Leaving California behind

It must have been around 65F when we left Bakersfield, California this morning because it felt that warm. After about one hour of being on the road, the landscape went from vineyards and orchards (as it also was yesterday) to desert as we came across the Mojave desert. According to the radio stations, the temperature for today was going up to the low 80sF and I know it did. This is what we are here for... what a change! Only two days ago, we were wet and cold (not literally of course).

From Bakersfield, we continued heading East on highway 58 and then I-40 from Barstow. The diesel prices have been really great. We paid $3.259 a gallon on our first fill-up in Washington and our next three fill-ups have been $2.999, $2.999 and $2.869 per gallon. A big difference from paying an average of $4.60 per gallon when we left Ontario and drove across the northern States to British Columbia back in August. We also got our best gas mileage during these past two days as the speed limit for us (vehicles towing another vehicle) was 55 miles per hour. A combination of that plus a more flat landscape gave us our best mileage yet at 9.26 mpg for our last 581 miles. I don't think you get that kind of mileage very often in a motorhome.

When we reached Needles, Calif. we turned south on highway 95 heading for Lake Havasu City, Arizona. We arrived at Havasu Falls RV Resort in Lake Havasu City around 3:00 pm. But it was actually 4:00 pm. We forgot that Arizona is in Mountain Time and we had just lost an hour. This Resort sits high above Lake Havasu (as does most of the city) and is surrounded by mountains so the view is great. It was getting too dark to take pictures so will have more of the resort tomorrow. This is a very nice resort but I think it's too small if you are looking for a resort with lots of different activities.

After getting settled, we decided to go out for dinner. We found a nice restaurant on the island in lake Havasu called Barley Brothers Brewery. They have really good food and the prices are very reasonable. We drove 303 miles today.



Our view while driving through the Mojave desert. Notice the 'picture window' effect we get with this motorhome. The windshield is one piece instead of two pieces with a black line in the middle like most motorhomes have.






This is the sign we've been looking for.... ARIZONA!



Our motorhome at the resort facing West towards the lake. The mountains behind are in the East.