We departed Catalina Spa and RV Resort in Desert Hot Springs, California, and headed to a couple of weeks at Orangeland RV Park in Orange, California — conveniently located about 10 minutes from Disneyland. Yep, we spent five days at the Disneyland and Disney California Adventure parks! You can bet there will be posts about those coming up soon.

Here’s the route map (right to left); 100 miles, about three hours drive in our coach. A non-stop drive, since California apparently doesn’t believe in rest areas (or road maintenance):

Paladin started on top of the kitchen counter; he complained a few times, but was quiet for most of the journey:

As always, Jenn drove our coach. She prefers to drive, and doesn’t enjoy being a passenger, and I feel the opposite, so that works out best for both of us:

It’s much more common for men to drive RVs than women, so people are sometimes surprised when they learn she is the driver. She’s a member of a Tiffin Lady Drivers Facebook group (with 824 members), for female drivers of Tiffin motorhomes.

The onramp to the I-10 freeway, with a snow-tipped mountain and wind turbines in the background:

Paladin used his top-entry litter box while in transit:

One area attraction we didn’t get to, but will in the future, are some big dinosaurs:

I have a phone holder to help me keep an eye on one of the RV-safe GPS apps; I have it mounted via a suction cup to a plate on the pull-out desk for the passenger chair (on which rests one of Paladin’s cardboard nests):

The shortest route, via CA-60, was closed for repairs, so we continued on I-10:

More freeway scenes:

Nearing our destination:

The entrance of Orangeland RV Park:

After unhooking our truck, I drove it following our coach to our site:

As usual, I’ll have a post about our experiences at this RV park after we’ve left it. And a timelapse video of the trip tomorrow. I still need more subscribers to the Sinclair Trails channel, so if you haven’t yet, please do so.

Three days later, we picked up our coach from NIRVC in Phoenix, Arizona, then headed back into California, to Desert Hot Springs.

NIRVC successfully fixed the driver chair power issue, fixed the slide-out glide block issue, and serviced the slides. They didn’t get to the remainder of the (lower priority) items on my list, so hopefully we’ll get those taken care of when we visit them again in March — I had already made that appointment in anticipation of needing more time, plus generally like to schedule service appointments every few months, just in case, since things inevitably break, and there’s regular servicing needed.

I admit, I had high hopes for NIRVC, based on their excellent reputation, so was a bit disappointed that they didn’t get much done. But they only had a short time, and they’ll have another chance to impress me soon.

Here’s the map route for this travel day (going from right to left); 262 miles, about six hours drive in our coach. A bit longer than we prefer, but we didn’t want to add another interim stop:

Our coach at NIRVC:

Heading west out of Phoenix:

We were passed by three of these oversize loads (going rather fast):

Paladin still wasn’t pleased with travel, but not too bad this time, perhaps because it was only a few days after the last time:

Lots of trucks on the freeway:

Funky mountains:

Goodbye cacti; fewer and fewer as we head west:

We stopped at Love’s in Quartzsite for diesel; it was pretty busy, and some trucks were being inconsiderate in blocking the exit, resulting in some honking by other truckers. It’s the last fuel stop before the California border; diesel was about $1 more across the border:

While waiting for trucks ahead of us, I snuggled with Paladin; here’s a view of the coach in travel mode, with the slides in and the GPS mirrored to the overhead TV:

More of Paladin:

Back on the road, crossing into California:

A stop at the agricultural inspection station:

They didn’t actually ask us if we had anything this time. We were wondering if they’d object to the little cacti we bought in Arizona.

Welcome to California sign:

Heading down the freeway:

Paladin looking relaxed at a rest stop:

Downhill:

The overpass bridges around the desert cities have nice decorations:

Snow-capped mountains; pretty sure there wasn’t any snow when we were here a month ago:

The highway nearing our destination:

A cell tower nicely disguised as a palm tree:

Our destination for 17 days: Catalina Spa and RV Resort:

Stay tuned for a timelapse video tomorrow. If you haven’t watched them before, they’re a fun compressed view of our journey; watch a few hours of travel in mere minutes. With music! If they aren’t fast enough, you can also tell YouTube to play at 2x speed, or jump ahead, though you may miss interesting sights. Or slow them down if too fast.

I enjoy making the videos; I hope you enjoy watching them. And everyone please do subscribe to the Sinclair Trails YouTube channel; I need a bunch more subscribers to be able to get a nicer URL.

We departed Indio, California and headed to Gila Bend, Arizona. Another new state in our RV journey (we’ve been there before, but not driving).

Here’s the map route; 252 miles, a four or so hour drive in our coach. (That marker in the middle is where we’ll be spending the holidays.)

The first step for a travel day is to load up the truck bed with the outdoor stuff; it’s quite full, with chairs, rug, griddle, fire pit, propane tank, cleaning equipment, and other stuff. But great to have that extra storage:

Hills and part of the Colorado River aquaduct:

Paladin:

Being passed by another RV:

Date palm trees:

Arizona state line sign:

Welcome to Arizona sign:

Arizona centennial sign:

Quartzsite and Phoenix sign:

One of the first sightings of cacti:

Love’s fuel stop:

Yes, that top number is dollars; $295 for almost 69 gallons of diesel (nice)… less than half our tank capacity (150 gallons). Though we get a discount off that via our fuel card:

Desert:

Paladin:

Sitting in his box on the counter:

More cacti:

Stay tuned tomorrow for a timelapse dashcam video (with music!).

We departed the Orange Grove RV Park in Bakersfield, California, and headed to Indio, California (near Palm Springs).

Here’s the map route; a six hour drive in our coach. The default route was down CA-395 to I-15, but when examining the route, I saw very heavy traffic just before I-15 reached CA-138, so we decided to take a different route to bypass the worst of that:

It was very foggy in the hills after Bakersfield:

But soon cleared up:

Paladin sat on the kitchen counter again most of the time, except a few times when he came forward to say how he didn’t enjoy travel days:

Hills and wind turbines:

Flat desert highway:

Not so flat desert road, with lots of dips, plus Joshua trees:

Interesting rock formations:

The aforementioned heavy traffic on I-15 after merging from CA-138; we missed the worst of it:

Hills:

More wind turbines; going for quantity rather than size:

Out destination, the Shadow Hills RV Resort entrance:

Stay tuned for a timelapse video of this drive, with music!

We departed Thousand Trails San Benito Preserve, and headed to Bakersfield, California.

The map route; a six hour drive in our coach:

Heading into the hills along the CA-152 freeway:

We followed a couple of car carriers transporting Teslas through the pass:

Another couple of views of the very empty San Luis Reservoir:

A stop at Love’s for some diesel and DEF (and cleaning the windshield!):

Paladin spent most of the trip on the kitchen counter:

He seemed more relaxed about it than previous trips:

A rest stop between two other RVs:

A nice thing about a motorhome is we can easily make lunch (and use the bathroom) while at a rest stop:

I put Paladin’s dash bed on the kitchen counter, so he’d have a more comfortable place to sit; he seemed to appreciate that:

The I-5 freeway was primarily populated by big rigs:

Bakersfield city limit:

The Orange Grove RV Park campground entrance:

Stay tuned for a timelapse video of the journey today (with music this time!), and a tour of the campground tomorrow.