Our Truck Driving Experience from Hutchinson to San Diego

Our time at the Kansas State Fair ended and it was uneventful but we had a wonderful time.  Many of the folks there are farmers and they are the nicest people we have dealt with in a very long time.  Some of the workers we had to work with were a bit on the cranky side but we soon realized that was their issue not ours.  We also had the opportunity to work with some of the best people as well.  We worked many hours but we also just had some fun.

We usually try to travel under 200 miles and then take days off in between but we needed to get to Chula Vista for our next job at the Pumpkin Station so we became what we consider truck drivers.  But in reality we do not come close to the miles that they put on daily.  We were traveling 300 miles per day for 5 days…

Day one had us leaving at dawn with cool temperatures, clouds but no storms and very little wind.  There were some rough roads but nothing like back east and we had a mishap with our wipers but it was an easy fix which kept us on schedule.  All and all it was a great first day travel to Corral RV Park in Dalhart,Texas.  This place had some good and then some bad points, read our review for the entire scoop.

For our second day of travel we left in the fog, rough road with truckers on our butts.  The speed limit was 75 and we usually do about 59 so it was a little tense ride until we got to New Mexico when the road got so smooth it was as if we were gliding and we gained an hour. 

We arrived at Route 66 Casino to do some boondocking for the night and to get a free buffet and other freebies.  When we pulled in we later realized we had an issue with our house battery, we just recently replaced our engine battery but now it was time for the house one to stop working.  We had no lights and realized our refrigerator was not working either but we really did not have much in way of food in there and we kept it all closed for the rest of the night.  We slept in the well lit parking lot and got an early start the next morning.

There were two Walmart locations on the way to our next stop and we chose to stop in Gallop, New Mexico, not the best choice of the two.  We are true believers that things happen for a reason and this time we were able to witness it ourselves.  When we pulled up all of the sudden I had this uncontrollable urge to go potty that just would not wait so I got back into our rig to go and then realized we forgot to lock our house door…ooops! 

Wait that is just the beginning of the story…

We did our shopping and then on our way out while we were pushing our cart to our rig we witnessed a homeless man come around our rig to the door and attempt to open the door…when we yelled to him he just turned around and asked us for a handout.  We were both in shock and just told him to go on his way.  We were both shook up and then when I explained to Jerry what had happened earlier when I went back into our rig he truly understood how things do happen for a reason.  We know that if I did not answer my urgent call then this man would have been in our home and who knows what might have happened.

We replaced the battery and got back on the road swiftly and we were not going to allow Hurricane Odile to ruin our drive, it was wetter than usual in these areas but we were so lucky because you could see by the radar and the puddles how we missed the major downpours and only had to deal with some periodical drizzling.  Not only did we feel safer from the weather than we had in months, we also felt aligned with the Universe again and knew that we were coming home.

Our next stop was at the Twin Arrows Navajo Casino Resort east of Flagstaff, Arizona to boondock for another night.  We gained another hour and they were also giving away some freebies and/or deeply discounted items which we enjoyed.  We again slept well in a well lit up parking area and woke at dawn for our next adventurous day.

Being at over 6,000’ elevation caused Maggie to hiccup a few times when we first started out in the morning but we tried to stay calm and she came around.  The drive was nice through Flagstaff and Williams on I-40 but then we turned onto 89 at Ashfork and enjoyed an even better route…that is until we went where we had not gone before as we continued on 89 to 71 to 60…over the mountains to I-10.  The views were absolutely spectacular and it was really not as bad as some of the other roads we had been on before but we do not plan to take this route again.  It may have saved us miles but the time it took us to climb and descend we could have saved a few hours by going miles out of the way but it would have been hot so we probably made the best choice.  We took so many photos of this days drive of the spectacular views so check out our Google + Web Albums for all of them.

The cool temperatures came to an abrupt end when we landed in Ehrenberg, Arizona around noon and the temps were in the 100’s.  We did not want to push it further to even hotter weather so we opted to stay at the Colorado River RV Resort using our Coast to Coast membership for $15.  We have stayed here many times before but this time there were only a few others there and unfortunately the laundry room air conditioning was not working and we needed to do laundry so we suffered through it to get it done.

We finally awoke to our last day of travels and knew we needed an early start to get through the Palm Desert area where wind and heat was always at its worse and this time was no different. Temperatures were already into the 80’s by the time we were passing through and the wind was so rough we thought for sure Maggie was going to lose some of her outings but as usual she hung on tight and we all made it through without any incident.

Once we turned onto 79 off of I-10 the weather once again cooled at least 15 degrees and it was a great ride into Chula Vista.  We did stop at Walmart for our huge grocery stop for our stay at the Pumpkin Station.  We are so grateful to be back and we love the work, the owners, the area and above all else the weather is the absolute finest of all.  It is so nice to be able to just sleep without worries and to look at the weather and see every day the highs in the upper 70’s to lower 80’s and the lows are mid to upper 60’s.  We will take boring over all the east coast exciting weather anytime.

For more photos, check out our Google + Web Albums.