The Long, Long Day

We left the San Benito Thousand Trails about 10:45 this morning and headed south. The next park that we were going to spend some time in is in Banning, CA. That's about 425 miles away, so we decided to split the trip in half and spend Sunday night somewhere before we hit Los Angeles.

The weather was beautiful and everything was going just right. First, we went over Pacheco Pass (1368 elev.) to I-5. From there it was such smooth sailing that when we got near Bakersfield, we decided to keep going and have a shorter day tomorrow.

The afternoon was still young when we hit the Grapevine and Doug wanted to keep going and get it behind us. Tejon Pass was 4144 elevation. Traffic was heavy but moved just fine and the coach did great. We came down the pass into Santa Clarita and found a Walmart. We considered spending the night in the parking lot and quickly changed our minds. The place was packed and there was nowhere for RV parking. We finally found a spot in the north 40 to park and ran in to do some shopping. Ten minutes and we were back out the door. By now, it's starting to get late and we want to find an RV park for the night.

Next thing we knew, we were in L.A. We cut off onto Hwy 210 and skirted the north side of L.A.
We drove right past the housing development that had been decimated by the Santa Ana winds fire last week. It was devastating to see blocks of homes leveled. And the smoke was still in the air. We got onto I-10 and it was getting dark with no park in sight. So, we kept going.

Now, of course, there are no RV parks in L.A. so we kept going. In San Bernadino we stopped at a Travel America truck stop but we didn't want to park amongst the thousands of trucks that were there. It was the biggest truck stop we have ever seen!!!! And, nobody there knew of any parks in the area. So, we kept going.

In an old book that I had dug up, I found that there was RV camping about 40 miles further in Beaumont. By now, it's pitch black and the signs are impossible to read until you are on top of them. But we found the Beaumont exit and followed a tiny sign that said "camping". We wound through a number of back roads and finally saw a sign. No Turnaround ahead! Great, pitch black, and we will have to unhook the car and turn the coach around and rehook the car and then find our way back to the freeway. But, no! The "No Turnaround" was the Country Hills RV Park. It was 7pm and the manager was very nice about the late arrival. He charged us an arm and a leg and then led us to a nice pull thru site so we didn't even have to unhook the car.

Doug plugged in the power and we collapsed. What a long, long day!! You would think we would learn!