SamCraig

10th July, 2009. Going Home What a day (a very long one at that), up early, out to Riverside in Los Angeles to pick up the RV (had been at Richardsons Service Dept for a few warranty fixes), then back into the city to drop the RV off at the shippers, bit more to it than that as we had to secure everything for shipment, including removing the microwave and electrical appliances as USA voltage is 110 compared to our 240. Gifted the appliances to the people at the shippers and finally headed off to the airport at 3pm. LAX airport is just like all others, a great place to spend some time (like 5 minutes), we were there for 8 hours, amused ourselves reading and sitting on our butts. All aboard at 11pm and lift ... read more

9th July, 2009. Buena Park, Los Angeles. Woke up tired and sore this morning after the worst nights sleep we have had since we moved into the RV, and we were staying in a motel. RV builders put in the cheapest queen mattress they can find which is also 6 inches shorter. We went out and purchased a memory topper pad before we went into the RV, one of our best purchases - has provided us with comfort and great sleep. We were going off to California Adventure Park (an addition to the Disneyland area), decided to have a look at it on the webb - the write ups were not great so we pulled the pin. Went over to a market which is similar to Paddys market in Sydney, lots of stuff in the 300 ... read more

7th July, 2009. Banning, Los Angeles. Had to get up early this morning, a 69 mile drive to meet a fellow New Zealander (Grant, the guy with the funny car), he kindly made himself available as a postal address for us while we were over here - to enable Government agencies to send out Rego etc. He is over in Orange County so tried to avoid peak hour traffic (didn't work), the highway system is amazing over here and I was able to cover the 69 miles in about an hour and a quarter, Each side of the highway had up to seven lanes, and mostly I was getting along at 65 mph. Grant is off up to Denver for the weekend, he is racing his own car and will be doing two qualifiers and four ... read more

5th July, 2009. Trip to Mojave, California Up and away again, not many of those to go now, down through Tulare, Pixy, Delano, and Bakersfield where we got off HW99. onto HW202 then up the Tehachapi Mountains, through Tehachapi and onto Mojave. Mojave is in a huge desert basin and of course in the Mojave Desert. Over the top of the Mountains and the first thing was how barren it was, only little stick trees and the Joshua Trees growing, the rest looks like it died years ago. We stopped at the Sierra RV park which was pretty good, the wind blew up in the afternoon, apparently that is common up there. Into Mojave for a drive, quite noticable was the lack of greenery and the amount of rubbish lying around, plus the number of Fast ... read more

3rd July, 2009. Visalia, California. Off out to Tulare this morning, approx 12 miles down the road and another 57,000 people (some cities are really close here, Fresno has 900,000 people and is 40 miles up the road). Looking for something particular as its Independence Day sales, found, purchased and stored ready for the trip home, that wasn't hard, Anyway were going to do a round trip of two other country towns but at midday when we walked out into the 96F heatwave we decided to go back to the RV park for a swim. The Fireworks sales places aren't doing a roaring trade but we saw one place today selling fireworks manned by none other than the Fire Brigade, they were raising funds, bit different back home with the Fire Service dead against Fireworks. I'll ... read more

1st July, 2009. Visalia, California. Well, big effort this morning, we drove 40 miles down the road to Visalia, a town of about 120,000 and center of a big fruit growing and farming area. Californian Raisins are grown and processed nearby. More importantly to us it is close to Sequoia, and Kings national parks, Sequoia is the home of the giant Sequoia Trees which we plan to visit tomorrow. Today we booked into the local KOA (Kampgrounds of America), we have been booked in here for a while, this weekend is American Independence day (4th July) and most campgrounds get booked out, Friday is an official holiday so long weekend. Lots of Independence Day red/white and blue for sale in the shops and also now being decorated on homes, RV's and businesses. The people are pretty ... read more