and reserve a spot.  They charge your card and you pick up your site number from the board out front.  This is a GREAT way to do business.

I hoped to have lots of pictures to show you, but my camera didn't want to focus on anything but the bug guts on the windshield ... and there are MANY!! 

One thing I did want to note if you are in Southern California.  Every single marijuana dispensary has a billboard along the freeway that says they are OPEN for drive up business.  No wonder there were so many cars on the freeway!!