Today was another easy transit to our current location. We’ll be here for a couple of days, then we make the next jump. Can’t tell you what that destination is, yet, because I just don’t know right off hand. I suppose I could look it up, but I don’t want to.
Rain arrived shortly after our two o’clock arrival. It’s very refreshing and sounds very nice on the roof. Like home. Max and I went out walking in it and we didn’t melt even a little bit. He loves it because once we get back inside the bus he gets dried off, one of his favorite things to do. He’s kinda weird.
We made nachos for dinner which is kind of interesting since we are in the process of leaving a predominantly Hispanic area when nachos and tacos are for sale on pretty much every corner. It was so available, but we didn’t buy one taco from any of them. No nachos, either. Making our own used up a pound of hamburger and we ate all of it.
Not much else to add so I’m going to stop and watch TV with my lovely bride. It’s a nice clear picture.
No plans for today except to rest and get ready for the next leg of this journey. Even so, we did stuff. That consisted mainly of walking Max whenever he asked to go out, and we took a trip to the NEX and Commissary mainly just because we could. They are handy and we needed stuff, just like normal people.
Max got to walk on grass every time he went out which delights him. I know that’s true but he just acts like he always does when he goes outside. He knows he’s on the clock and will have to return inside in a while, so it’s imperative that he smell everything in sight as quickly as possible.
It was about midafternoon when we went to the NEX for some reason. I think the main objective was to visit the food court and get some lunch. They have only two choices which is the least we’ve encountered on other bases. Choices here on NAS Lemoore are Subway and Panda Express. We normally would have chosen Subway but for some reason we both took Panda Express for their orange chicken and noodles. It was really good. I also had shrimp, a thing I do whenever shrimp of any kind are available. Doesn’t matter how they’re cooked, I’ll eat them. Just ask Diane.
I just remembered that I had an agenda for visiting the NEX. I wanted to see if they had one of those gizmos that you can plug into an iPhone and capture all the photos so they can be transferred to another device. They didn’t have one, so I joined Diane as she shopped for size 6 clothes for an upcoming birthday. She loves it when I help in this manner because she values my input and likes me close by when she has a question. So, I stay near and help her in any way I can. I have to admit that sometimes she can get a little testy when I offer help she didn’t request. Yes, it may be hard for you to believe that she’d get upset with me for any reason, but she does.
It wasn’t long before Max texted me to come get him or he was going to crap in my shoe. He’s never done that, but the threat was enough to get us going. It was a surprise to get the text because neither of us knew he had a phone. I decided right then that i needed to grind his little toenails down more than normal to make it a little more difficult for him to text.
We got home, Max got his walk, and it was all good.
Now we rest and prepare for our trip tomorrow.
Be safe.
Oh, Wait! I forgot about Diane’s plant. She bought these things while we were in Tucson. I know there’s a post about our trip there. The tall skinny plane in the middle did not have that stalk with flowery things on top before we left. That was just around January 8. It must love living on the road because it’s grown about a foot. It’s done that almost on its own too. It gets soaked in water once a month. Amazing, right?
We left Tehachapi bright and early this morning with NAS Lemoore in our crosshairs. Today’s drive was about 150 miles, a little longer than the norm, but doable. It was actually a nice trip watching the scenery change from brown to green.
Just before we pulled out of Mt. Valley RV Park, the airport people started launching gliders. I have proof.
The tow plane took the glider to the end of the mountain range before turning it loose. Once it was free it quickly disappeared from my view. Honestly, it disappeared prior to that because they were so far away, I could only guess at where they were.
Since I was driving, there are no other photos of this trip, but I have a doozy for you that I captured after we got checked in at Bldg. 951. After I paid for our stay, I encountered Diane and Max who were out for a little stroll on real grass. Diane stopped me and said I needed to look at what’s in front of the rear wheel. Being a good husband, I immediately went there and looked.
His head was flat, so I didn’t think I was in danger, but these things give me the creepies. I suppose it’s possible that I may have run over it with the front tire when I pulled up to the curb. Considering its location, I’m pretty sure it got a taste of the rear tire, too. I did not stop to look. Perhaps tomorrow we’ll drive over there and see if it’s gone. If it is I will be on the lookout because I’ll be sure it’s out looking for me.
Once we got connected on pad 06, I took Max for a walk in the dog park. He’s been here before so it’s no big deal for him, other than the fact he gets to do it without a leash.
That’s him behind the tree just to the left of the bench on the fence line. This is the big dog side of the park. We had to pretend he weights 26 lbs. or more because that’s the rule. No one was there to check, and we were alone, so I took a chance.
Max circumvented the fence line smelling pretty much everything in his path.
On the way back to the bus we stopped here.
He wasn’t impressed. He’s seen grass before but that doesn’t mean anything since he’s color blind. It does, however, smell different. So, of course, he went about sniffing as many blades of grass as he could before I convinced him to move on down the road.
When we got back to the RV some of Diane’s friends flew over and gave us a little show.
If she could, she’d swap me out for a fighter pilot in a heartbeat. Can’t say I blame her because it looks like fun. They earn more money, too.
This is a photo of the RV Park taken from the dog park. You can see our bus just to the left of the 5th wheel in the middle.
As you can see, there’ plenty of room at the inn. Also, that tall fence on the left encompasses a golf driving range. Some of the balls wind up in the adjoining dog park so they became mine. I almost filled one of Max’s poop bags with them. Thankfully, it was brand new.
Next to park is the swimming pool that’s still full of water – it was 70 degrees here when we checked in. The pool has some nifty water slides, too.
I mentioned the temperature above. It was very pleasant when we got here, and we got to sit outside enjoying it for a bit. Later, it cooled down considerably. Not nearly as cold as it was in Tehachapi. It was 25 degrees this morning. I wisely left our water hose in its container and used the onboard fresh water instead.
Diane devoted her afternoon to doing our laundry. She noticed that I was almost out of underwear and figured it was time to get it done. I helped, when she let me.
The laundry is free, by the way. After the laundry was done, we took a trip to McDonald’s for a simple supper. It’s right across the street from the laundromat so we could have easily walked there, but Diane thought it would be more fun to use the drive thru. She got a fish sandwich, and I had a chicken sandwich. We both had milkshakes. It only cost us $27.00+. Not much of a bargain. Tomorrow I’m cooking.
Tehachapi, California is only about 93 miles from Barstow and is the home of two of the largest wind farms in the country. I know that’s true because I believe everything I read on the internet. You can confirm this claim by checking the above link.
It is currently 0800s hours and the base bugle has alerted everyone that it’s time to get to work. Thinking about that made me realize that I don’t believe I’ve ever mentioned the bugle calls that echo off the buildings and hills surrounding every military base we’ve inhabited. It’s so routine that I never considered it interesting. For those of you who have never been on a military base when the bugler is at work, perhaps you might enjoy this bit of news.
The most common bugle calls are Reveille, Retreat, and Taps. These calls are broadcast electronically on the base so everyone can hear them. In a nutshell, reveille gets you up in the morning at sunrise, retreat signals sunset, and taps signals the end of the day at 2100 hours. Please check the link for specifics about each call, if you wish. It’s quite a tradition. One that’s hard to forget.
The drive to Tehachapi on Highway 58 was uneventful and we easily found our new campground. All we had to do was follow the instructions provided by our handy dandy GPS. It new exactly where to go.
It’s a small park and we were the 4th unit to arrive. We’ve been here a few hours now and only two other units have checked in. So, it’s almost like we’re here alone. There is no sewer, so I hooked up just the power (50 amp) and called it good. We found it interesting that there is a lot of snow all around us. The elevation is just under 4500 feet so I probably shouldn’t be surprised. We’re in a small valley and in the distance, on the snow-covered hills there are dozens of windmills spinning for our evening enjoyment. Not true, of course. They are spinning to churn out megawatts of power for the masses. I may have stated in a previous post that there are two wind farms in this area that are the largest in the country. As we got closer to our destination, the wind farm revealed itself.
We drove around in front of the farm you can see, then wound up going through farm to the other side.
Once we made it around the hill on our right, our campground was very close. When we got parked, the other side of the hill became the view from the RV.
I expanded the above photo so you can get a better look at the other side.
The dark strips running across the field are runways for an airport that’s off to the right. Just little planes. When we checked in, the young lady (London) who greeted us said to go all the way to the back, but don’t drive in the field because that’s our runway. So, I didn’t drive in the field. But, when I took Max for a walk out there after getting things settled, he promptly pooped demonstrating how unimpressed he is about snow. He’s seen snow before. Once. He wasn’t impressed the first time, either. I would love to find a snowbank big enough to toss him in and see how unimpressed that makes him. We talked about his ho hum response so far and think once he experiences it in his own back yard it will be more fun.
I’m sitting on the sofa facing the starboard windows and saw this as the sun was going down.
I know. It’s a little repetitious, but still worth another look.
Now we rest. We’re here just one night then it’s on to NAS Lemoore.
One more day in Barstow then we head north. To commemorate this momentous event, we took a trip down to Main Street to visit a couple of thrift stores that exist side by side. The first one we visited had a bad odor about it, so we didn’t stay long. I didn’t take any photos, either.
The 2nd one was much better.
This store must have an enormous amount of $$ invested in display cabinets because they have a bunch of them.
This display perplexed Max and he didn’t know what to think of it. So, he sat there staring at the big doll for a little while, then growled at it. As we walked away, he looked over his left shoulder and gave it one last growl. He’s very opinionated.
On another note, here’s a photo of an oversize Marine Corp emblem that lives on this base. It’s very large, and shiny. It’s about 10′ tall.
To finish off the day, Diane took one last trip to the local Walmart Super Store for some crucial items. Max kept an eye out for her the entire time she was gone and went a little ballistic when she got back. He gets so excited that he runs back and forth between me and the door until I let him out. Then he runs to her and stays with her until she’s safely inside.
Now we rest to prepare for the arduous trip tomorrow to Tehachapi. I think it’s about 93 miles away. It’s a one stop trip, then on to NAS Lemoore for a couple of days.
Yes, it rained last night and everything got wet. Just wet, not drenched. It was just wet enough that I got to wear my brand-new raincoat Diane found in one of her thrift stores a couple of months ago. It’s really nice.
Last night was the second night in a row that it didn’t freeze. That’s good because I don’t know how many more times our water supply hose can withstand another freeze. So far, so good.
No plans for today. We did go to church at Bethany thanks to the internet. It’s pretty cool that we can participate this far away. It’s almost like being there.
Since it’s all wet outside we have a valid excuse to stay inside and watch football. It’s the playoffs, you know, and this is when it’s the most fun to watch.
So, today was almost like a normal Sunday back home in St. Helens: walk Max, Church, lunch, walk Max, football, walk Max, dinner, walk Max, popcorn & a noovie, walk Max.
Today was very windy so we didn’t do anything special. I walked Max a few times and Diane went to the commissary. Kind of routine stuff.
On one of our walks, Max took me to see a fake horse that’s parked close to our parking spot, so I took a couple of photos. He especially wanted the one I took of him posing with the horse. He kinda looks up to them. Really, he does.
This plaque explained the meaning.
On the way back home, I took a couple of photos of the entire RV park. It’s not big – just 30 spaces. We’re parked on the left side toward the far end.
The wind has been constant, all day. It sounds worse inside than it feels outside. That’s mainly because it’s blowing down the sides, hitting the slide out, causing the awning above the slide to flitter around in a very noisy manner. It already had a small tear on the side net to the main body, so I suspect it’s going to be worse after all this wind. I bought replacement material for it about 6 months ago but never got it installed so I guess that can be a job when we get home for real.
Tomorrow it’s supposed to rain if there’s any left after it dumps on LA. Diane, and I won’t mind. We haven’t seen rain since last summer and we miss it. There’s a chance that I might regret saying that.
Diane took Max and me a little bit southwest of Barstow to visit a couple of places that caught her eye. Both are on iconic Route 66. Before going to those places, however, it was unanimous that we stop for lunch. Diane pulled off the road so we could search for a likely place to eat. The only place to pull off the road was to the left because to the right are railroad tracks, lots of them, where trains whiz by going 100’s of mph. Some of the places were within a few miles of us but the one that caught her eye was the Cross Eyed Cow Pizza in Oro Grande. She looked up from her search and saw a sign for that restaurant about 100 feet ahead of us, pointing to the buildings directly in front of us. To get there she had to pull onto Route 66, drive about 50 feet, then turn left into the parking lot behind the buildings.
From the parking area we entered through the back door.
Once inside, the young lady behind the counter told us to take a menu and sit anywhere we wanted. So we did, and studied the menu.
The menu was interesting, with lots of choices, and the area on the right (black on white) was a list of everything that’s on the menu. Interesting. We ordered a 12″ pepperoni pizza and 2 root beer floats. Though the place wasn’t full, it took a long time to get our order. Sadly, I failed to take a picture. The pizza was one of the best we’ve had in years, and we ate it all. The floats were pretty awesome, too.
The booth dividers are adorned with butter knives.
Max watched me take every bite and managed to get a number of little bites for being such a good boy. He spent most of his time laying under the table watching everyone else.
After finishing lunch, we went back to the parking lot where I got these photos.
This was actually the highlight of the day because it was so unexpected. Then we proceeded to the locations Diane had on the calendar.
The first place was called Antique Station. From outside the building looks like a strip mall of sorts where there are numerous individual stores, side by side. But. no matter which entrance you choose, you wind up in one huge store that’s full of an amazing amount of stuff and it’s all well-organized.
The second stop was Elmer Long’s Bottle Tree Ranch. Somehow, Elmer either inherited an unlimited supply of bottles he had no use for, or he drinks a lot and needed to misdirect observers away from that thought, he had a momentary flash of insanity and decided to make a device on which he could stick his various bottles to make them look like trees. These might also be what’s left over from when Elmer built the bottle house in Calico. I doubt it, but who knows? I’m pretty sure Elmer didn’t build that house.
Elmer spent a lot of time building his trees and adding the bottles.
And he has a stockpile of jars and bottles to keep him going for a while.
As we were pulling out of the parking lot Diane spied a white box laying in the gravel that was totally out of place. so she stopped and I retrieved it. Turns out it was an unopened pack of Japanese cigarettes unlike anything I’ve ever seen for sale here in the good old USA. Of man interest to us was the warnings they put on the package. All the writing is in Japanese, but they make it very clear that smoking isn’t good for you. They use pictures.
Kind makes you want to light up, sit back, and relax, right? I’ve done a bunch of research trying to find photos of the pack we found but they just aren’t out there. They do, however, have these.
Very graphic, huh?
Moving on, we joined the crowds on Route 66 and headed east back to Barstow. There actually wasn’t very much traffic, so the trip was very pleasant. We stopped at the Walmart Superstore about a mile from the base so Diane could get some essentials, then got back home in time for this.
Drilling in on this photo reveals what appears to be an airborne tornado. That, or it’s an alien elevator created on demand so they can get from one cloud to another. Isn’t nature interesting?
Yup. We’re going on a field trip to this ghost town. You can see how excited Max is about that. He loves car rides, as you all know.
He’ll be more excited when he wakes up. Guess he wore himself out on that first walk this morning.
So far today I once again resurrected the bus’s furnace by resetting it. Doesn’t seem like I should have to do that every time, but I don’t mind as long as it keeps working. The inner temp was around 49 degrees when I got up at 0430 which I viewed as a good reason to go back to bed. Little Max weathers the cold temps nicely and I don’t know how. I guess it’s all that hair he hasn’t shared with us yet.
Just before lunch we loaded ourselves into the car and drove to Calico Ghost Town Regional Park so have a look around. It’s an interesting town that Walter Knott, Knott’s Berry Farm, purchased in the 1950’s and resurrected it. I know this is true because I saw a plaque up there, and I took a photo of it.
I actually took hundreds of photos but none of them will be any better than the ones you will see if you access the above link. I’ll add a few of my photos just for the fun of it.
We ate lunch in the Calico House Restaurant and the food was pretty good. Diane had a patty melt and I had a club sandwich. After that we let Max lead us around the main street where he made a bunch of new friends.
This photo op was built a little too close to the ground for us, but we gave it a college try.
There’s quite a bit of up and down elements to the ghost town so we took breaks often. Thankfully, there were lots of benches and chairs scattered around the town. From this one I took a hike to the top of the town where that teeny sign is in the distance.
Some of the stairs are visible behind Diane, but many of them are suggestions of stairs and could be very treacherous. Falling was a danger all the way up, and down, because there are no handrails to grab. Here’s what I saw.
From the top.
The structure where Diane rested was build of cement and bottles. Sadly, it wasn’t open for viewing, but I got a few photos of the interior through one of the windows.
After departing Calico, we stopped in Yermo where Diane found a Thrift Store. We looked around for a while, but Diane didn’t find anything she wanted which astounded me. It may be her first visit to a thrift store where she didn’t come home with something “new’.
An interesting thing about Yermo is that the base we’re on, Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow, stretches to the east far enough that Yermo claims part of it as their own. Specifically, they claim to be home for the Marine Corps Mounted Color Guard. Here’s proof in a Yermo mural.
We called it a day and headed home from Yermo to the safety of our trusty bus. Max was happy to be headed home.
Looking at a map it appears that Route 66 (I-40) transits right through the middle of the base so I suspect Nebo can claim a bit of ownership, too. Regardless, all the people around here love their Marines.
It’s almost 1300 hours; we’ve had lunch and haven’t left the base. Yet. Lunch was obtained at the Route 66 Cafe just up the street from the Oasis RV Park. It’s a nice facility but we took our food back to the RV so we could eat with Max. Diane had patty melt and I had some sort of chicken burrito. She had sweet potato fries, and I had wedge shaped fries made with mashed potatoes. The fries were pretty good. Never had anything like them before.
Diane insisted that we take a jaunt into Barstow because she promised Max he could go for a ride. Since he can’t drive yet, it’s only fair, and logical, for him to get his ride. We can’t let him lose trust in us. Sounds silly, I know, but we’re pretty sure he understands English very well. Probably Spanish, too. So, we’re very careful what we say.
Now it’s 1615 hours and we just returned from Max’s ride around town and that’s about exactly what we did.
Route 66 runs right through the base we’re on. The working side of the base is on the north side, and the housing area is on the south. Interesting. We’ll have to take a trip over there to look things over so we can report back with good information. I’m sure all of you will want to know about this.
I took a bunch of photos as we drove around the city, but the only ones of interest were the murals painted on the buildings. The town itself appears to be on a downward trajectory with many businesses boarded up all along Route 66.
Here’s a photo of one of the many pedestals that appear along the highway through town. Each one has a front and back view of period pickups and sedans, except for this one.
One very interesting wall mural where calvary is riding camels. The write-up included explains that this was a test to see if they worked out better than mules. The onset of the Civil War stopped this program.
Here we are hanging out in a sunny patch behind the bus. I didn’t have my selfie stick handy, so I positioned my shadow to be next to my lovely bride.
Temporary Sanity ... 