SW Road Trip Update #1…

Howdy all…

Sorry for the delay…we are on Day 7 of our trip and I haven’t been able to update everyone because of a (I know this is hard to believe) Windows Update problem. We attempted a Windows update over WiFi, and in the middle of it, received a message saying the update could not be completed, so “they” were returning our computer to its previous state. This process stopped in the middle and shut everything down. When we went to reboot, message came up saying that there were no bootable drives found on our computer.

Anyway, after researching the problem on my iPhone, I found a solution that worked so we are back in business, for the time being, at least.

Most of the first week was dedicated to putting in some miles to get to the places we haven’t been before. First night was in Sutherlin, OR, (uneventful except for the laptop fail) then night #2 in Lakehead (Lake Shasta), CA. We stopped in Red Bluff to have breakfast with Jane’s brother Chip and his wife KK before heading to Atwater, CA, to spend a night at the Castle Air Museum RV Park. They have about 70 planes displayed outside there, which we planned on touring the next morning. Unfortunately, I had an inner ear problem, which made me so dizzy I threw up several times, so we missed it. Anyway, I took a couple of Benadryl, and we were able to get to Bakersfield to have dinner and a visit with our niece Andrea and her beau Jarrod. We traveled 950 miles in the first four days. Day five took us to Death Valley National Park.

Death Valley really earned its name. We did see some of the sights (Scotty’s Castle was closed), but suffered through an unbearable spring heatwave of consecutive 100+ degree days. Our RV refer shut down completely because of the heat and we lost a bunch of food. We tried to save it by making a temporary ice chest out of our big Rubbermaid firewood container and some wet towels, which worked OK, but the ice at the “General Store” (the pro shop at the nearby golf course) was five bucks a bag, so it was pricey to keep stuff cool. Our thermometer inside the trailer read 99 degrees for most of our last evening there. I realized that it only could read that high; it only shows the two digits. We didn’t sleep very well that night. By morning it had cooled to 85 degrees. We also got hit with a rock on the road to Badwater Basin and ended up with chipped windshield.

Death Valley…beautifully miserable.

Yesterday we made it to Zion River RV Park in Virgin, Utah and took a great tour of Zion National Park and the Zion Canyon today, which is really something to see. And, the refrigerator has completely recovered and is operating properly. I’m thinking we got any possible problems on this trip out of the way in the first week, and we can look forward to smooth sailing the rest of the way! Thanks for your attention and don’t forget to sign up to the blog on the home page to get notices of updates. My next chore is to get pictures off of our various devices and on to the laptop so I can post them here.

Tomorrow we had to Grand Canyon National Park at the South Rim. The weather there will range from 50 degrees high to 20 degrees low the next three days.

Countdown To Rubottom…ten days!