Wonderful Saturday

Today was a really great day. This morning we went to another RV show that was at a nearby stadium. They had a huge selection of trailers. We found one by Carriage that we just loved-until we saw the price tag. At $130K, I don't think that will be in our future for quite some time, especially since we'd need a Freightliner to tow it! It was fun to look anyway, and the kids never seem to get tired of looking at other "new houses".

After that our plan was to go to some trail heads with a picnic lunch and go on a hike. That plan was foiled for two reasons: first, there was no parking whatsoever available near the trails, and second, both kids fell asleep on the way. So instead, we drove back home, put the monitor in the truck, and opened the doors (so it wouldn't get hot) while Jeremy and I sat outside in our lawn chairs, under the awning, chatting and working on our computers. It was so nice! One of those times where we literally said it was hard to believe we're not on vacation. It feels like we're cheating somehow.

Once the kids woke up we played outside most of the day. I love having nice weather like this-low 70s, not too hot and not too cold, and a gorgeous sunny day.

Phoenix

Woohoo! We did actually make it to Phoenix. They were able to squeeze us into the shop on Saturday morning and get the springs for the suspension fixed, and it didn't cost nearly as much as we were originally afraid of, so that was good. We also feel like we dodged another bullet there because if we had driven much more with that, it was likely to be a far more extensive and expensive repair, if we didn't break the axle in the middle of driving.

The kids did really great on the drive over and we got to go to the RV show in Quartzsite, Arizona on the way. That was a fun stop. The highlight was definitely seeing these Mountain Masters trucks. It completely cured me of my class A envy. We saw a truck that was like a limo on the inside-huge, gorgeous, a 17" fold down DVD player, could fit 4 car seats across the backseat, about a million cupholders, and legroom galore. It even had heated/cooled seats and inmotion satellite TV. Tows a 5th wheel and probably, with some ingenuity, could also have a small car on the bed in front of the 5th wheel. The one we saw was over $100K, but now we know what we'd want if we had $250,000 to spend on an RV. One of those trucks and one of the $100K 2 bedroom Mobile Suites 5th wheels. Hey, we can dream, can't we?



Sunday evening we got into Phoenix and went over to my friend Jen's house. She has a boy, Spencer, the same age as Ian and another little boy who just turned 1. We were going to go bowling but the kids were having a great time in the playroom, so we just stayed there and ordered pizza. She and her husband are great people and we really enjoyed visiting with them. They're pretty busy people, but I'm hoping that we'll be able to get together several times over the next few weeks.

Yesterday we spent the day around the campground, just enjoying the beautiful (70 degrees!) weather. The kids rode bikes, drew with chalk, and learned to play croquet. Today we took a pile of meters & medicines from my Walgreens shopping over to Project CURE, who will be taking a lot of it to Haiti and sending some to other places in need of medical supplies. Then this afternoon we went to the Arizona Science Center. It's under a major construction project so there weren't too many exhibits, but the ones they had were very good quality and we all had a fun time.

The only thing we're not liking here is the internet connection. We're considering buying an external antenna since this is a very frequent problem. Hopefully that would help.

Bakersfield, the black hole

I feel like the last few weeks could have been a drama called "Escape from Bakersfield". It seems like we just cannot get out of here for anything. Brake controller troubles, waiting on the repair guy, kids sick, parents sick, lousy weather....it has just gone on and on.

We had been having trouble with the trailer brakes, so we put in a new brake controller in the truck. It indicated there was an intermittent short in the trailer wiring (which we had already guessed). So we took it to Camping World today to have them take a look. Good news: in about 10 minutes, the tech has the brake wire fixed. Bad news: while underneath, he noticed a few broken leaf springs in the suspension, which explained why the trailer had started bouncing on and rubbing the tires, and was close to breaking the propane pipe to the fridge. Good news: repair will cost less than we originally thought when we heard "suspension", "alignment", "tires", and a few other scary words. Bad news: can't be fixed until tomorrow.

So we're spending the night here in the Camping World parking lot. They have an electrical box out here for just such an occasion, so we'll be comfortable and I suppose we can count the free night of camping when we get our bill. Maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to escape the hold Bakersfield has on us. So far today, we made negative 8 miles of progress toward Phoenix. So even if we just stay put tomorrow we're doing better than today.

At least it's warm and it's mostly stopped raining.

Cabin Fever

Is in high gear around here. Between being sick for several days and having lousy weather, we've spent the better part of the last week inside. You may have seen this gigantic storm hitting the southwestern corner of the US. I guess in some ways it's only fair, since when we got here this was the one little bit of the country that wasn't below freezing and dealing with snow. At any rate, we're not in the worst of the weather. It's rained a lot, but nowhere near flooding. The worst is the winds-crazy steady winds of at least 20mph and gusts up to 60 they say. Glad we are in a big heavy 16000lb trailer, but even then it's rocking quite a bit.

The biggest challenge is that we're nestled in the San Joaquin Valley and there's no way to get out of here without going through snow right now. Tehachapi, 45 minutes east (and uphill) has 9" of snow. Flagstaff, AZ (where we were thinking of going!) is expecting 7 FEET of snow by the end of the day. South of here you have the grapevine pass on I-5 which is closing due to snow and 40mph winds. Can't really go west-just teeny weeny roads that go up through the other mountains. North of here we could avoid mountains, but it's colder and since we're trying to go to Phoenix next going west or north doesn't help a bit.

I'm beginning to wonder if we'll ever get out of Bakersfield. I mean, it's not a bad place, and it's one of our favorite RV parks. But Ian flips out when we go out in the wind and when it's raining we can't play outside, and there's only one museum here (been there 5 times now) and one mall (walked through; took us less than 10 minutes). I'm itching to get back to a more metro area, but who knows if the weather will clear for this weekend. We'd rather spend another week here in the wind than get stuck in some snowy mountain pass.

At least we'd still get donuts and oranges.

And now, here's a message from Ian:

IAN RINNAH MOMMY DADDY

Spoke too soon

Clearly, I spoke too soon about being on the mend. Yesterday Jeremy and I both were as sick as we've ever been since we've been married. It was awful. We couldn't keep anything down, had high fevers, and could barely even stand. Of course, the kids were feeling mostly recovered and lost interest in movies after about 7 minutes, so the day was pretty brutal. Thankfully, we woke up feeling significantly better today-still not back to normal, but definitely able to cope with the day.

Here's hoping that we can get out of here this weekend and get off to a fresh start in Phoenix.

On the mend

The last few days have been kind of long and rough around here. Thursday night, both kids were up back and forth for a few hours and then Ian started getting sick, and was up for a few more hours. Friday we were pretty exhausted and the kids were not feeling great, so we decided to not drive on to Arizona. We signed up for another week at this campground. Partly so we didn't have to drive with sick kids, partly so we didn't have to pack and move when we're exhausted, and partly so we could keep enjoying the fresh oranges and donuts. :)

Yesterday we thought they were doing better, so we went back to the Kern County museum. We've been there a few times now. The kids museum part is kind of small and wimpy, but they have all these old buildings set up like a little town from 100 years ago, and you can tour some of the houses. It's actually pretty neat and gives you a good idea of what life was like in Bakersfield during the oil booms. There's also a big exhibit on the oil discoveries around here, and we only found the biggest part of the exhibit on our 4th visit. There's a little boat/drilling simulator thing that Ian was pretty scared of (it bangs and shakes pretty loudly), and when I tried to take him on it he flipped out and we used the emergency stop button. Turns out that if you finish it, the door on the other side of the room opens to a whole other part of the building with all kinds of neat things. After that we explored a bit and did find a bypass door so Ian could see the rest.

Still having internet woes, but here's one shot of Jeremy and Rinnah I was able to upload.

From For ILP Blog

Just when we thought they were getting better, Rinnah was up getting sick several times last night, so only Jeremy and Ian got to go to church this morning. Makes me glad we decided to stay. I hope that by Friday, everybody's good to go and we can hit the road again. In the meantime, this is sure a nice place to stay.

This is the life

Today was wonderful. This is how we imagined our January days when we dreamed of our RV life. We got up this morning, walked over to the camp office for some free donuts, then came back home. We opened up some windows since it was already nice out (today's high was 75) and the kids played happily inside for a little while. Then we went out and spent the bulk of the morning exploring the campground, riding bikes, drawing with sidewalk chalk, and playing at the playground. The kids had a ball. For a snack, we sat at the picnic table outside the house and ate oranges picked fresh from the tree next to our house.

From For ILP Blog

In the afternoon, the kids didn't take naps, but still played happily. Ian is learning his letters (he can spell DOG and IAN on his alphabet toy) and Rinnah is trying to learn them too! We played grocery store together and had some relaxing time. When Jeremy was done with work, we piled the kids in the truck and went into town to visit the local museum. Rinnah slept for most of the visit, but Ian really enjoyed it.

After we came home and had dinner there was some screaming since they were pretty tired, but nothing like we've had recently. Now, it's 8:15 and they're both in bed.

Days like today make me so thankful we get to travel like this! It really felt like we were on vacation. I'm so glad we had a refreshing day today to regain some of our sanity back. Here's hoping tomorrow will be just as good!