We did it!!

We arrived in Salem, SD on Wednesday and went into Sioux Falls on Thursday to take care of the title for our truck and take a look at stuff at the storage unit. After looking at all the stuff (don't know what is in half of these boxes) we decided to empty out the storage unit, but had to find a campground closer to our stuff. So we went to the Sioux Falls Fairgrounds on Friday. They have nice and long full hookups back in lots and the planes stop flying over your head about 10 pm. It only took us a couple of days to empty the storage lot and store everything in the belly.

We are packed to the gills!! The good thing is that we don't have to pay for the storage space anymore, since we do have enough room in our coach house in Mission to store all this stuff. The bad thing is that the front of the rig is so heavy now that the airbags on the hitch don't hold up the trailer anymore, which means that the ride in the truck is much rougher. At least we are sort of on the way back to Mission. We going to check out a couple more trucks on the way south.

What a week it has been!!!

I don't even know where to start. We were in Reno and had planned to go on to Hawthorne on Monday, so I had the mail sent to Hawthorne. It is about 150 miles south of Reno and just to the east of Yosemite State Park, which was our next stop.

And then Doug saw a big truck on the Internet that caught his interest and we decided to go to Casper, WY to check it out. Now that was not at all on the way to the mail. So we decided to leave on Monday, me driving to Hawthorne first to pick up the mail and Doug hopping onto I-80 and we would meet up at a campground in Wells, NV. Doug had to drive about 359 miles and I would do 522 miles. Now it really does not sound like that much to do with the little car, however, as the hours were dragging on I realized just how many miles that really is. I am so glad that I was able to drive 80 m/h on I-80, otherwise it would have seemed to never end. By the time I got to the campground, Doug had already set up the rig and I was completely exhausted. I now know that my limit of per day driving is below 500 miles a day.

We went on the next morning and drove another 369 miles to Rock Springs, WY. The KOA was expensive and basically a gravel parking lot, but it would do for a night. After another 220 miles we arrived in Casper and found out that the campground we had booked for a week is also just gravel. Must be something that they do in Wyoming. Since we arrived early in the afternoon, Doug wanted to go check out the truck.

We were pleasantly surprised to see that the guy had lowered the price by $10,000 and made an appointment to have a VIS test done the next day and have Doug do some test driving. The VIS did not find any major problems and other than some driver error, the truck went pretty well. I was amazed sitting in the back that it really did not feel like we were driving 65 mph on I-25, but I was told that that is pretty normal. We looked the truck over some more and tried to talk to the college to see if they can do the dyno and chassis testing. The college declined our request and as more as I kept thinking about this big decision I realized that neither one of us was at all excited about this truck. Now I am not saying that there is anything wrong with the truck, I just believe it is not the truck for us. So we decided to pass on it.

There are other trucks out there that we can check out and it would have been also interesting trying to move three vehicles at the same time. We had found a tow dolly in town, but I have never towed before. I am sure I would figure out how to tow the car behind the F550, but for now the butterflies in my stomach have settled again. Our truck is pulling just fine and the only reason why we are starting to look into a "big" truck is that we have decided to give fulltiming a shot.

As much as we loved Oregon, there are no jobs up there and that will certainly delay our plans of settling down. Who knows, if we can find work to support ourselves during our travels, we might be doing this for a long time. I can't believe that next month it will be two years since we started this adventure and I am not regretting a minute of it. Our next stop will be Sioux Falls, SD, since I want to take another look at what is in storage and maybe try to clean the storage unit out and bring stuff down to Mission. I am really looking forward to getting my carpet steamer back, since our carpet could use a nice shampooing by now.

Lake Tahoe

What a beautiful lake it is!! It is soooo blue and clean, it took my breath away.


It was very busy in South Lake Tahoe and we did not see the gondola until late afternoon when it was to late to go up the mountain. So we decided to keep driving around the lake and come back another day. It was such a beautiful drive, but I am still surprised how many people were on the road.

We drove back on Friday to do the gondola ride. It was a little bit expensive, but well worth it.

We went all the way to the top of the mountain, which was a little bit more than 9500 feet and I am glad I had my sweater with me. It was a little bit cold, even though the sun was out and the haze from a couple of days ago had lifted. The views were just spectacular. There was even some ice still on a mountain a little further away.


It was another great day in our adventure through America!!

On the move again

We had a 250 mile drive ahead of us on Monday to get to Reno, NV. Leaving the valley on Route 20 was a small challenge, since they had construction, which meant one lane driving and we got stuck between 2 construction areas for about 45 minutes. That was not a good start to the day, but we finally made it to I-5 and went on our merry way. Everything went well through Sacramento and we switched to I-80 heading east. I knew that there was construction and in the beginning it really was not that bad. We moved through the construction areas without any major slowdowns and the truck pulled fine through the mountains.

We had about 70 miles left on I-80 when I saw the sign saying "no trucks over 9 feet wide". I really did not think much about it until we reached the cement barriers and I realized that we are 102 inches wide and they had said nothing over 108 inches wide. I can not describe how difficult it is to watch your home in front of you, when it is about 6 inches away from the cement barriers on each side. Doug called it the luge!! He knew about it, but chose not to tell me, which in hindsight was probably a good thing. It felt like the three mile stretch was never going to end, but Doug did a fantastic job of keeping the truck and rig in the center and never hit anything. It took my heart another 20 miles to finally settle back down!!

Sunday Night Racing

People who have been reading our blog for a while now know that we like to go to the different race tracks around the country to enjoy some good small town racing. So we decided to check out the race track in Ukiah, CA, which also had a 4H fair going on. It was a hot day and after checking out the carnival and 4H, we settled in our seats for a night of good racing. First they had a little show, where you could buy a ride on a monster truck. It sure looked interesting.

The evening continued with normal racing, which is always good fun, and then at 9 pm came the event that originally attracted us to this race track. In order to be in this particular race you have to have a vehicle and have to tow something. There were people towing boats, dollies with bikes on them, trailers and even a 5th wheel.

By the time everybody was on the track, they were stacked up in turn 4. It was incredible!! These guys were really racing hard and within a few minutes, there were parts of boats and trailers laying all over the raceway. It is a 30 lap race and whoever is still running at the end is eligible to win. Unfortunately, the inside of the track is dirt and it got so stirred up that it was hard to see anything after a few minutes. However, that did not stop the drivers from dodging between cars very fast.


The crowd was on their feet, there was carnage all over the race track and with two laps to go they had to stop the race, since there was a car in the backstretch on fire. This is what it looked like after all the dust settled.

The winner was decided by the applause of the fans and guess who won. It was the 5th wheel we had been cheering for the whole time!!

It was a great end to our stay in Nice, CA.

Change in Plans!

Well, we had planned on leaving Lakeport on Wednesday and move on to Reno in order to check out Lake Tahoe as well as the surrounding areas. Luckily I called the campground on Monday to check on rates. Come to find out, there is a big oldies car rally going on and the whole town as well as surrounding areas are completely booked out. We could have found one spot for a week for $371, which is way to much.

So we decided to hang here until Monday and check out a few more things in the area. Did you know that there is an Old Faithful Geyser in northern California? Well, it certainly does not compare to the one in Yellowstone, but it really was not that bad and ...



it goes off every 10 minutes, so we got to see it a few times.

Next, we went to check out some vineyards. The first one was a little bit of a disappointment, since we were not allowed inside, but the outside was pretty.

However, the next one turned out to be a castle and it was pretty cool.







We are getting a little bit bored at this point, but Monday will be here soon and we will move on.

City on the Bay

Thursday we went to San Francisco. We both have been there on different occasions for business, but never had time to check out the city. It was an interesting drive in to San Francisco and I was happy when we found a reasonable parking garage near Fisherman's Wharf. We saw Alcatraz from the distance and

I really tried to get a good picture of the Golden Gate Bridge, but it is amazing how the whole bay can be clear and this darn bridge is sitting in the fog.


Fisherman's Wharf was a zoo. I was amazed how many tourist were there, you sure can't tell here that there is a recession going on in this country.

Being in San Francisco you have to check out the Boudin sourdough factory and it was actually pretty interesting.

We decided to blow off the diet for a day and just enjoy the city and its foods. Since checking out the city by car was out of the question, we decided to take one of these double decker bus tours.

It was truly the best way to see San Francisco. From downtown to Union Square to China Town and so many more places, we did not know where to look first. It is very interesting how they have these beautiful old buildings right in between all the high risers.





We had a blast!!!