Nuestra casa rodante – Our Airstream, travels and such…

roger March 13th, 2013

We had another one of those 3-day weekends but this one was a bit different.  Roxie no longer has to work on Saturdays so she does not get every 5th Monday off.  This is good and bad.  So now we have to take 3-day weekends with everyone else, on a holiday.

This holiday happened to be President's Day so I looked for a place to stay.  Somewhere kind of close but not over any major hills.  One time when we were in Bakersfield for the weekend (without the trailer) we went by Lake Ming.  It was a county run (Kern Co) park and had RV spots (dry).  That was a possibility, it was on the river but they did not take reservations and I didn't know how busy they were.  With a bit more investigation, I found another park the Kern Co ran that has RV spots, full-hookups, on the water and took reservations.  It was the Buena Vista Aquatic Recreation Area.  It was between Bakersfield and Taft.

As we were packing and loading we found this:

The cat (Jewels) is ready to go!  If she is still alive when we start traveling we might have to take her with us.

Roxie took off a half day on Friday so we could get an 'earlyish' start and get there before dark.  There is no exactly straight road there.  The best bet is to go south (or actually south-east) on 99, head west at Delano and catch 43 to go south (south-east) again.  It was about 90 miles there.  I discovered one interesting fact at the expense of a few bees that were flying around from the numerous bee boxes by the blooming trees.  If I go 60mph (as I normally do with the trailer), the bees will smash on the windshield leaving their guts behind.  However, if I go 55mph it appears the bees just bounce off of the windshield.  What happens after that is unknown.

The spot we got was right on the water as advertised:

On Saturday we headed to Taft to see what was there.  We also had to get some things for the trailer that we did not transfer from the old one.  Taft is a cute little town.  At least it has a Kmart.  When we got back in the early afternoon the air was warm, the windows were open, it was quiet. 

What to do?  Take a nap naturally.  We don't normally nap but this felt very good.  We must have needed the rest since we slept about 3 hours.  We cooked a quick dinner and had a campfire.  Ah, the life.

Here is the sunset:

This lake is man made for boating and fishing.  There were a few boats.  One even came by each campsite and asked if anyone wanted to go wakeboarding.  They needed one more as the ranger told them they needed 3 in the boat.  It was fun to watch the boats and the wildlife all around.  Here is what we saw from our door one morning:

On our last evening there we thought we would go to another town close by.  Buttonwillow!  Well downtown Buttonwillow does not have much but when you go to the Buttonwillow exit on I5 there is a lot of places.  We thought we would try the Willow Ranch Restaurant.  It was pretty good given the slim pickings and we did not want to drive to Bakersfield.

Monday came too soon and it was time to head home.  We were just south of Tulare, doing about 60mph.  I saw brake lights come on about 1/4 mile ahead and a cloud of dust coming up.  We we pulled up we saw a minivan down in a corn field and all smashed up.  It left the roadway and rolled. There were 6 people in it.  Since Roxie is a nurse she is required to stop at an accident is there are no other emergency personnel there.  So we pulled over.  Almost immediately an off duty Tulare Co firefighter pulled up and helped out.  No one was seriously injured so all we pretty much did was comfort the people until the real help showed up.  You can see the van in the left side of this photo:

We made it home uneventfully.  Had to do the trailer dance to get the old one out of the way and the new one back in its' spot.  Here is how it looks at home:

It is kind of a tight fit and FUN to back in.  I will take a video of me parking it some day.

Our next planned trip is taking the trailer to Toscano's RV in Los Banos to get our problems with the trailer fixed (only 16 or so!).

• Airstream , New Airstream , Trips
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roger January 15th, 2013

Yes, another three day weekend trip thanks to Roxie's employer.  Since it was just after the 4th of July I thought where else should we go but to somewhere that would be HOT!  We had already done the cool areas, coast, mountains, etc.  Did I choose some exotic location?  Not really, we went to Stockton! 

I like to stay on the water, as you can see in the previous post.  But is there water in Stockton?  Sure is.  There is a canal that brings in largish ships to drop supplies.  They come in all the way from the ocean.

Previously the only stops in Stockton had been brief to refuel or relieve.  The one item that got me to try it out was a blog post from Aluminarium.  I loved that picture and got some reservations to the RiverPoint landing and off we went.

Here is my attempt at recreating their picture:

That is a JetSkier in the picture.

The daytime temperature there was mid to high 90's so we found things to do indoors.  HOWEVER, the evenings were wonderful.  The back of trailer has our bedroom in it so we would open up the windows on 3 sides and let the cool breezes just waft through the trailer.  Made the days worthwhile.

We saw many pleasure craft going up and down the waterway.  Saw some rowers in long row boats, saw a sailing class for young sailors.  A very wide variety.  However one evening it got exciting.  We heard a very LOUD horn sound.  We look toward the ocean direction of the waterway and see a very large ship heading our way.

As it got closer we see a smaller boat in front if it.  Here is that boat:

It is a Coast Guard vessel.  The guy in the front is manning a machine gun.  We wondered what is going on?

Here is the large ship behind it:

It is pretty impressive to see a large ship go by in relatively close proximity.  I wondered why this one had a Coast Guard escort since there was another 'gun boat' guarding the rear of the ship.  I looked it up on the Internet and this ship is hauling Liquified Natural Gas (LNG).  I guess the US does not want any type of attack on this ship.

The next day we wandered around Stockton and got a good feel for the town.  We even ate at a Vietnamese restaurant (a first).  We also went to visit a very nice museum, The Haggin.

That evening we were sitting by the water and enjoying the cooling breeze and we heard the loud horn again.  We looked in the same location but there was no ship.  Suddenly, from the other direction came the large ship again.  This time much higher in the water and without any escort.  Here is a pic but not quite as nice since it surprised us and it was getting pretty dark:

Thus ends our stay at Stockton.  Time to go back to the grind.

I almost forgot to tell you about the title of my post.  In some of the meetings are people that live or work in Stockton.  One of them made the comment that Stockton should have the motto of "It is only two hours from some nice places".  I don't know if I totally agree with that because Stockton was not as bad as it could have been.

• Airstream , Trips
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