May 14th – we have visited California at least once every year of the 6 years we have lived in Arizona. The destinations are Salinas for business and friends, San Jose for son Brian and his family and the Sacramento area for son Mark and his family. We have tried several routes there and back, especially since we bought the GMC motorhome. With the cost of gas the way it is we spend about 60 cents per mile for gas and the round trip to the farthest point and back is more than 2000 miles. If we add detours it goes up from there. We want to make the best use of our fuel dollars and see some things we haven’t seen before and spend some time at some of our favorite places from the past. This year is no exception.
Our Pismo Beach, Avila Beach, and Morro Bay stop is one of our favorites. We have some good friends in the San Diego area and would love to visit them on the same trip but getting to the other side of Los Angeles from up North is prohibitive. Also, we get to be in a hurry to get home by this time in the trip – especially since we have lots to do there and it is having some of the best weather of the year.
Our compromise is to head travel some new roads. Today we left Pismo Beach and headed South on US101 to the Ventura area and then headed East on California route 118 through Simi Valley – our first time on that road and we liked it. Not a lot to see but lack of traffic problems is always good – lack of RV problems is also good and Barbie is really behaving. The cruise control works great (except for some drop-outs on hills to be investigated) and the starter still amazes me. State route 118 connects to I-210 which, except for Pasadena, skirts most of the traffic around LA.
We got to the Spotlight 29 Casino in Indio before 4pm with no problems. We stayed here in January with the other folks going to the FMCA rally just down the street. They don’t mind us being here and it is busy enough to feel safe with a dedicated RV lot – dry camping of course and we now have our own WiFi connection. Life is good.
