Saturday

W e were up and around at usual time, however, this would not be a day for our usual activities. The day had come for us to return to our home in California. I walked around the campground to get a few pictures of our camping area.

Our neighbors have left already

I found Tom talking to his neighbor. The man owns the very friendly female Australian Shepherd dog. She would come over to me and press against my leg. She enjoyed getting her back scratched so much that I usually would give up before she would. When I would quit scratching the dog she would run, barking excitedly, back to her owner.

A very friendly and happy dog

When Tom finished talking to his neighbor he and I took a short walk into the desert. We talked about the rocks we saw along the way. This spurred talk about rocks we've seen during the week on our forays out into the flea markets. After the rain during the night, Tom and I saw beautiful vistas, cloud formations and even snow-capped mountains. Some of the clouds hung low over a distant valley obscuring part of the view of a few mountains. All in all it was another way for the desert to show off a different kind of beauty.

The view from our campsite after a night of rain

When we returned to camp, it was time for Kay and me to leave for home. Fortunately there wasn't much for me to do to get ready. I took the motorhome off of the leveling blocks and rolled up the door mat. With that it was time for us to say "Good-bye" to our hosts, Tom and Nora. They had shown us a very good time during our stay in the desert. Kay and I both found that we were already looking forward to coming back to Quartzsite some day.

We are ready to get on the road — Photo by Nora

The beginning of a day on the road — Photo by Nora

As we drove out of the campground Nora took a picture of us leaving. We left the campground at 9:15 local time or 8:15 Pacific Time. It wasn't very long until we were out on the Interstate. I was very glad I had filled the fuel tank earlier in the week as there was a line of vehicles waiting at the gas station. It was nice to be able to drive right by without having to join the waiting cars.

As we headed toward California it rained mud. We were still a few miles from the state line when our motorhome was coated with a layer of wet Arizona dirt. We've had this happen on other trips when the wind would stir up a cloud of dust just before it rained. I didn't see the dust this time, but the mud did fall from the sky for a short time. It was all over before reaching California.

Very light traffic as we head out into the California desert

We stopped in Blythe, California for a road food breakfast. I had a breakfast sandwich so we didn't have to spend a lot of time on breakfast. I was able to eat while I drove out into the desert on I-10. We were presented with interesting cloud formations produced by the rainy weather.

A fancy RV campground with a lot of palm trees

This route always impresses me with the large quantity of palm trees. It seems as if the cities of Indio and Palm Springs have most of the palm trees along this part of I-10. I noticed that there seemed to be more wind powered generators than the last time we came this way.

Wind generators near Palm Springs

Our original plan was to bypass the traffic across the northern Los Angeles basin area by going up to Mojave, then over the Tehachapi Pass to Bakersfield. We decided to use plan "B" after hearing on the radio that there were six inches of snow on the ground and the roadway was slick. I stayed on I-10 with the plan to go home via the Grapevine.

Traffic continued to be relatively light, so our route wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. We found a familiar place for lunch. We stopped at the Park and Ride parking lot at the Fairplex exit where Kay fixed our midday meal. I enjoyed the chance to get out of the driver's seat and relax for a while.

The small amount of traffic continued to make the driving easy. The route we took looked very familiar as we had been this way less than a year ago. In what seemed like a short time we made the transition from I-210 to I-5. The motorhome was now beginning the long climb over the Grapevine.

On the north end of the Grapevine the surrounding mountains were dusted with snow. There were low hanging clouds that rolled over the mountains very much like what we see in the San Francisco Bay Area. As we progressed north, the clouds bridged the space between the mountain tops. We didn't know it this morning, but at the time we were leaving Quartzsite the Grapevine was closed due to ice and snow.

It looks as if it is cold out there

This was in tremendous contrast to the weather we had once we reached the other side of the Grapevine. At the bottom of the slope where northbound I-5 flattens out, in the big valley, the weather was mostly sunny with only a few distant clouds.

An easy drive is ahead of us

At this point I was able to put the motorhome in cruise-control and I didn't have to turn it off until time to refuel the motorhome. The drive on I-5 was a very routine trek. Shortly after refueling we began to feel the hungries coming on. As luck would have it there wasn't much of a choice of places to eat at this time.

We finally pulled off the freeway in Morgan Hill to dine at one of our favorite ground beef palaces. After dinner is was a very short drive the remainder of the way home. We pulled into our driveway at 8:20, just 12 hours and 5 minutes from the time we drove away from Tom and Nora in Quartzsite. It was the completion of another really great RV Fun Trip.

A layer of dried Arizona mud on rear window of our RV

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