Blogs from Bakersfield, California, United States, North America - page 4

The camping trip is upon up us, we leave this afternoon and hopefully not hours later than planned, us being Dale and I plus 3 granddaughters and the daughter of our Belgium friend. Our grandson doesn’t want to drive up with us and we are a little bit disappointed but also a little relieved. He fights with each of the girls in no particular order, mostly just words; pick, pick, pick. We went up to our youngest son’s on Saturday for our granddaughter’s birthday party but just made it a turnaround trip. We told them we just knew something would go wrong if we stayed overnight. And since Dale worked Monday and today we could be in trouble with leaving by 2 p.m. On Sunday Dale stayed home to ready the RV while I took two ... read more

Homeward leg of our travels in the USA. An early breakfast this morning, 6-30am, to leave our cabins in Tropic at 7.am for Bakersfield some 500 miles away. The cabins seem to be on a farm as there are animals the other side of reception to us, just before the off this morning I stood a while watching two small kittens playing in the early morning cool. It was about 56F but Tropic is at altitude of 6,309ft above sea level. We have now realised that whilst doing all these Canyons we have rarely been below 5,000ft. A long journey some 8 hours of driving mostly across desert on roads that always seemed to stretch to the horizon. Unlike England the drivers here rarely exceed the speed limit by more than a few miles an hour ... read more

Friday morning we left Cattail Cove SP and drove into Lake Havasu City to an rv dealer, where we bought a new grease hub cover (or whatever) for the camper. Then on to California. We drove through many miles of Mojave Desert to Barstow on I-40, then Hwy 58 over the Tehachapi Mountains and into Bakersfield. We had an appointment with an rv dealer in Bakersfield to fix an electrical problem that showed up the night before. There the service manager recommended we just get a new gfi outlet at Walmart or Home Depot and change it out ourselves. This was without looking at the camper, just his assumption that that was the problem. Turns out it wasn’t, but that wasn’t evident until Saturday, when Kerry changed it out. Luckily his cousins, Jim and Jerry, are ... read more

My husband, Dale, and I have been completely immersed in all things “Downton Abbey”. He was still working last year when Season 1 aired so I watched it alone, hooked. Just before Season 2 started in January our Public Television station aired season 1 and I insisted that he watch. After a few minutes he was hooked as well. So on nearly all of our Sunday evenings for some time now, we could be found in front of out telly! We’d cry at the sad parts and tell the characters what they needed to do. Then we started watching the episodes of Season 1 on Netflix during the week. We are amazed at what we missed the first round. When we sat down for Season 2 Episode 6 we decided to have champagne while we watched. ... read more

Finally, we are on the road! 3 little kids in car seats in the back seat of our truck, 2 adults and 2 big kids in the RV. We gave the 2 big kids Dale’s laptop and Justin brought his, so they will use the hotspot card we have and be online until we lose our signal, an hour or so up I-5. I have a hotspot in my phone so we have that here in the truck for my laptop. Getting ready was such a chore, had a bunch of laundry to do and kids had made shambles out of the house. I did get bathrooms cleaned, sheets changes and with my grandkids help we cleaned the rest of the house plus washed the kitchen floor to avoid the ants. As usual, the only way ... read more