California or Bust!: Day 23 - Leaving Paso Robles for Kingman, ARIZONA

California or Bust…

Day 23 – Kingman, ARIZONA

Sunday, November 13^th, 2011

It was nice to be in one place for a few days… but the KeyZRV was ready to get back on the open road! We were up early to prepare for the trip and ready to roll by 8:30am. Drew added a "tag" to the back window of the RV. We stopped by the Wine Country RV Resort office to say goodbye to Meagan and Sheryl and drop off the second of the large wedding flower arrangements. We’ll be back!!!

One of two of our weddding arrangements.

We wanted to drop off a couple of thank you notes to Jan and Oralia at Eberle before we left town but the gates were closed. Drew ran up the long driveway to the main building and left them in an inconspicuous place.

One more picture at Eberle Winery with the KeyZRV

Darn, the winery is closed!

Memories of Eberle

Tears and Joy - we're married!

Then we drove east on Hwy. 46 towards Bakersfield. There were many times on this trip that we didn’t think or were not fast enough to grab the camera for a photo op. We laughed when we noticed a Highway Patrol car driving slowly on the right shoulder, he was escorting three overly large sheep out of harms way. We again saw more oil wells, cattle & vineyards… more signs posted on farmers land, “food grows where water goes”. There were acres of pomegranate bushes.

Oil wells at work on Hwy 46

We drove on I-5 and crossed below Bakersfield on Hwy. 223 to Hwy. 58 and drove through the Tehachpi Mountains and passed the Bakersfield National Cemetary. The summit elevation was 4,000 ft. and I know that does not sound like much except for when you go from the valley floor at 400 ft. The grade was steep but the road was nice as we dropped down to the Mojave Desert. To the south is Edwards Air Force Base, where the space shuttle landed when the weather was bad in Florida. As we entered Barstow, there was another wind farm that is powered by the same prevailing Santa Ana winds as the wind farms located over the mountains to the South in Palm Springs.

Ranches and Windmills

How many wind generators can you count???

Now on I-40 and still crossing the Mojave Desert, we passed the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center… what a challenging place to train! But the desert also has it’s beauty and since we last passed through Southern California it had rained and the Joshua Trees were in full bloom with fragrant yellow buds. We continued east and it was beginning to get dark… we could see the lights of the casinos in Laughlin, Nevada as we crossed the Colorado River to Arizona. We drove 462 miles today… one of our longer days… and arrived at the Blake Ranch RV Park near Kingman, Arizona at 5:30 Pacific Time but it is 6:30 Mountain Standard Time. As we travel east across the country, we will lose three hours in travel time.