Travel from Corning to San Jose

We departed Heritage RV Park in Corning, California, and headed down to San Jose, to Coyote Valley RV Resort, a bit south of the city.

Here’s a map of our route for this leg; a 5 hour drive in our coach:

Map route

Nice rolling green hills:

Hills

Not so nice heavy traffic through Vacaville:

Traffic

More hills:

Hills

680 Benicia-Martinez bridge:

Bridge

Super scenic industry:

Industry

Nice of California to name a freeway after us — the Sinclair Freeway:

Sinclair Freeway

Paladin peeking; still not super happy about travel days, but getting a little more used to them, I think:

Paladin

The 680 freeway south of Pleasanton was anything but pleasant; the road surface was in horrible condition, making the coach feel like it was going to shake apart:

Horrible road

Paladin came further forward than he had before (I kept a close eye on him, to make sure he didn’t go by the pedals at Jenn’s feet):

Paladin

Downtown San Jose off in the distance:

San Jose

Stay tuned tomorrow for a timelapse video of this journey.

Are you enjoying these posts? Let me know!

Short travel day to San Benito, CA

We departed Coyote Valley RV Resort near San Jose, California, and headed to Thousand Trails San Benito, California.

This was a short travel day, less than two hours.

Here’s a map of our route for this leg:

Route map

After zipping down the 101 freeway, it was time for some highway driving:

Highway driving

Highway driving

Paladin came up to see us:

Paladin

He had opinions about driving:

Paladin

On the step cover:

Paladin

I picked up Paladin, and held him on my lap for a minute, before he wanted to retreat:

David, Paladin, Jenn

More highway driving:

Highway driving

Highway driving

Then we turned onto a more narrow road:

Narrow road

Reaching the Thousand Trails campground entrance:

Thousand Trails entrance

Stay tuned tomorrow for a timelapse video of this journey, and pictures of the campground the following day.

Are you enjoying these posts? Let me know!

Travel from San Benito to Bakersfield, CA

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

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

Map route

Heading into the hills along the CA-152 freeway:

152 freeway

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

Transporting Teslas

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

San Luis Reservoir

San Luis Reservoir

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

Love's fuel stop

Paladin spent most of the trip on the kitchen counter:

Paladin

He seemed more relaxed about it than previous trips:

Paladin

A rest stop between two other RVs:

Rest stop

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

Making lunch

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:

Paladin

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

Trucks on freeway

Bakersfield city limit:

Bakersfield city limit

The Orange Grove RV Park campground entrance:

Campground entrance

Campground entrance

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

Travel from Bakersfield to Indio, CA

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:

Map route

It was very foggy in the hills after Bakersfield:

Fog

But soon cleared up:

Hills

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:

Paladin

Hills and wind turbines:

Hills and wind turbines

Hills and wind turbines

Flat desert highway:

Highway

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

Desert road with lots of dips, and Joshua trees

Interesting rock formations:

Interesting rock formations

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

Heavy traffic on I-15 after merging from CA-138

Hills:

Hills

More wind turbines; going for quantity rather than size:

Wind turbines

Out destination, the Shadow Hills RV Resort entrance:

Shadow Hills RV Resort entrance

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

Travel from Indio, CA to Gila Bend, AZ

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.)

Map route

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:

Truck bed

Hills and part of the Colorado River aquaduct:

Hills and aquaduct

Paladin:

Paladin

Paladin

Being passed by another RV:

RV

Date palm trees:

Date palm trees

Arizona state line sign:

Arizona state line

Welcome to Arizona sign:

Welcome to Arizona

Arizona centennial sign:

Arizona centennial

Quartzsite and Phoenix sign:

Quartzsite

One of the first sightings of cacti:

Cactus

Love’s fuel stop:

Love's fuel

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:

Love's fuel

Desert:

Desert

Paladin:

Paladin

Sitting in his box on the counter:

Paladin

More cacti:

Cactus

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

Travel from Phoenix to Salome, AZ

We departed Phoenix, Arizona and headed to Salome, Arizona. Our last coach drive of 2021.

Here’s the map route (going from right to left); 113 miles, a couple of hours drive in our coach:

Map route

Paladin wasn’t thrilled, as usual:

Paladin

We were passed by a Tiffin Phaeton coach, and fellow Oregonians too:

Phaeton RV

Some pics of the road, desert, and hills:

Road

Road

Road

A stop for lunch:

Lunch

Continuing down the road:

Road

Road

Road

Our destination until mid-January:

RV park

Stay tuned for a timelapse video!

2021 travel

Happy New Year! 🎉

As we begin 2022, let’s look back at our coach travel in 2021.

We bought our 2017 Tiffin Allegro Bus 40SP diesel pusher motorhome on September 2, 2021, and other than a few times when we’ve been out of it due to our Yellowstone trip and a couple of servicing appointments, we’ve lived in it full-time since then.

We’ve driven the coach about 2,300 miles in that time, on the west coast, from as far north as the Seattle area, and as far south as the Phoenix area (actually Gila Bend, not far north of Mexico). We’ve stayed in it in just four different states so far: Washington, Oregon, California, and Arizona.

Here’s the map of our coach travels and stays in 2021, via the excellent RV Trip Wizard website:

Map route

If we include our Yellowstone trip, staying in a rental trailer, we can add Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming to the list of states:

Map route

You can see all of the travel-related blog posts via the travel category, with the earliest posts at the top, or the latest posts at the top.

I thought it’d be interesting and useful to include a summary of travel days. I didn’t start blogging about them consistently at first, but over time settled into a pattern. Here are links to blog posts, and a sample picture of the view of each, so you can see how the landscape changed as we travelled in our coach.

Travel to Mom’s place in the Seattle region:

Driving

Driving to Southern Oregon:

Freeway

Video timelapse:

Into California:

Nice view

Video timelapse:

Travel day to San Jose:

Horrible road

Video timelapse:

To San Benito, CA:

Highway driving

Video timelapse:

To Bakersfield, CA:

Trucks on freeway

Video timelapse:

To Indio, CA:

Desert road with lots of dips, and Joshua trees

Video timelapse:

To Gila Bend, AZ:

Welcome to Arizona

Video timelapse:

And a timelapse to Phoenix:

To Salome, AZ:

Road

Video timelapse:

What’s in store for 2022?

We are looking forward to the Xscapers Bash in mid-January, then will head to Disneyland for Jenn’s birthday in February, to the coast, then back to Arizona, and the FMCA convention, then north into Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming to hit more National Parks. Then via Idaho into Oregon to visit doctors and dentists. After that, we’ll head north, then east, then south, heading towards Texas for next winter, as we slowly make our way across the country.

We already have reservations up till mid-June, but the rest of the year is subject to change.

Here’s the current route and stop map for 2022; starting from the Phoenix area, heading to the coast, then going basically clockwise:

2022 route

Still a lot more of the country to see, but we’re working our way across, with trips back to Portland each year. The maps for subsequent years will be similar to the 2022 one, but heading north from and ending up further east each time:

2022 route

2021 was an eventful year, what with the big transition from the homestead to coach. 2022 should be an interesting year, as we continue to explore. I hope you’ll enjoy following along via this blog.

Travel from Salome to Lake Havasu City, AZ

We departed Salome, Arizona and headed to Lake Havasu City, Arizona, for the Xscapers Annual Bash. Our first coach drive of 2022.

Here’s the route map; just 83 miles, a couple of hours drive north in our coach:

Map route

Heading down the highway to Quartzsite:

Highway

Love’s fuel stop:

Love's fuel stop

We weighed our coach and truck again at a CAT Scale at Love’s:

CAT Scale

The weight was up a bit, in part due to adding more stuff, in part due to having a full tank of water, in preparation for dry camping at the Xscapers Bash. But still within acceptable tolerances:

CAT Scale report

Paladin wasn’t enjoying the trip, as usual:

Paladin

Heading north on the highway:

Highway

Highway

Highway

Highway

Highway

Highway

Road to park

Entrance to the bash:

Bash entrance

Sold out:

Entrance

Another Tiffin:

Another Tiffin

Paladin settled down:

Paladin

Backing in to our spot:

Backing in

We arrived a few days early, as Jenn is volunteering in the mail room. So there’s lots of empty space now, which will be filling in as everyone else arrives today:

Empty space

Our truck and coach in our spot:

Truck and RV

If you’re at the Xscapers Bash and see us, feel free to say hi. We’re introverts, and this is our first time at a rally, but we’re looking forward to it:

Xscapers stickers and badges

Stay tuned tomorrow for the timelapse video of our journey.

Travel from Lake Havasu City to Buckeye, AZ

We departed the Xscapers Annual Bash near Lake Havasu City, Arizona, and headed to a one-night stay at Leaf Verde RV Resort near Buckeye, Arizona.

Here’s the route map (top to right); 165 miles, about four hours drive in our coach (including a lunch break):

Map route

A fairly familiar route, having been along I-10 a few times this winter.

But the trip had a bumpy start; we couldn’t bring in our front driver-side slide-out, or move the driver chair, due to a disconnected wire underneath the chair:

Disconnected wire

Disconnected wire

This stop was the first time we had rotated that chair around to face the living area, so we guess the wire didn’t have as much slack as it should, and got pulled out.

Obviously this is a big problem; we can’t drive with the slide out. The reason the slide was affected is the switch to extend or retract it is on the side of the chair, to help ensure the chair is forward enough to not get hit.

Fortunately there is an emergency retraction button in the fuse bay in the basement, so I was able to use that to bring in the slide:

Emergency rectraction

Also fortunately we had an appointment at the National Indoor RV Center in Phoenix the next day, so we only had to live with this issue for one day.

That issue worked around, we moved the coach to a clear space at the Xscapers Bash grounds to hook up our toad (tow vehicle); you can see our truck and the neighboring coach (nice folks, that we enjoyed meeting and chatting with):

Xscapers General section

Our coach, ready to hook up the truck:

RV

We’re on our way; a bridge over wetland:

Bridge over wetland

Wetland

Colorado River:

Colorado River

Colorado River

Hilly highway:

Hilly highway

Hilly highway

Our coach has an RV-safe GPS, that knows the height and other info about our rig, so it doesn’t route us places we can’t go (we also have a label above the GPS as a reminder for low bridges):

GPS

A fun and handy feature of the GPS is the ability to mirror the output to the (otherwise pretty useless) TV above the windshield — useful so I can see the GPS more easily (it just displays grayscale for some reason):

GPS on TV

TV and windscreen

In Parker, Arizona we encountered several VW buses, probably leaving a recent gathering of them at London Bridge in Lake Havasu City:

WV buses

Highway:

Highway

Quartzsite sign:

Quartzsite sign

I-10 freeway:

Highway

Mountains:

Mountains

Cacti:

Cacti

We would have liked to stop at the first rest area on the I-10 portion of the route, but it’s been closed for a while for renovations:

Closed rest area

So we continued to the next one, half an hour later:

Open rest area

Crackers, summer sausage, and cheeses for lunch:

Lunch

Paladin wasn’t thrilled when we started going, but settled down in one of his nests during lunch:

Paladin

When we got underway again, he was a little happier than earlier. We do hope he gets more used to travel days eventually:

Paladin

Our exit:

Exit

We had a one-night stay at Leaf Verde RV Resort; I won’t bother doing a separate post about it, since we basically just stopped there to dump our tanks after dry camping for over a week during the Bash, to catch up on laundry, and as a location fairly close to the National Indoor RV Center:

Leaf Verde RV Resort

The map:

Map

From the little we’ve seen of it, I wouldn’t call it a resort; while the transient campsites are mostly pull-through, they are fairly tight “buddy” sites, where pairs of RVs face opposite directions, and thus their doors face each other. Not very nice:

Campsite

Notice that we didn’t extend the front driver-side slide-out, since the switch wasn’t working:

Campsite

We didn’t bother unhooking our truck, since it’s just an overnight pitstop (an advantage of a pull-through site):

Campsite

A timelapse of this travel is coming tomorrow. Please subscribe to the Sinclair Trails YouTube channel; I need a bunch more subscribers to be able to get a nicer URL.