It’s Not Oklahoma But the Wind is Sure Sweeping Down the Plain

We said goodbye to Kim and Don this morning under partly cloudy skies and no breeze to speak of.  We had such a nice time with them and we sincerely hope we see them again sometime.  They are headed back to their lot on beautiful Lake Shuswap in BC.  Safe travels to you Don and Kim.  We had the privilege to visit a different part of Shuswap Lake in 2009, and I can tell you it is a beautiful area.

Poppy is doing well and had her chill pill last night and then the thunder never came.  But she got a good night’s rest and so did we.  I admit we spoil her but she is Princess Poppy however.  We got her a new dish for this trip and it is deeper than what she is used to.  While she will eat her kibble out of it, she really does not like sticking her muzzle into a deep dish of canned dog food.  We have come up with a solution.


She will very delicately eat her breakfast off the fork as long as we will feed it to her.  Put the food down and she walks away.  It’s just too hard to pick it up from the bottom of the dish.  I know, if she gets hungry enough she will eat but with her diabetes, we try and keep her on a regular schedule and she needs to eat when it is time to eat.  We don’t mind and she is such a lady about the whole process, that we kind of enjoy feeding her.  At night she gets kibble and meat and she eats it just fine on her own.   Isn’t she just a little Princess?

GUESS WHAT??  The Fit is fit and ready to go!  They called late this afternoon and they also said they were going to deliver it to us here in the park tomorrow morning and pick up the rental car!  How cool is that?  Can hardly wait to see what the total will be.  State Farm has been less that a good neighbor and we will be exploring our options when we get home.

So we ran into town after dinner to get a few things at Wal-Mart so we will be ready to roll early tomorrow.  I had both hands on the wheel for sure as there was a bit of turbulence on the highway.   By the time we headed home, it was really blowing and it was definitely a two-hands-on-the-wheel type of drive.  As we turned into the park we noticed that is was at least half full and there were many more rigs parked in the boon-docking area.  Our speculation as to why so many folks were here tonight was answered when Russ tried to get out of the car and could hardly get the door open.  When he did get it open, it blew shut before he could get a foot out!  It is quite a blow out there.  I am so glad we are surrounded by grass instead of sand!

This shows the sustained winds – the gusts are much worse.  This is worse than we had in Desert Hot Springs.  We’re sitting here in the coach and the way it is swaying, you would swear you were riding the rails.  You’d love it Sam!!  I made a video but the internet is SO SLOW tonight I don’t think I’d be able to upload so you’ll just have to trust me on this – it’s windy!!  Poppy had her pill so she is chilling and not all agitated.  Weather report calls for calming by morning so hopefully we will get out of here and continue our Travels in Therapy.

We’re Ready to Blow This State – Unless it Blows Us First!

No internet yesterday, even though it was advertised at Santa Nella RV Park.  We ended up at that park after Russ had struggled for several hours trying to keep the rig on the road.  More on that later.  Here’s a link to the weather in California and the windstorm that is causing so many problems.  http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/once-a-decade-santa-ana-wind-e/58416

Kate from Travels in Cholula Red, is currently at home near Santa Cruz.  She called to see how we were doing and said they have been without power all day.  This is NOT a gentle breeze!  This wind monster is out to blow you to …well, fill in the blank!!!

This is the Orange Grove RV Park in Bakersfield, Ca. right before we left on Wednesday.  It was almost that empty overnight.  Not crowded at all.


I can’t say enough about this great park…including the free donuts and coffee served in the lobby each morning.  Not some prepackaged, dry, old donuts, but yummy big fancy donuts fresh from a local bakery.  I only got a bite of Russ’s apple fritter but it was soooo good.

It was foggy when we left and headed north on Hwy.99, then a nice quiet drive west on 46 to I-5.  We hadn’t gone far on I-5 before the winds came up.  This was a nasty crosswind and Russ fought it for several hours.  We finally stopped in Santa Nella.  We were going to go to the KOA in Los Banos but it was 17 off the freeway and we didn’t want to drive that much farther.  Next time we will!!

As much as we enjoyed the Orange Grove RV Park, we were at the opposite end of the enjoyment scale at the Santa Nella RV Park.  I am going to write a review for rvparkreviews.com but a summary is – don’t stay there unless you are desperate!!  It is not as advertised on their website. 

We arrived about 3:30 p.m. and, after going over their 3 foot high speed bump, found there was no one in the office.  From the looks of things there is NEVER anyone in the office, even though the website lists winter hours as 10-5.  Now here’s the fun part.  The sign says PAY FIRST.  You go to a box and take a map with an envelope attached and an assigned number.  There is an envelope for each empty space.  However, if this is your first visit, you have no idea what the spaces are like.  You pick one at random, put your check in the envelope and drop it into a lock box.  I checked the map and saw one next to the restroom that looked like it would work.

We had to hurdle yet another three foot high speed bump on the want into the park.  All the dishes rattled in the cabinets but at least they didn’t come flying out like Judy’s did back in October.  Those speed bumps were enough to rattle the fillings in your teeth and make you glad you had an onboard potty!  

That particular spot that we had chosen (sight unseen) was so small and the hookups so poorly located that there is no way we could make it work.  We drove thru looking for another spot but didn’t really know what to do since we had already paid for the space.   I walked back to the office to go through the papers and try to find a spot that would work.  I grabbed one located in the newer area of the park near the front and started back to the motorhome.  That’s when that three foot high speed bump reached out and grabbed me by the ankles and down I went.  Left a large deposit of my skin on the asphalt and an even larger portion of my dignity.  Banged up my knee and ripped my hand open.   I was dripping blood on my shoes by the time Russ realized what happened and came to help me back to the rig.  All this time the wind was howling up a storm and making it difficult to hear each other talk. 

The spot I had chosen was very confusing as it said sites 54/55 so wasn’t sure what that meant.  But off we went and located those two site on a nice level concrete pad.  It seems they somehow realized their sites were WAY to short for most RVs and so you get one to park you RV on and the one next to it for your toad.  We didn’t want to unhitch but had no choice.  It worked out okay except that the advertised internet was non-existent and no TV signal was available.  No cable in the newer section of the park!!  We couldn’t retrieve our payment for the other site so we just wrote a note, stuck it in the envelope for this site and called it good.

Anyway, we made it through the night despite the howling winds and rocking coach.  Poppy was nervous and so were we.  We found several eucalyptus branches blown down this morning so we were glad there were no trees directly over the coach.

We thought about waiting it out another day there but just couldn’t bring ourselves to spend anymore time in that place.  We had the wheels turning by 8:00 this morning and after gassing up we hit the northbound freeway.  BOY oh boy, was that wind blowing.  I have never seen it blow like that – and with no let up.  It just blew all day long.  We saw a LOT of unfortunate birds along the roadside that must have misjudged the velocity of the wind in relationship to the oncoming trucks.   Saw lots of some type of Egret in the heavily irrigated fields but we were going by too fast to get a good picture.  The big irrigation canals actually had white caps on them!

We are at the Rolling Hills Casino in Corning for the night and will take off in the morning if the wind has subsided.  It’s still rocking pretty good tonight and if it is no better tomorrow, we may just stay another night.  It was pretty hard on Russ fighting the wind for two days straight.  We don’t need to be home until the 4th so we have a little time to take it easy.  Besides, we didn’t make it to the buffet tonight – too windy to walk across the parking lot- so maybe we can visit it tomorrow.

So that’s our life in a nutshell!  Sorry I haven’t been very positive the last few days.  We really are okay – just having a few rough days.  That’s life and since this blog is about our life, that’s what I’ve written about.

A sincere and heartfelt thanks to all of you who commented on Russ’s episode with low blood sugar.  I wrote a note back to most of you thanking you for your comment.  If you didn’t get a note, it’s because you have “do not reply” on your email so no email address shows.  I still want you to know that I appreciate your concern even though I couldn’t send a note.   One of the hard things about diabetes is there are many factors that determine how much insulin to take.  Exercise is always the wild card as we really don’t know how much that is going to affect his numbers.  We are working on it though and did much better today with keeping him level. 

So I’m going to try and catch up on some of what ya’ll have been up to since I didn’t get to read anything last night.  Take care and good night all.