Travel Day

We you are pulling up stakes to leave, it usually is a fairly simple operation. You pack up the last few items, Carroll ensures that nothing  is left on the counter that will fly around. You pull the MH out on the street, hook up the car and " Bob's your Uncle " and away you go. Not so dam fast for the Eslers


First I had to return the WiFi router to Time Warner (TW). TW is not open on Saturday or Sunday so my choice was to return it Friday at noon ( which was not an option ) or early Monday morning. TW opens at 7 AM so I thought if I arrived by 6:55 I would be first in line. Unfortunately, so did 25 other Snowbirds who were returning their routers or TV receivers. I actual arrived at 6:40 AM and I was 9 th in line.  The guy,  first in line brought a chair and was asleep at the door.


Once inside I had to wait 30 minutes to be served and there was at least 50 people behind me.   As I drove back to the RV park I was thinking that we would on the road by 9 AM and it would be a nice easy drive to our intend free overnight parking at a casino near Mojave. Our MH appointment is for 8 AM on Tuesday.


When I got back to the MH,  Carroll had the slides in and all I had to do was to start the MH, raise the jacks and pay the power bill when the office opened at 9 AM. However when I turn the key to start the MH the batteries  were dead; not even a "click click". So I put the charger on the batteries known full well that  it would probably take an hour or so to charge up the batteries . I then paid the power bill and on my return to the MH I noticed  a friend who swapping some B.S. with a neighbor and  I ask if they had some jumpers cable. Bob, a retired farmer from Montana , had a set and as he says;  I never leave home without them. Bob also used his brand new Super Duty, 350 Ford to jump the MH and it started right away. Whenever you have a problem it always attracts others who seem to want to bask in your misery, so there was a few onlookers,  but they mean well.


Now we are ready to leave but we do not connect the car as I need propane and to top up the fuel.  I get to the propane station but I do not want to shut off the MH and they can not fill the propane on a MH that is running so I will get propane down the road. Then I got to Fry's which is a grocery store that has a gas station. Since we have spent 300.00 on groceries  we get 30 cents off a gallon.  However getting into a pump with diesel is not easy as those dam car owners seem to think a MH is as easy to maneuver as a Smart Car. I did manage to get my cheap fuel but getting out of the place was not easy as two other MH with a vehicle in tow were trying to maneuver into the outside pumps , much like I was. Once the MH moved up I was able to sneak by,  but now I had to go thru the parking to get out and those dam senior don't give you much help.


Carroll actually waited for me at a truck stop down the road so that we could hook up the car. Finally about 10:30 we got on our way. Since we did not have breakfast we stopped at Parker some 2 hours down the road for lunch. I don't like the twisty roads and small towns in AZ so at this point I cross into CA which takes us to the Casino near Mojave where we will get the MH maintained tomorrow. When you cross from AZ to CA you go thru a Fruit Inspection station. They are checking for Citrus fruit only and we always make sure we don't have any.  They usually take you word, when you say that you don't have any.
We arrived at AVI casino and they have a  "gravel Pit" for us, who are looking for a free place to overnight. The place is fairly full so I worm my way around looking for a good spot and I dam near removed a guys awning. Carroll says I missed it by a foot. As it turns out the RV belong to  friends who had just left Yuma a week earlier. All that called for a beer, Cheers