We Have Liftoff

Yesterday I washed the coach and took food on board in preparations for today. At 8 o'clock this morning I hooked the car to the coach and headed out on my next adventure. Destination, Salem, Oregon. I am looking forward to being able to spend a couple of months or more with my son Brent and his wife, Marlene. They have two children, Andrew (11) and Aaron (7). I want to be with the boys this summer and be a part of their lives in a positive way. I will be taking about 5 or 6 weeks to get to Salem, which should occur around the first part of July.

So here we go! I wanted to get an early start to avoid the high winds that develop around noon out here on the desert. First stop is the Flying J Truck Stop in Barstow to fuel up. I took on over 93 gallons of diesel and eased back out onto I-15 and traveled only about 2 miles where I connected with CA-58 and headed west towards Mojave and then over the Tehachapi Mountains and down into Bakersfield, where I will be staying for the first week of this adventure.

On the mountains west of Mojave I passed a large group of wind generators. I just picked up the camera and aimed it in the general direction of the subject and quickly snapped a picture without taking my eyes off the road. I am surprised that they turned out at all, but some did.





Then a little ways west of Tehachapi, what should my eyes see, but a train going through tunnels 15 through 17. Again I quickly aimed the camera out the window and pressed the button.

I pulled into the Orange Grove RV Park in the Edison area that is about 9 miles east of Bakersfield. It was warm, but once I had the coach set up I turned on the air conditioning and the coach cooled down quite nicely. Yes, I am parked in a real orange grove.

This morning as I was cleaning the windshield on the coach, the passenger side windshield wiper blade fell apart. I had replaced the driver's side wiper when I was in Lake Havasu earlier this year. I just replaced the one wiper then because the other one looked like it could last a while longer. Well, today was "a while longer" so I got out the NAPA invoice for the first blade that I replaced and called a NAPA store here in Bakersfield and they will have another blade for me at their store in the morning around 8 o'clock. The blade is 31 inches long and not many places stock them. They have to special order it. I will go into Bakersfield in the morning and pick it up before I head up into the mountains to watch trains. I hope to be able to post some good pictures of trains negotiating the Tehachapi Loop and other locations in the next few days.