On the Road to California & The West Coast With Bill & Sandra

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Billy Bob

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We are finally on the road again, this trip was supposed to have started in May but was postpone due to health problems. With that all out of the way. We left home on the TX Gulf Coast this morning at 5:40 am ( Sandra says way too early ) We are at Brownwood, TX at Harlowes RV Park for the night. We detoured about 45 miles out of our way to come to Brownwood and eat at Underwoods BBQ the best in TX. and that makes it the best there is. We traveled 305 miles today further than we like to in a day. We did have a good travel day we breezed through Austin on their freeways with no problems. Harlowes is an easy in & out park right on US 84 a good place for one night if we were staying longer we would stay at Lake Brownwood State Park. Tomorrow should be a short drive somewhere around 100 miles. I have been following The Wishards on their West Coast Trip with interest as we will be covering some of the same area. Hope to post some pictures before long   
 
Have a good and safe trip. I hope you are prepared for the heat, we were 109 today and the temps are expected to reach 114 this weekend. We are leaving next weekend for Oregon to cool down for a few weeks.
 
  Hello Bill and Sandra, just found your post this morning. The temp here on the Columbia River near Astoria in in the low 60 this morning. We are crossing into Washington State tomorrow morning. Your are going to love the cool weather here. Are you guys going to make the Redwood Forest? If there is any way we can help with your trip just ask. All our family back in Texas is burning up but somehow I don't feel guilty.


 
I am a little behind with my posts so will try to catch up some.
7-8-14 We left Brownwood @ 8 am safe trip to San Angelo TX 100 miles to Spring Creek Marina on Lake Nasworthy very scenic RV park right on the lake side. San Angelo is my old home town. No kin  here any more. Just visited my parents' grave & left flowers. And eat good Mex Tex at Fuentes. If we had a little more time we would have stayed on the Lake longer.
 

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Sorry I posted 2 of the same photo here was what I ment to post
 

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  I see you guys are in Benson, what is the temp there? The weather has been great both on the Oregon coast and in Washington state. We are taking a day trip tomorrow to Victoria out of Port Angeles.
 
7-9-14 We left San Angelo at 9 am only 70 miles to Big Lake our next stop. I grew up in the Big Lake area we are staying in the Reagan County Park at Big Lake. Will visit with an old high school buddy. Big Lake was in a big oil boom in 1953 when I finished school. But nothing like today in the last 3 years the companies have build man camps & truck yards & suppy houses on US 67 on both sides of town for several miles. There was only about 3500 people there and no housing for all the workers and they are still building lots of jobs just no place to live.
We were the only one in the park the county had to limit the time you could stay to keep the oil field workers from over running the park There are a lot of good oil field jobs to be had here but better bring a trailer you might find a place and you might not. I will post a few pictures
 

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7-10-14 We left Big Lake at 8 am this was a long day. We drove 365 miles to just west of the El Paso city limits  We are members of Boomdockers Welcome and stayed at a small ranch that are members close to I 10. Robert had a very nice place for us to park with water & elect. we will be here 2 days  A few pictures of our camp site. The Roadrunner stayed around our camp most of the time           
 

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Henry Wishard said:
  I see you guys are in Benson, what is the temp there? The weather has been great both on the Oregon coast and in Washington state. We are taking a day trip tomorrow to Victoria out of Port Angeles.

You must have posted while I was posting too, the temp in Benson was around 77 at night and 100 up in the day so not too bad We are now in Saddle Mountain RV Park about 40 miles west of Phoenix. And the temp is well over a 100 At noon.
You asked if we would make the Redwood Forests Yes I never miss visiting the Redwoods when in California even if we have to detour of our rout. The big trees are awesome I love them 
 
A few more taken in El Paso, TX The first photo is of Wyler Aerial Tramway, one of the reasons we stopped in El Paso was to ride this tram. It opened at noon and we waited & waited by 2:15 pm they never started selling tickets, so we left maybe next time. It was getting late and there was a few other stops we wanted to make.
 

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7-12 & 13-14 These two days were in Benson Arizona @ Partners RV Park it is ok for a short stay, $ 12 per night FHUs if you are a member of Pass Port America. This was supposed to be chill out days to rest up & wash clothes
But on  Sunday we decided.  to go to Tombstone as we had never made it to OK Corral, here are a few pictures. Only here a few hours wish that we had longer to stay
 

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7-14-14 We left Benson at 8:30 am and drove to Tonopah west of Phoenix about 212 miles. We arrived at Saddle Mountain RV Park at 12:30. A very large park with big sites nice but not many people here this time of the  Year might fill up with snow birds in winder. Not anything to do here that we could see, so didn't unhook the trailer. We should be in Southern California to  morrow night just don't know were yet.
 
Tue, 7-15-14 We drove out of Saddle Mountain RV Park at 8 am Our plan was to travel into California About 50 miles and stay for one night before moving to the L. A. area. We did not find a RV Park we liked to stay in so we ended up driving 405 miles to The Californian RV Resort in Aotion just off of Calif. 14 north east of L. A. This is a real nice  park its a P.A. with the discount good for 3 days, we will be here for 4days maybe stay for a week, to rest up & take some day trips in the area. We got here @ 6 pm and both very tired. Not much happened today except for a lot of driving we came much further than we planed. As soon as the trailer was unhooked & set up we called it a night 
 
Billy Bob said:
Tue, 7-15-14 We drove out of Saddle Mountain RV Park at 8 am Our plan was to travel into California About 50 miles and stay for one night before moving to the L. A. area. We did not find a RV Park we liked to stay in so we ended up driving 405 miles to The Californian RV Resort in Aotion just off of Calif. 14 north east of L. A. This is a real nice  park its a P.A. with the discount good for 3 days, we will be here for 4days maybe stay for a week, to rest up & take some day trips in the area. We got here @ 6 pm and both very tired. Not much happened today except for a lot of driving we came much further than we planed. As soon as the trailer was unhooked & set up we called it a night

You are less than two hours south of us now. We live just 100 miles north of where you are staying right now. It sounds like you had a full days drive yesterday and glad to hear you made it safely. We will be leaving home tomorrow to begin our trip up north into Oregon to escape our non stop heat.
 
  You want believe the difference in the weather on the coast. We left Sequim this morning and drove the 70 miles to Hoodsport. Going to try and do some crabbing.
  It you stay in Brookings, Or. There is a nice State Park called Harris Beach. Might ought to call ahead.
 
Bill & Sandra:
  We are only about 35 miles from where you are.  If you have any questions, feel free to fire away.  We would be happy to help any way we can.  There's a lot to see in So Cal.

Steve & Dee
 
Sorry to be so long to post a update just seems like the day passes so quick when you are having fun. Campfire RV or is it Josh how was trip north so far? but you found some cooler weather on your way. It has been nice here even turned on the heat when we got up the last two days. And Henry how was the crabbing? If we meet down the road I will have to get you to show me about crabbing, never done more than eat them. Thanks for the tip on Harris Beach will keep that in mine if we get to Brookings, OR.
 
Steve N Dee said:
Bill & Sandra:
  We are only about 35 miles from where you are.  If you have any questions, feel free to fire away.  We would be happy to help any way we can.  There's a lot to see in So Cal.

Steve & Dee

Steve & Dee thanks for the offer we will be here until the morning of 22sd when we will be moving to a boomdocking spot up near Rosemont, Ca. We will be parked there till the 25th, taking a whale watching tour out of Venture, Ca. After that we will be up into North Ca. 35 miles away which direction? 
 
July-16-17-18 Kind of behind on my post so will try to catch up. The 16th was our first day in Calif. We had such a long day yesterday that we slept late this morning. We left our site at 12:30 pm drove into LA looking around and ate lunch at a Mexican Restaurant it was good but not Tex-Mex. In Pasadena we ran on to a Farmers Market by their City Hall only a small market. They did have strawberries & Peaches that we bought the strawberries were very sweet & good. The Peaches were good but not up to TX Hill Country Peaches. This was a slow day back at our RV Park by 5:30 pm.
Thur. 17th We took off to explore some of LA County Parks I had printed directions to 4 Parks but the directions wasn't too good and our GPS would not pick them up. I gave up on them but we did find two that were not on our list The Antelope California Poppy Reserve of course its the wrong time of the year for Poppies. And the Park was kind of rundown looking with nobody there. Next we found the Vasquez Rock Nat. Area, was quite a few people there lots of interesting rock formations and a lot of hiking trails We took a few pictures of the rock formations, my old legs will not take to hiking any more so we just drove around the park. We didn't tour many LA County Parks but did see a lot of back country California dessert. So the trip hunting for the parks turned out ok.

Fri 18th To day we went to Ventura to check out Island Packers the tour company for our whale watching tour on the 24th. We also got a motel room for the 23rd so we wouldn't have to fight the traffic going into Ventura the morning of  the tour. We ate lunch at the Spinnaker Steak & Seafood House their steaks were very good but very expensive. Took some pictures along Spinnaker Dr. of the bay area beach and The Venture Harbor dock & boats.
We then drove north on 101 & 1 to Lompoc, CA a section of 101 & 1 that we had never drove. The rout along the coast was very scenic too bad that it didn't all follow the coast never the less we enjoyed the drive. We found another farmers marked in Lompoc and re stocked our supply of strawberries  I had planed to go east out of Lompoc to I 5 just to go back to our trailer a different way. But there is not a road east out of Lompoc so we had to back tract the way we came.               
 

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Billy Bob said:
We will be parked there till the 25th, taking a whale watching tour out of Venture, Ca. After that we will be up into North Ca. 35 miles away which direction?
Billy - Actually that would be Ventura California. I lived there for 30 years. There is a nice mission there to explore.
 

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