Tuesday.
We did something different. Judy did all the guy stuff this morning. She
did all her stuff too, so really that means she did everything. She
disconnected the dump hose, the fresh water line, and the electrical. She
put the slides in, set us down off the jacks, and reinflated the suspension.
She released the air brake, put it in gear, and drove us out of our site,
out of the campground, and down the highway before she pulled over. She
doesn't really want to drive this big thing, but she wants to make sure she
knows how to drive it. She can drive it. She can even drive it towing the
car.
We're getting close to California, so we planned out the remainder of our
trip so we won't get stuck driving the big rig through any large city's rush
hour traffic. Winnemucca to Reno. Past Lake Tahoe. Over Donner Pass.
Interstate all the way. An easy day. We'll stop before we get to
Sacramento, then wait until the next morning after rush-hour, and have an
easy day down to the coast.
It was a good plan. Until we forgot the part about stopping before we got
to Sacramento. We picked out a place to stop for the night on the other
side of Sacramento. The west side. We arrived on the east side of
Sacramento at 4:30 today. Oh well. This rush-hour experience will help us
keep our focus on the rest of the days we drive in California. Stop before
rush hour!
It was a tough drive. I don't know what they do with their gasoline tax
revenue in California, but they don't appear to spend any of it maintaining
Interstate 80. What a rough road! And then, rush hour in Sacramento!
That's it! Don't leave before 9am. Make sure we stop by 3pm. No
exceptions. Not if there are any big cities involved.
A warm evening in Sacramento. Over a hundred.
I think the surge protector protected us tonight. I plugged it in to shore
power. It went through its usual set-up routine. That takes about two
minutes. Then it started rattling and buzzing until I turned it off. I
reset everything and tried it again. Same result. I moved it to another
post and got clean current, so I plugged in there with an extension cord.
The guy from the Park office came to check the outlet with a meter and found
it providing low-voltage. Yea for the surge protector. It kept us from
scrambling or frying our electronics on low voltage.
Rags the cat disappeared. He hasn't been very good at escaping lately. In
fact, he never got out the entire trip, last trip. We searched all over.
No luck. We looked inside again. No luck. It wasn't too alarming. He
always gets out, and he always stays close by. Finally, we found him. Judy
had opened a cabinet door under the dinette seat to get out her step stool a
few hours before. When she was through, she closed the cabinet. There he
was, perfectly happy, sitting alone in the dark, quietly waiting for someone
to open the door and let him out again.
