We have arrived at our final destination

We were up and at 'em by 8:20 am this morning and again the forecast for today was the high 80sF. We drove out of Lake Havasu City heading South on SR-95 up to Quartzsite where we joined the I-10 East. We stopped for diesel at the Flying J Truck Stop in Phoenix and paid $2.379 per gallon. That is the cheapest diesel we have seen so far. Gas was even cheaper so it will be interesting to see how much it costs to fill up the Vue. After going through Phoenix, we took US-60 East which brought us to Apache Junction. We are finally here and will be staying for five months.

It's great to be back and see a lot of friends we met last year. We received some nice welcoming hugs from a few people who came over when they saw us arrive. After David got the motorhome parked on our site, he tried to get the satellite dish up but ran into problems. So we spent the rest of the afternoon trying to fix it. By the time we finally got the dish up and running, it was 6:00 pm. I think it was around 2:30 pm when we got here. Sheesh!! I didn't even see the sun set. I guess there's always tomorrow to start enjoying our stay. I'm sure the forecast for tomorrow is 'hot & sunny'... LOL.. Sorry to rub it in for you people up in the north. I'll try not to mention it again...

Since it was getting late, I just cooked up some pasta with some canned tomatoes for a quick dinner. After doing dishes, we went for a walk around the park but it was too dark to see who else that we know might already be here. We will find out tomorrow. We drove 238 miles today.

I don't have any pictures for today so I'm posting a couple of pictures from our trip to the Capilano Suspension Bridge in North Vancouver in August. It was quite an experience walking on the bridge. It bounces around as if someone is jumping up and down on it but it's just the effect from the people who are walking on it. Very weird.

Totem poles - also taken at the Capilano Suspension Bridge.

A day to relax and visit

We woke up to a beautiful warm sunny morning and the weather forecast for today is a high in the mid 80sF. I think I'll take that! After breakfast, I decided to do one load of laundry so headed to the laundry room. It's always nice to find a clean laundry room. Not all parks have them. Then we sat outside just to relax and enjoy the weather. The wind started picking up with gusts of up to 40 mph though and it remained windy like that all day. We went to the grocery store to pick up a few items we needed then came back to make lunch. After lunch, we headed out to see London bridge. Yes, it's actually the bridge that used to span the Thames River in London, England until it was sold in 1962. The bridge was originally built in 1831 and wasn't built to handle the ever-increasing flow of traffic so the city of London put it on the market. It was purchased by Robert McCulloch, the founder of Lake Havasu City and chairman of McCulloch Oil Corporation. It was disassembled and re-assembled here with recontruction completed in 1971. They dug a one-mile channel out of the peninsula in the lake and created an island. So the bridge now connects the small island to the mainland. There are a few RV parks on the island in addition to some houses. And a lot of new construction too.




View of London bridge on the island side.

View of the bridge from the mainland side.

View from the resort looking West. The resort is high above the lake and those mountains in the background are in California. The dividing line between California and Arizona is in the middle of the lake.

Same view, just a little further away.

View with the lake in the background. It looks hazy but its dust being picked up by the wind.



We took a drive around the island and walked down to the beach of lake Havasu. Those waves were about two feet high because it was so windy.


We went out for dinner again tonight. The restaurant we went to yesterday makes wood-fired pizza and we just had to try it. We asked for the wheat dough and it was great. Spent the evening watching TV. I have to get back to reading my book. I haven't read since we left B.C. I'm reading "World Without End" by Ken Follett which is the sequel to "The Pillars of the Earth". Both are great reads if you like the 13th & 14th centuries.

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.

The temperature is going up

We left Redding at about 7:45 am and got back on I-5. We stopped for propane and to eat lunch at a Flying J Truck Stop near Stockton. Just before leaving David changed into shorts. Yes, it's starting to feel warmer and it's really nice! I think the temperature was up to 70F. We actually had sunny blue skies for most of the day. At Stockton we crossed over to highway 99 towards Bakersfield where we have stopped for the night. The RV park is called Orange Grove RV Park and it's full of orange trees. It feels like you are in an orange grove which it probably was before it was an RV park. We can't pick the oranges yet because they are not ready. But if we were here between December and April, we would be permitted to pick some oranges. You can only pick what you can immediately eat. The sites are really nice. They are very wide and much longer than what you usually get at other parks.

We arrived at the Park around 5:00 pm and it was already getting dark. I made supper while David got the satellite dish up so we could watch 'So you think you dance Canada' and later the Country Music Awards. Then we called it a night. We drove 447 miles today.

Here we are with orange trees on either side of the motorhome.



Another view of our site




See all the orange trees on either side of the road.

Heading to California

We got on the road at about 7:45 am with light rain falling and the rain continued on and off throughout the day. We spent most of the day going up or down steep mountain grades. Between the low clouds, the mountains and at one point some fog, there wasn't much to see. That was unfortunate because I'm sure we missed some nice views. I was just glad there wasn't any snow yet because tire chains would have been required and we don't have any. As we left the mountains behind, the rain finally stopped although it remained cloudy. We arrived at JGW RV Park in Redding, California around 2:00 pm. This is a nice park just like the last two nights with paved roads and sites. We needed a few groceries so we unhooked the car and went looking for a Wal Mart. Very easy to find with our GPS and there was one just three kilometers away. We stopped at a car wash to wash the grime off the car, then drove back to the RV park. Today was a short driving day. We drove 227 miles.

David took this picture of young David and me when we took him to the Vancouver Zoo in October. We were going for a train ride.

A day closer to warmer weather, we hope.

We awoke to more rain and were on the road by 8:00 am. Pretty uneventful day other than a slow down due to an accident around 10:00 am. It took about half an hour to go a couple of miles just to get past the accident. And we went around Portland so traffic was good. So far, the I-5 has been a pretty busy freeway but the road is nice. We haven't hit any rough spots. The sun tried to peek out a few times but the clouds always won the fight.

We are staying at the Seven Feathers RV Resort in Canyonville, Oregon. It's a great resort, again with paved roads and sites. It's about 1/2 mile from the Seven Feathers Casino & Resort. They have a free shuttle running between the two so we went to the Casino to have dinner. I'm not a fan of casinos because I don't gamble and I don't like the smell of smoke. So we came right back to the motorhome after. We drove 260 miles today.

The following photos were taken back in August from the deck of the Golden Ears Bridge which is under construction. It crosses the Fraser River between Langley and Maple Ridge in BC and is due to be completed June 2009. Leah works for the company building the bridge and had permission to take us up on deck.

See that scaffolding (on the left) along the side. Those are the steps we climbed to get up on deck.

David & Leah up on deck. We were on section 2 if I remember correctly and looking towards Maple Ridge.

This is the view looking towards Langley.

Back on the road again...

We got on the road around 9:30 am after saying our final goodbyes to Adam, Leah and the boys. They came out to the campground to see us off. It was especially hard to say goodbye as we won't see them for at least another year. It's been raining here for the past 4-5 days and we are hoping to drive out of this rain. We crossed the border at Abbottsford/Sumas. It took about 30 minutes to get through; the customs officer for our line was letting through one car to the four cars going through in the other line!! Otherwise no problems to get across and away we went. It was a pretty uneventful day except for some rain. As it was Sunday, the traffic going through Seattle wasn't bad and we drove through without a problem. Our first stop was Brookhollow RV Park in Kelso, Washington which is a very nice campground. The sites and roads are paved, there's a nice patch of lawn between each site and only a few trees. That's how we like our campgrounds. We drove 256 miles today.

Our grandsons David and Dylan (he's 4 weeks old now). Real cuties!!