Monday, October 15, 2007

Back to Colorado (Again!)

After all of my rantings about not having Donna drive behind the new rig, we ended up having her do just that. Costs to ship the truck back to Colorado, or to set it up as a tow vehicle, were just too high. Besides that, with our walkie-talkies, I was able to get instant feedback on my driving. Driving a big Class A motorhome isn't that hard once you get the hang of it - the hardest part is getting yourself centered in the lane. I found that my tendency was to drive the rig close to the right shoulder, rather than being centered. Donna was able to critique me, and I finally got it figured out.


Our travel plan was to drive about 200 miles a day. We ended up just east of Portland on our first day. The weather was drizzly, so we elected for a quick BBQ (steaks of course!) between showers, and an early sleep. The second day was gorgeous, as we drove through the picturesque Columbia Gorge.


There we are - stuck on I-84


Looking east at the parking lot

The second night we ended up in Pendleton, OR. Now, what could that city be named for? Hmmm, as a hint, we took the 3:00pm tour at a wool mill...it was a 20 minute tour, but very interesting. Pendleton is an interesting little town, and we'll take some time and explore the area next time through. So Day 3 we headed east on I-84, for a 200 mile jaunt to Caldwell, ID. We were on the road at 8:00am, and figured to be there by noon at the latest. WRONG. As we headed up a grade, the weather, which had be drizzly, turned very very foggy: 30mph foggy. Finally, after reaching the summit of some unnamed mountain, the fog began to lift, and we sped up again...only to stop after about a mile. And I mean stop. The whole interstate was closed eastbound - flashing signboards said "accident ahead". So we parked on the interstate for 2 hours. We finally got in to the Ambassador RV Park about 3:00pm. After a day like that, we opted to stay 2 nights. Besides, Donna had found a great quilt store that she just had to visit again!


Our next journey took us to a little town in SE Idaho called Declo, and a nice RV park, Village of the Trees. Again, we had stayed there on our trip out to Oregon. We met the owner, who was very nice, and remembered us from our last visit.


One of the interesting things about being on the road full time, is that you meet all kinds of interesting people. In addition, you tend to find "lost" friends from your past. If you've read earlier blogs, you might recall we met up with Leroy and Carol, friends from my days back at Southern California Edison. Turns out we had been "following" some other SCE friends, Roger and Ardelle, for several days during this period. We were even staying at the same RV parks...2-3 days apart. Weird! We almost caught up with them, but ended up staying about 2 days behind. When we began our journey last February, we almost crossed paths in Louisiana and Texas. Maybe this winter we'll catch them in Texas, where they winter.


From Declo, we headed east, and ended up in Evanston, WY. From there, we decided to do big travel day (280 miles), and get to our son's house back in Colorado.


Some interesting (at least to me) facts: 1) our Chevy pickup averaged over 28 mpg on the trip back, while the new motorhome averaged 7.5 mpg. The part that gets me is that the tank is so big, you don't have to fill that often - but when you do...yowser! I filled in Odgen, UT, and the next fill was in Cheyenne, WY. I could have gone all the way to Denver from Odgen.


Anyway, we are settled in at our son's now until Thanksgiving. I'm watching the drizzle turn over to snow...SNOW? This had better stop!

4 comments:

  1. Do you feel like you are "at home" now? Sounds like all is going well. If you had to choose just one, what do you find is your best resource for locating RV parks? You seem to find some very nice ones!
    Enjoy Thanksgiving!

    ReplyDelete
  2. SO Glad you are home... I missed you....

    ReplyDelete
  3. I know you like snow but we do not so I hope this Dec when we leave AZ and head back to OR we will be snow free, The last 2 years we had snow delays getting home. But here in AZ the weather is great. We enjoy reading your blog and I enjoy posting updates on ours even though we are not traveling this year we are taking day trips in the Honda. Will check the Weather Chanl. to see how snowed in you get....Leroy & Carol

    ReplyDelete
  4. Grace, we mostly fly by the seat of our pants! We are using Woodalls this year, last year we had Trailer Life - they are very similar. Once we decide on a park, I check www.rvparkreviews.com to see what others think.

    ReplyDelete

Tell us what you think!