Whew ... I Made It!!

I'm not one to do marathon trips.  I prefer driving maybe four hours before plunking down in front of the television with a bowl of ice cream, Cooper at my side.   I think the kids appreciate the short days also.  About hour four, Jonathan was screeching and biting his little feet from the cramps.  A little "disco disco" and a quick stop, along with a piece of peanut butter cookie, and he settled right in.

Packing is always a test.  I seem to have very little in the way of clothes, so that's not a problem.  It's the ice chest and fabric boxes that ruled.  And the generator which is hidden in there, along with two big bags of camera gear.

Finally I was off, through the green desert, a sight you don't see much.  The monsoon rains this year were epic, making everything plant-wise explode.

Right off the bat there was a spectacular scene of Mt. Picacho.  Of course the makers of phone cameras have everything set at wide angle, so you see nothing of the beauty I saw as I drove past.  The bug on the windshield makes for a nice addition though.  

Luckily I missed the rain on the entire trip.  It did seem to be chasing me going West, but the only water I saw was the water truck in the middle of the highway, throwing it down on the construction zone.  Too bad the wind was blowing so hard because my poor truck got completely soaked with what I would describe as mud.  No telling WHERE they got that water from.  No amount of hitting the windshield wiper cleaning button helped.

In no time, we were in Quartzsite at my favorite cheap fuel station with temperatures in the 70's.  That was a BIG surprise!!

So was the price of fuel, which has gone up quite a bit for summertime Arizona.

Six hours later I arrived in Indio with the same low temperatures in the 80's.  It made it a little easier to carry all the bags inside.  Except wait ..... the little seal on the door was broken and the bed looked like it had been slept in.  In fact, I've never seen such a horrible looking mattress.

I headed back to the front desk.  Sorry, but that's not an acceptable room ... and I'm really not all that particular.  The nice lady at Best Western gave me another room, much closer to the entrance.  Yay!!  So much easier to carry in stuff I can't afford to lose to someone who wants to take it out of my truck.

Bird food, dog food, water, all that stuff had to be carried inside.  The people food made it too since I stopped at an Arby's on the way in.  This is a chicken bacon Swiss burger.  I have to say it tasted pretty good in spite of it being lukewarm.  The fries were as cold as ice, so they went in the trash.

At last, everyone quieted down and I got maybe 4 hours sleep.  I reloaded the truck and by 5:30 a.m. we were back on the road.

Since I'm so cheap, I usually keep the speed down to conserve fuel.  This time however, I drove 70-75 almost the entire way, trying not to get run over.  

Here's a question for all you truck drivers out there.  Who taught these guys how to drive?  I was almost run off the road twice ... as in clear off onto the dirt shoulder the first time ... because they can't seem to stay in their lane.  Are they on the phone?  Playing games on their computer?  What's up with these guys?

It was a VERY LONG 8 HOUR drive.  I had it pegged for seven hours, even less at the speed I was traveling.  The good news is all that Bakersfield and Madera highway nonsense has been mostly completed so there were no certain death sections if you moved 12 inches either way.

Oh wait ... there was a single lane on Tehachapi that was MAYBE 8 feet wide.  I don't know how those trucks could even get through that section.  There's no pictures because my hands were frozen to the wheel.  

Lucky me, I made it in time to get to the Elks Lodge meeting last night.  There was quite the debate going on, but I just sat there with my mouth closed.  Surprised?  Yeah, me too.  

Today will be a sit-on-the-couch kind of day trying to stretch out all those sore muscles I've accumulated.  The good news is there are no scorpions, biting bugs, snakes or even SKUNKS in my back yard.  At least so far!!!  Time to rest up so I can unpack the truck.