We’ve arrived in Yuma to high heat and monsoon torrential rain and lightning to accompany all of our packing and moving chores; certainly not the best of circumstances. Our speed run through California on our return trip was a sad series of goodbyes, starting off of course, with Mom.
Our next stop was in Weed, near Mt. Shasta, to meet up with Marc’s sister Peggy in an exchange of goodbye and some gifts. The day was beautiful but we started to hit high winds in this portion of our trip.
After a stay in a nondescript RV park in Colusa, we left early on Monday to meet up with a couple of Marc’s friends since high school, Bill and Mike. They live higher up in the foothills but were gracious enough to make the drive to a truck stop off I-80 so we didn’t have to drag the wagon off course. In the course of conversation, I managed to sell our little Nomad fifth wheel to Bill, whose girlfriend has a truck large enough to pull it. He’s getting a steal at just $1500, but we need to get rid of it so it’s a win-win for everyone. Since Marc has to fly out and return to Yuma for another load, the two will meet up at that time and Marc will set Bill up with our extra Reese fifth wheel hitch and Bill can help Marc do some heavy lifting and packing; another win-win!
The second night we made it to Lemoore for a street side stay beside my best friend’s house, where we were graciously treated to a pizza dinner. Since we couldn’t open the slides beyond about 8 inches each, that involved a dangerous dance of negotiating around all the stuff we had packed from our Bend storage. Paulette’s neighbor graciously said our generator didn’t bother them, so we let it run all night long so we could have air conditioning as the temps were hot and humid. And yes, I was feeling as tired as I look in this goodbye picture!
Marc’s new company decided that it would be better for them if he can start as soon as possible and take a break more around the holidays to return to Yuma for our second trip to get more of our stuff so we have been working flat out to totally get the park model packed, even though much of it will be left behind at this point. My car is stuffed, the RV is stuffed, and we will raid it of its contents and furniture on the other end when we find a rental in Wisconsin. It won’t make for the most comfortable or relaxing cross-country journey but it was the best that we could figure out to pack along the most amount of stuff. Rather than cardboard boxes, we opted for large stacking plastic storage totes from WalMart so it has been a major investment in packing material but well worth it.
We expect today to be it, after a trip to say some goodbyes here with those we have worked with at Helping Hands, where we are donating an entire load, and then Marc will also be making a dump run with throwaways. I will finish packing the park model, work in a quick grocery run and fuel my car and we should be set to leave sometime tomorrow, figuring around a five day trip. Marc weighed on the scales in Oregon and the rig tipped a little over 42,000 pounds and we have probably added another 500 pounds since so we’ll be a slow road train headed east. It’s a good thing he put on those new heavy duty axles and tires a couple years ago!
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