We arrived in Soledad on Wednesday, April 15; the weather forecast predicted a very windy drive in the Desert Hills. 30 MPH winds with 50-60 MPH gusts were
predicted. Luckily most of the wind we
hit was a headwind, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as driving through the windy
area north of Palm Desert on I-10.
This was our first time at the park, so we did enjoy looking
around – they had a great family pool set-up that was still being cleaned, as
well as a great adult pool area that we could use. Beautiful setting in between
the tall mountains around us on all sides, as well as every night we could hear
the wolves from the sanctuary close to the park, as well as the coyotes who
roamed the mountains.
We were pleased to find a long campsite, with 50 amp, sewer,
no large trees around to drop leaves or needles and that blocks satellite, as
well as we actually had a grassy area for the dogs.
Looking good once we got all set up.
Of course we did cross railroad tracks when
we came into the park, so we knew we might hear some noise from that, but
minimal road noise.
Well the track was
very heavily used by Metro and freight trains.
They seldom blew their whistles, so it really wasn’t that bad.
One of the great things about travelling is having access to
WiFi and keeping up with everything as well as having search capability at our
fingertips. One of the bad things of
travelling is driving into areas that have minimal phone and WiFi service. We could get minimal service for phone calls,
text messages and email, but about every three days we would head to town to do
all of our computer connectivity. This was a city park in downtown Acton where we could get WIFI service.
Almost five years ago when we bought the Country Coach
motorhome, we moved all of the rugs from our Dolphin motorhome in. Our intent was to update the rugs,
but never made it a priority. Well on
this trip, we decided to do that and took two shopping days to update all the
rugs. We do enjoy our tile floors
throughout most of the coach, but the floors do get cold when the weather is
cool, plus the dogs get around better (to include Kyna jumping on the bed
and couch) with rugs on the floor.
Craig barbequed his first Tri Tip Steak. We marinated, then after 24 hours put a dry
rub on it, and smoked it 2 3/4 hours til done.
It turned out wonderful. While
barbequing he had a little help watching over the process. This little mole insisted on watching over
everything Craig did that day, the more times Craig would bury the rock and try
to plug the hole, the more times the little guy would keep cleaning it out and
move the rock out of the way.
We enjoyed one wine tasting experience at Antelope Valley
Winery. There were six wineries in the
area that had tasting rooms, but many were not open during the week. In addition to those with tasting rooms,
there were 8 more that are just vineyards for now. At Antelope the wines were good, the people
serving were very personable and knowledgeable and the prices were reasonable. They even offered us a free wine tour that we
enjoyed. Next time in the area we will
plan time in Tehachapi area to try out their wines.
There was a poppy festival (California’s state flower)
in the area while we were here, but the poppies had bloomed early so there were
no poppy fields to visit. We also
noticed that our very first Lance camper was built in the area, but we
determined there would be no need to view the plant as we kind of outgrew the
camper. Also there was a big cat
sanctuary within a couple of miles from the park, but they only had tours one
weekend a month. The sanctuary is called Shambala Preserve and they apparantly have some of Michael Jackson’s cats. They also have filmed many movies in the area.
On Friday, April 24th our plans were to head north to Fresno, when the true RV adventures really started -- motorhome would not start!!! We called our RV service called CoachNet which has been a great service to have and they started the diagnostic service over the phone, determining it most likely was the lift pump for the fuel. The fix could not be handled by a mobile RV service so the coach would need to be towed. The tow process could not be done til Monday as the location that would handle the service work on the motorhome, would not allow us to stay in the coach and could not start with repairs til Monday.
So on Monday it was an all day process to get it towed, they were also going to tow our trailer, but they didn't send the right equipment to tow it, so Thousand Trails worked with us and we left it sitting in the site that we had been staying in.
So, first time out of the motorhome since we retired and the best we could do with price, convenience and dog friendly was a Motel 6 in Sylmar, CA. Truly, this was a very newly remodeled Motel 6, and a lot of good grass outside of our room for "the girls". Of course, I've never stayed in a Motel 6 and forgot they are priced low for a reason: No coffee, hairdryers, irons or WIFI in the rooms. Craig had to replace the phone cord so we had a working phone, also had to get towels and soap for the first nights stay from the front desk. Also, the water temperatures worked backwards, but once we got all that figured out, we were good.
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| "Campground Motel 6" |
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| Site 119 |
We got the coach back at 6 pm on Wednesday and headed back to Soledad Canyons TTN park to stay the night and connect back up with our trailer. We also changed all of our travel plans, and made reservations to travel up I5 to be in Eugene by Sunday, May 3. We had damage on the Motorhome from the tow as well as there was a runaway toolbox that hit the door of our motorhome in the repair facility parking lot. Looks like we may be at Oregon Motorcoach for two weeks rather than spending time in the CA national parks, a week in Sacramento and in Sunriver, OR. The adventures of traveling!!
