Brownie's

Decided to do a run to Brawley today to exercise Goose's wings and charge up the battery.  Also to charge the phone and laptop.  I don't want to be one of those irritating campers who constantly asks for charging privileges, even though it has been offered.

The Slab Spa and Reducing Diet is in full effect.  My first full day I had a cup of coffee in the morning and ate absolutely nothing all day until Chili Bob came to fetch me for supper with Rich and Mary.  Mary made scalloped potatoes with leftover Christmas  ham, and she had saved me a plate.  I'd gone to Calipatria to visit my favoritest hardware store in the whole world, Zendejas True Value Hardware.  And also to do a garbage and water run at the rest stop.  When I got back Mary fired up the generator to heat it up the plate she saved for me in the microwave.  It's the oceans of light that does it, I think, or maybe that you are too busy catching up with friends and getting pulled into long, meandering, interesting conversations with all sorts of people who like nothing better than to converse, or else you find yourself stopping on the way back to camp to just look at the stars, brilliant and amazing, filling up the bowl of the desert night, and somehow eating just seems so unimportant.

Breakfast today was coffee and one slice of the excellent cinnamon raisin bread from mia kara amika Biela, toasted on KD's stove using the folding toaster I'd picked up at Wally World on the way in.  That was hours ago.  I'd gotten up early (another sort of amazing thing, since I usually am not a morning person).  But as I said to the person who asked me what had gotten into me, I'm a Slabber.  We get up at dawn to dump tanks, haul water, fetch wood, make coffee and play a couple hands of poker, all before ten A.M..  In fact I don't really qualify as a true Slabber, and all I really did was make coffee and sit staring out at the early morning light stealing across the desert.  But that's enough.

Eventually I stirred myself to get organized and perform the morning's ablutions and a couple of other chores, and by the time I was on the road to Brawley I realized I was really hungry.  Brownie's was calling.

Brownie's is one of those comfy, old-fashioned restaurants that you don't see much of at home.  They offer Mexican and classic American food, solid, dependable fare, served in a comfortable, homey dining room with walls covered in sports memorabilia, celebrity photos (many of them signed by the celebrities themselves), class group photos from the local elementary school dating back to the fifties, and assorted other local memorabilia.  To me, Brownie's is all about comfort food in a place I come to be on holiday, far away from all reminders of my troubles.  I'm very fond of it.

Having a classic BLT with potato salad on the side.  KD's cupboards and ice box are stocked with food, but I thought I deserved a treat, and it gives me a chance to put up an update using their outlet (I steered unerringly to the table with a plug, like the well-seasoned travel blogger I am!)  I can also recommend their chicken fried steak.  They make that sucker with tri tip, and it is a supreme example of the art.  If you are passing through Brawley and wanting comfort food, stop at Brownie's.  They are located right on Main Street in Brawley, California.  Brownie's gets Five Trees On The Mountain.

Jerry Rice's signed jersey from his days with the Raiders and a wall of happy sports memories.

Slab City!

Pulled in about 3:30.  Met the peeps and I'm still welcome.  Here's Kadydid and the Goose.  Kadydid has arrived.

Holy Stove, Holy Cooking Pot, Holy Ramen!

It's a signal moment.  I have cooked in the trailer.  Celebrate this moment with me.

 

 

Some meals are so pure and so perfect that they become holy in our memory, crystalline moments of transcendence that will never be forgotten.  The Last Supper seems to have been one, and perhaps the first taste of manna the Israelites had in the desert.  I had such a meal the first time I went to Burning Man. After days of frantic preparations and an epic journey to reach Black Rock City that seemed like it would never end, an exhausted last push to make camp and then a collapse into the oblivion of sleep, my brother made a batch of Mussels Provencal.   We'd been eating bad fast food and junk food snacks or not eating at all for long stretches in the push to get ready and the long drive to get there.  And then, that first meal, simple and pure, broth with butter and wine and the humble mussel still in its shell, it was like nothing I'd ever tasted.  To have real food, made by hand and served hot, eaten in a kind of dazed silence. It was so wonderful that I tried to recreate it the following year, but while I got the recipe right and it tasted good, I couldn't recapture that sublime purity, the holiness of my first meal in Black Rock.

 

But just now, I came close.  I pulled in to Brawley about 9:20, and messed around deciding what to do next.  It didn't make sense to run out to the Slabs and try to find my peeps and set up camp in the dark, so I prepared to spend the night at, you guessed it, the Walmart.  I needed some supplies so I went in to do the traditional pre-Slab Walmart shopping run.  I was hungry, and with the trailer it just isn't practical to go hunting for more fast food, and I'm sick of it anyway.  I happened to see a bunch of ramen noodles, and I decided I would get a package and light the stove and make a meal.

 

The crew at Dr. George's got the honor (and risk) of lighting the stove for the first time in god knows how long to make sure it worked.   Then I lit it for the first time before leaving home, to test it and make sure I could do it.  But nothing had been cooked yet.

 

I rooted around and found a pot and some water and a measuring cup and I turned on the gas at the tank and lit the stove and put on water to boil.  Such a simple, basic, domestic act, but what a triumph after this long, long journey with KD.  Cheap ramen, staple of bachelors and broke college students, costing only twenty eight cents, but so perfect for this inaugural meal.  It was hot and good, and the steam beat up into my cold face, and I could not have asked for anything better.  Holy holy holy!  Holy ramen that feeds us in the desert!

 

I haven't busted through the wall yet, but I'm getting close.

 

Coachella TA

Just pulled in.

Ontario TA

Just hit the ginormous Ontario TA.  More later.

Boxing Day Morning on Frazier Mountain Parkway

I once heard a comedy routine about how dumb it is to realize you are cold enough to need another blanket but somehow be unwilling to get up and get the one that is folded up at the foot of the bed.  Why does that happen?  I think it happens when you are almost warm enough to go to sleep, but not quite.  You somehow think if you just curl up tight enough, it will be ok.  It took me a long time to brave the full cold and pull down a second sleeping bag to go over the down bag.  The down bag would have been warm enough if I'd been zipped up in it, but I just had it opened up like a blanket and cold air was leaking in around the edges.  When I finally gave in and spread the 40 degree bag over me as well, I was a lot more comfortable.  And in case you are wondering why Mr. Heater wasn't doing his duty, it's because he had run through the partial cylinder I put on and then gone out, signaling to me it was time to go to bed.  And I've been sternly admonished to NOT go to sleep with the heater running.  Several times.  Which I wouldn't do anyway.

 

I don't have plans to do any real cold weather camping in KD, which is a good thing because she really isn't set up for it.  But there are things I can do to improve the cold seepage, including insulating the floor when I have it redone next spring.  And sealing out a few drafts around the door, and adding more insulation when the ceiling is done.  KD is still a work in progress (like me, for that matter).

 

Had a hot Flying J shower and decided to have breakfast at the attached Dennys.  This Dennys doesn't get Five Trees.  Service is well-intentioned but a tad slow.  And the first year we stopped here on our way to the Slabs, our T-bone steaks looked like a something out of a child's play food set, a grimly putty-colored item that had been painted by Chinese slave laborers who had never seen a steak.  Food this morning a bit better, though the sausage was cold.  Still, they get points for putting me in the only booth that has an electrical outlet, and inadvertently encouraging me to get wheat toast instead of white. 

 

Getting ready to head out.

The View Of The Surrounding Mountains Is Striking. There Appears To Be A Visitor Center Of Some Sort, But It's Not Complete.  No Information On The Sign Boards, And The Touch For Information Sign Is Not Live.  Impressive Sculpture Of What Seems To Be A Condor Or A Vulture.

Mr. Heater and a Very Merry Christmas

Decided to stay here in LeBec for the night.

Last year about this time, Tennessee Ken acquired a new Mr. Heater.  His old Mr. Heater, a boon companion and profoundly important appliance, had served him well.  Ken always showed him the respect he deserved, never calling him just heater, always addressing him as Mister Heater.  That was the brand name, of course, but it was funny the way Ken made it sound like a gesture of respect.  Well, it was a gesture of respect, and affection too, I think.  Ken did love his heater on those cold nights, whether they were in Tennessee or in Slab City.  Then events conspired to put him in possession of a larger, newer model.  There is an interesting story behind that, involving drama, danger, and some comedy (in retrospect).  It seems that when you don’t scew the propane bottle in properly, a leak can form around the fitting.  Then when you light Mr. Heater, propane coming out around the neck of the bottle forms an interesting flame effect in the form of liquid fire dripping down the plastic housing.

The person to whom this happened kept a cool head, applied a fire extinguisher, and then promptly evicted it and refused to ever have it in her house (motorhome) again.  This was a tad unfair, given that Mr. Heater himself was the unwitting victim of an improperly attached propane cylinder.  But never mind, this meant that Ken inherited a new heater to replace his well travelled one.

When Ken saw my own heater, an adorable little red GloMaster that runs on butane, he burst out laughing.  The entire time we were together last year, he made many jokes at my and my poor little heater’s expense.  It’s true that the GloMaster was only suitable for heating a mouse hole (“would take the chill off an 85-degree day,” as Ken repeatedly reminded me), but it looked so good!  That shiny red paint and boxy, milk-house heater styling made me love it.  But in the end, I was forced to admit that Ken was right and the damn thing was next to useless.  Probably it would have helped warm a tent, but I was always terrified to light it in a tent, and last year I was camping in a friend’s unconverted cargo van, which was impossible to heat with the GloMaster.

And so, after Ken had tested the new heater that he had acquired due to that little mishap of his fellow campers and found it perfectly sound, he told me he wanted me to have his old one.

Mr. Heater had a hard life.  His plastic body partly melted when a similar incident happened to Ken wherein he failed to properly attach a cylinder and the thing caught on fire.  Its grill was a little askew from the subsequent face down landing it received when he pitched it, still on fire, out the door of his van.  It was stained and disreputable looking, but it somehow seemed right for Ken, a stained and disreputable character himself, yet impossibly lovable for all that.  And it still worked!  Mr. Heater still worked like a champ.

Ken left the planet and everybody who loved him before I could test out my present.   But I managed to spirit it away before the county coroner’s office carted off most of the rest of his meager possessions.  It’s here with me now.  Running and warming up the inside of KD.  The blast of warmth taking the chill off not an 85-degree day in a mouse hole, but  a chilly Christmas night high up in the Grapevine where I am spending Christmas alone in KD, makes me remember the warmth of Ken’s personality, his great, shining spirit, the way his laugh was like the sun coming out.

I was almost ready to turn off Mr. Heater and climb under the sleeping bag when I remembered it was still Christmas and I hadn’t opened my presents yet.  Among them is a groovy new screw driver set which will be helpful in working on KD and might stop me from constantly borrowing my Dad’s set (I’m pretty sure the screwdriver set was from Dad, even though my gifts were given from both Mom and Dad).  Also an entire box of See’s rum nougat, my absolute favorite See’s candy, which there are never enough of in the nuts and chews boxes that are always circulating at this time of year.  And a very wonderful gift for Goose, which she will receive with enthusiasm, and which I am deeply grateful for because when Goose isn’t fed, we don’t get very far.

This Christmas seemed like it was shaping up to be a bit of a dud, since I’m starting out late and totally missing Christmas at Slab City, and my Campin’ Fun Buddies won’t be following for days yet.  I didn’t want to be on the road on Christmas, eating Taco Bell for Christmas dinner and spending the evening at a truck stop.  But.  It’s ok.  It’s still Christmas.  I’m still loved.  I’m on another adventure, and my riches are many.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. 

 

LeBec

Just pulled into the Flying J at LeBec.  Stayed in the truck lane amidst the friendly big rigs who didn't mind if we dawdled along at 25-30 mph over the Grapevine.  Deciding if I want to push on or stay here.  I've certainly got more driving left in me, but the issue is finding somewhere to stop.  I'll consult my routing and update when I have more.

Buttonwillow

Second hundred miles (actually further).  Stopped at the Buttonwillow TA.  I'll gas up here and look for something to eat.  It won't be much of a Christmas dinner, I'm afraid, but thems the breaks.

This TA has lots of parking.  Trailer friendly.

Update: publishing now since I couldn't get this post to upload in Buttonwillow.  This should have published at 6:40.

First Hundred Miles

Stopping at the excellent John Erreca Rest Stop for a bio break and safety check.  A lot of people traveling, but this large rest stop is up to the task with many spots for trailers and over-sized vehicles.

Everything still attached, running gear in good shape, and surprisingly, things seem to be staying put in the trailer.  Definitely feel the extra weight of the new batteries on the tongue and the counter balancing weight of clothes and shoes in the trailer :-), but sway control is working and so far, so good!

Kadydid and the Goose in the trailer section, and the grassy area of the facility below.

Almost Ready

Christmas breakfast with the 'rents, then hitting the road for our next big adventure, KD and me.

The Nut Tree

Took a load of parts to R.V. Dr. George, where KD is having a lovely spa stay to get her bathroom remodeled.  On the way back I needed a comfort break and on impulse stopped at the Nut Tree.  It's been a long time since I was here last and much has changed.  The once isolated traveler's outpost has grown into a collection of monstrous strip malls.  In the center is the latest incarnation of the Nut Tree itself, with a cute little train, a carousel, and a collection of kiddie rides.

Now I'm waiting for my Super Bird at the Dennys across the road.  Despite it's charms, i didn't see any appealing options for food, and didn't want to take the time to search more.

Last shot is sunset over the Nut Tree.

Chickeny Goodness!

The beautiful bounty of my friend's hens.  I've been helping take care of them this week, and my wages are paid in eggs.  This is today's harvest.

Brand Loyalty

It's been not quite 5 months since I got home from the Big Adventure, and a fair bit has happened with KD, including some towing.  But now I find myself back on the road again with KD rolling along behind.  Heading to Dr. George's RV Repair shop in Sacramento for a second round of work there.  More on that later.

Right now I'm sitting down in a Denny's at the Lodi Flying J.  I can't get gas, since their pumps are all down for service (except for diesel, which Goose can't drink).  But their potties are just as nice as ever, the pull through parking spot was so welcoming, and the familiar, recorded voice over the PA saying "Driver number . . .seven . . .your shower is ready," made me feel like I had come home.  So I thought a blog post was in order.

I miss the road, sitting down to write about what I've seen and done, and the simple comfort of a BLT.

Moving Forward

It often seems, in the pauses between action, that I am standing still.  But then I look back and realize that in fact I've accomplished a fair bit towards my goal of getting KD the way I want her.  It's going to take time, there's no way around it.  But I'm getting there.

For the first three and a half weeks I had KD with me while I puttered around pulling out unwanted fixtures, appliances, trim and other junk, and doing various cleaning jobs.  As I mentioned before, there was a lot of dirt in there.  Dirt that had gotten into the cracks and crevices, the usual sort of grunge that accumulates over the decades.  I didn't get all the cleaning done that I wanted, but I got a lot done.  I washed down the walls with Murphy's Oil Soap, got most of the adhesive foam strips down that had been left by previous owners who used them to stick junk to the walls.  The buckets of dirty cleaning water all had a thick slurry of dirt at the bottom by the time I dumped them.  I filled in nail and screw holes and shined sections of aluminum.  This is going to be an ongoing task, but I've made a start.

I found storage for KD on a rural property with horses.  The good thing about this is that people live there, and there will never be a time when there isn't someone on the property, since the horses must have care and supervision 24/7.  Unlike a regular storage yard that is gated but not monitored during non-business hours, I feel like KD will be a little bit safer in a place that has people there all the time.  There's only one way in and out, and it would be harder for someone to get in and do vandalism or theft than in some other storage facilities.

The down side is that it is a bit of a challenge to get the trailer in and out, but so far the staff have gone out of their way to help in any way needed.  There are no official pull-through spots, but they got me positioned in what is essentially a pull-through, which was helpful when I went to get KD out of storage week before last.

I needed to go to Eyer's Hitch Center to get the brakes wired properly to the brake controller.  While I was there I decided to get a heavier set of chains welded on to replace the set that was there.  The chains she had were simply not up to the task of keeping her attached to the tow vehicle in case of accidental unhitching.  I know this because of an incident that happened.  I'm going to just draw a curtain over that incident, except to say it was quite obvious that the chains KD was equipped with were mere window dressing.

Now she has shiny new chains with proper screw on hooks!  I also had the emergency brake pull device installed, even though there is currently no battery for it.  I was going to get a small battery in order to be strictly legal, but decided it could wait until I got a coach battery installed.  Finally, I got a sway bar installed.

This involved welding a short extension to the hitch with a small ball bolted onto that.  Another small ball is bolted onto the side of the tongue, and a sway bar hooks onto both of those little balls and is held on with pins.  There is a friction mechanism inside the bar which is tightened down manually with a hand lever.  What a fabulous invention!

Some folks have told me I don't need sway bars on such a little trailer, but they are wrong.  I can get by without it, but why should I?

I certainly experienced sway coming back from Indiana whenever a big truck passed me going fast, there was a cross wind, or I hit a really bad patch of road.  It wasn't anything I couldn't handle, but I knew I would eventually want some kind of sway damping, because while I managed to keep her straight, it didn't make for a very pleasant towing experience.  Sway is especially unnerving when you are stuck in a narrow spot, like when there are k-rails during construction.  The worst example of this was on SR 152 just past Casa de Fruta, when I was sandwiched between a K rail on the right and an oncoming semi on the left.  The road had narrowed there, and I really had to struggle to hold down the oh-my-god-I'm-going-to-die thoughts as I threaded that needle, bouncing on rough road, buffeted by the passing truck and trying to keep a light but firm hand on Goose to keep her from veering over the line.  Sway can be minimized by keeping the proper trailer tire inflation, having the hitch level, and making sure the correct percentage of trailer weight is on the tongue (should be about 10%).  I'd done all that, so most of the time KD was very ladylike and pulled straight.  But all trailers are subject to sway when enough outside forces act on them, and the passing trucks, bad roads, and crosswinds are going to happen sooner or later.

 It cost gas and time and hassle every time I get KD out of storage and tow her somewhere for servicing, so I decided to just go for it and have as much done as I could while I was at the hitch shop.  I'm so glad I did. 

The sway control doesn't really come into effect until you get on the highway.  Tooling around town she doesn't have sway issues, only when running at highway speeds.  I had my first chance to test the new sway control last week when I took KD to Sacramento (more on that in the next post).

The hitch shop I went to is Eyer's Hitch.  They've been around for a long time, and Cecil Eyers is very experienced at all things having to do with towing.

This picture doesn't give you much scale, but this is an absolutely enormous towing ball.  It reminded me of a Victorian garden gazing globe.  It was a thing of beauty, but I wonder what kind of monster trailer it is intended for.

I've had good work done here in the past.  This time they were very busy when I arrived for my appointment, and it was obvious they were getting a little stressed out.  I was perfectly willing to be patient and let them juggle things as necessary, but I was disappointed by the feeling that they thought they were doing me a favor to take my business.  I went there to get the benefit of their expertise and to pay them for their good work.  I think the work was fine, but there were a couple of moments when I almost hitched the trailer back up and left because of what can only be described as downright rudeness.  I decided to cut them some slack because they were obviously feeling pressured, but I've made a few calls to other hitch places for future work I may want done.  The fact is, I'm a lady and a customer, and I deserve to be treated as such. 

I don't usually play the lady card, but I think some times it's warranted.  I have a friend who says that once you hit the age of 50, you stop tolerating certain varieties of crap that you may have always put up with.  I think she's right.  I haven't hit 50 quite yet, which might explain why I didn't stop the person helping me unhitch and give him a lesson on the proper way to speak to a customer when he snapped at me.

I think Eyers is a good place to have hitch work done.  But be prepared for some churlish attitude if you happen to be there during the busy time, and decide for yourself if it's worth it.  YMMV.

Well some folks say, "She must be a Cadillac"

But I say, "She got to be a T-model Ford"

You know some folks say, "She must be a Cadillac"

I say, "She got to be a T-model Ford"

Yes she got the shape all right but she can't carry no heavy load

--Katie Mae, Lightnin' Hopkins

Update:  This post was created on June 25th as a draft and never got published.  Now that I've finally hit the publish button, it has date stamped it with today's date, which isn't correct.

KD needs a really good cleaning.  I swept and mopped while I was still on the road, and when I stopped after the next hard drive, there was fresh dirt and dead bugs everywhere.  It's in the cracks and crevices, 40 years of grunge that sifts out with the hammering of the road.   Maybe if I just keep cleaning, she'll shake it all out eventually.

This weekend I got a bunch of stuff out of there that I've been itching to pitch out for more than a year.  There was an electric can opener mounted under the kitchen cabinet (?), and an old "Space Saver" radio.  I just don't get the electric can opener.  Of all the useless electric appliances to haul along with you on a camping trip, that one would not be on the top of my list (and everybody that knows me well knows my list is a long one, LOL!).  Anyway, after a bit of struggle getting the screws undone, it's gone.  Likewise the old radio.  The radio probably made a kind of sense at one time, but there are much better options for tunes that run on batteries these days.  It's 'outta there!

I'll also want to replace the paper towel holder, which is a cheapie plastic one.  But it at least serves a purpose, so I'll leave it for now until I get the one I'm going to replace it with.  I think I may put the wooden one in there that was once in my little cabin in the woods in Boulder Creek, and most recently in another little house I loved and couldn't save.  There's a kind of magical quality to that thing now.  It travels to houses I love, and KD is a little house, albeit on wheels.

On to less savory items.  Like the toilet.

 

It's loose on its moorings, isn't hooked up to the water, and I don't want it anyway.  Anyone still reading this blog will sooner or later be treated to my views on the best potty arrangement for camping and RV'ing.   The fancy way to refer to my method is to call it a "dry toilet system."  The down-home term is "bucket toilet".  I'll explain later.  Suffice it to say, that toilet has gotta go.

 

I managed to get it out, and discovered the reason for the loose, rocking action.  One side of the plate it bolts to is broken.  Doesn't matter, I don't want it. 

 

Another little item was this charming tiny corner sink. 

 

 

Yuck.  Ghastly, pus-yellow color so beloved of the seventies.  It's stained and in poor repair, and it's pointless.  The whole bathroom will need rebuilding, and when it is done it won't have a sink.  So I got it out.  Here it is out of the trailer.

 

 

I thought I'd clean it up a little, because it's always possible that somebody would want it if they were trying to restore their Shasta 16SC to original spec.  I spent quite a lot of time scrubbing it and working at the stains, and then thought I'd remove some of the stupid white muck somebody had used to try and stop it leaking around the waste pipe flange.  That's when I discovered the crack at the drain that was covered up by sloppily-applied compound of some sort.  Fortunately, it doesn't matter much to me, since I don't plan on using the sink.  And in fact it could be repaired fairly easily with some fiberglass patching.  The outlet pipe flange looks like it is a little too small, and with a properly sized one you would not see the repair.   I'll see if anyone wants it on one of the vintage trailer forums. 

Go For Gate

It's almost time.  Out under the late afternoon sun, gate staff are tightening up their belts, hitting the lip balm, cracking their knuckles, checking radios, stretching out to ready for the task of climbing into a thousand trailers, truck beds and RV's, and taking that last swig of water.  I'm choosing to mentally gaze into the hazy, dusty distance, past all bullshit and heartbreak, and raise a toast to those hard working badass motherfuckers manning the gate.  Theme music is "Go For Gate" by Shannanigans.  You can listen or download it for free by going to this link.  You have to scroll to the very end of the gallery pics, and then you'll find the download link and lyrics.  If you are one of us, it will make you smile.

http://gate.burningman.com/gallery.php

Last 150 Miles

It’s been a week and a half since I got back, and I had intended to put up the narrative of the final leg of the trip well before now.  But you know how it is.  I’ve been playing with KD, and by playing I mean mostly cleaning, with some gratifying removal of unwanted crap out of her.  More about that later.  There has also been a heat wave happening, which is hard on those of us who don’t have A/C because we seldom need it.  One more day and I was prepared to rig up a redneck air conditioner using a cooler of ice with a box fan duct taped on top.  I’m serious.  Thankfully the heat has let up here, and we never had it near as bad as the worst places.  But it made it hard to do anything.

But as for the last miles of my trip . . . . .

It was almost dark by the time I left Harris Ranch, fortified with a fresh coffee and a snack.  I felt tired, but not sleepy, nothing like the dreadful condition I’d been in the previous night.  Hard to believe I’d had only a few hours of not so great sleep after that and still felt pretty good.  Coffee, food, and breaking up the last few hundred miles was the key.  Also, being so close to the end.  Part of me didn’t want the trip to end yet.  It had turned into such an epic adventure.  But the larger part of me was tired and just wanted to get home with the trailer still attached and no major disasters.

Back on Highway 5, heading north, this section of straight highway through the Central Valley was familiar to me, and seemed even more so after all the far places I’d been.  Although, one thing I’d discovered on this trip:  far places can certainly be different than home, but there is a universality to the North American continent, to the hemisphere, to the planet (I now believe).  I found more that reminded me of home, in its way, than I found the opposite.  Perhaps it has something to do with the way California has so many different kinds of climate and landscape.  People not from here may be under the impression that it is all sunshine and beaches, but it’s not.  The vast wide prairie reminded me of nothing so much as my own home state’s Central Valley.  The Sand Hills of Nebraska reminded me of gently rolling hills I’d driven through in California, and deserts, though each has its own unique character and flavor, all have the essential, familiar desert nature about them that makes them instantly recognizable, more as a feeling than anything else.

But still, this was home, or near enough to it that I could smell it from here.  Perhaps not the precise corner of home that I wanted to stake out for myself, but home nonetheless, where family waited, and friends who had been following along with good wishes waited.  Home as a region, as a section of country, where the details and specifics can always be worked out with time and the help of a Higher Power.

Stuck in the slow lane and being beaten up by a road torn up by trucks, I had to laugh at the way I’d dissed other states’ crappy roads.  It made me think wistfully of the smooth, well maintained roads of Nevada.  But on my left, rounded mountains were drawing closer the farther north I went.  It seemed hardly any time at all before I was approaching the junction of 152.  These are the Diablo Mountains, and they’d been pacing me for many miles, running as they do along the western edge of the big Valley.  We often call them hills because of their deceptively round and maternal curves.  But they are a mountain range, part of the collection of California Coast Ranges, with a few high peaks that range up to just over 5000 feet in the case of San Benito Mountain.  If you come from a place where the green lasts through spring and well into summer, you might be put off by the brown of these slopes, which is oak woodland and chaparral and most of the year is what less optimistic persons would call dull brown and hopeful ones call tawny and gold.  The truth is they are an endless range of colors, and if you love these hills you see them in their best light and don’t think of them as dry or dead.  To me they have always been as Kenny described the Chocolate Mountains in Imperial County, hundreds of miles away at the southern end of the state:  “I’ll tell you what, no matter how many times you look at them . . .”  And I finished the sentence because I knew what he meant:  “They never look the same.”

I couldn’t see them too well until I turned onto 152, which cuts through near Los Banos and follows the Pacheco Pass to Gilroy.  The moon, a misshapen lump the night before, was moving toward fullness.  It would be a big moon in a couple of nights, the biggest of the year, but already it was putting out a lot of light and appeared larger than usual, hanging low in the sky.  Its light fell over this eastern face of the Diablos, making them visible and really quite beautiful.  A great sense of comfort and homecoming filled me.  This journey was almost done.

152 winds through Pacheco Pass as a four lane highway, not terribly challenging as twisty highways go, but I had my first white knuckle moment as I approached a downhill section that had a sharp curve at the bottom.  I wasn’t quite expecting it and though I was keeping to a very conservative speed, for this little stretch I realized I was going faster than I should have, especially without trailer brakes.  No disaster ensued, but I sharpened up my attention and was even more careful after that.

Casa de Fruta was coming up, and I had it earmarked as a stopping point if I needed one.  Most everybody who has traveled from Northern California down to the southern part of the state using 152 to access Highway 5 has stopped at Casa de Fruta.  It’s a large roadside establishment, built on what was once just a welcoming, good-vibed place with a big artesian well.  Italian immigrants began farming there and sold fruit in a roadside stand, eventually adding gas station, restaurant and a rideable miniature railroad and playground for children.  Today it’s an RV park, motel, restaurant, gas station, and shops selling local produce, gifty items and candy.   They’ve still got the train and also a carousel.  It’s a beautiful piece of land, filled with a naturally peaceful, happy feeling, set about with antique farm equipment, rustic décor and beautiful trees.  Some years ago one of the biggest and best of the local powwows was held at the back of the property, on the other side of a little creek in a pasture just under the rise of low hills dotted with oaks.  I had some wonderful times attending that powwow, camping in my small tipi on the hills overlooking the powwow arena amid the oaks and meeting friends I only ever saw at powwow.  Sadly, that event is no more, and now they hold the Renaissance Faire in its place.

It’s been twenty years since I stayed at the motel, which I remember as being basic but serviceable, and I’ve never used the RV facilities, though friends have.  It’s a very pretty place, and worth at least a quick stop if you need a potty break and a chance to get out and stretch your legs.  It has its element of cheese, like all roadside attractions, but it is so overlain with the mellow beauty of the surroundings and the native peace even the area’s earliest indian inhabitants noted that I can easily overlook its flaws. If you are traveling in either direction along 152 and looking for a paid RV campground, you could do worse than Casa de Fruta.

I was so close to home at this point and so not in need of a stop that I just kept going.  It felt like stopping this close to the end would be pointless.

Past the exit for Casa de Fruta, 152 shrinks to an undivided two-lane highway, narrowing considerably.  They used to call this stretch Blood Alley, because of the many head-on collisions.  My second white-knuckle moment came as I was negotiating a curve around a k-rail that had been thrown up around some damn piece of roadwork that WAS THERE LAST JANUARY!  Dealing with rough road, trailer sway, and a narrow lane, I had quite enough to handle without the eighteen-wheeler coming at me in the opposite direction.  It was not a pleasant moment, punctuated by a number of oh shits, but nobody died.   I had folks stacked up behind me but nowhere to pull off and no passing lane, which was just too damn bad.  I really couldn’t go 55, the best I could manage was 45.  One driver couldn’t stand it and barely squeaked around me on the right, passing over the double yellow line seconds before oncoming traffic closed the gap.  Of over 2,500 miles of towing, that was probably the hairiest stretch, and I was nearly home.  I guess it was to keep the last bit from being boring.

At last the road opened up in Gilroy, and the freeway entrance to good ‘ol 101 was right there, and I was getting on it, and heading north over very familiar roadway, and the last miles were flying beneath Kadydid and the Goose’s wings, and it was so odd to be driving the route I take to work, familiar (if not beloved) landmarks rising up in the midst of Silicon Valley, a once beautiful valley where they put up a giant parking lot.

Off the freeway now, taking the curving road, past a place where I’d seen a little Aristocrat Lo-Liner parked for months and thought (briefly) of trying to find the owner and offering to buy it, it was so adorable and looking so sadly neglected, but I’m glad I didn’t because the reason for all the waiting, months that stretched to two years, was towing along behind me, at last, at last, like a dream, with her running lights glowing and her jostle that bounced Goose on the bumps.  I looked back at her in the mirror, hardly believing it was real, and saw a cop following me.

I should say I never did anything about getting a tow permit, and I hauled KD across two-thirds of the country with no plates and no permit.  Not a single cop bothered me.  I should say that hundreds of drivers ( most of them truckers) probably raised their blood pressure and gnawed their fingers and gritted their teeth, stuck behind the frumpy trio of a pudgy mountain girl driving an aging Suburban pulling a beat old camper trailer, puttering along at well under the speed limit.  But none of them flipped me off or yelled out their windows or (with perhaps only two exceptions) cut me off.

I wonder if this cop is going to put his lights on me any second, demand to know where my plates are.  I suddenly think that would be hilarious.  I think to myself, I’ve just driven five-thousand miles, half of them pulling a trailer I was terrified to tow.  I have climbed mountains and visited landscapes that only existed in the imagination.  I have been brokedown by the side of the road a thousand miles from home, rescued by angels of the road.  I have gone past the invisible gate of my known universe, driving into the heart of a country I belong to but have never seen.  I have walked boldly into tiny western town saloons and dared to order cheese sandwiches!  I have braved humidity, dodged hailstorms, slept in truck stops, met oh-so-many people!  Threaded my way through toll booths and gotten jacked up and lost in downtown St. Louis—while pulling a trailer!  I have looked into eyes that have survived death by the grace of God, a set of cement steps and a household appliance.  I have looked at a trailer I had the foolishness to want and to buy, trembling as it was hooked up to my truck at the realization that now I was going to have to tow it home, and heeded the silent, laughing words of my especial angel and guide who let out a great cosmic HAH! and said GET ON YOUR PONY AND RIDE!  I have driven through the darkness of a terrible, sleepless night, the sleeve of an old trucker’s ratty fleece coat clutched in my hand for comfort, talking to a stuffed bear to keep awake.

I am invincible.  I cannot be defeated.

I resolve to ignore the cop even if he puts his lights on.  There’s nowhere to pull over and he can follow me home if he wants to chat.  Which is just what he does, though he never puts his lights on.

I turn down my street, and there is a whole forest of cops.  A welcoming party!  Oh, you shouldn’t have!  A simple card would have been sufficient, no need to break out the keys to the city!

Of course the cops are not interested in me, they have no idea I’ve just completed one of the world’s grandest cross-country treks, the journey of a lifetime, a utilitarian errand that became a vision-quest.  They are here to arrest one of the neighbors for some transgression, and nobody wants to be left out of the excitement, never mind that the rest of the town is now bereft of police protection.

I pull past about a dozen assorted cop vehicles, double park in front of the house with the engine running, and call the Home Office on the cell phone.

“It’s me.  I’m home!”

Update

Just updated Harris Ranch, which picks up the narrative after the Tehachapi post.

Tehachapi to Bakersfield

The drive from Tehachapi to the Bakersfield Flying J is an easy 56 miles.  By Tehachapi you are out of the true desert, and shortly winding through the Tehachapi Mountains which are covered in oak and grassland.  This is lovely scenery.  It is only the last day of Spring and already the grass in these hills has dried, yet it is not a dead brown. The hills are a bright, wonderful shade of gold.  Which must explain why there is a community nearby called Golden Hills.  This landscape is so different from the lush green of the Midwest or the rich greengrass of Wyoming.  This grass must make haste with the short wet season, flushing out in green with the rains of late winter and very early spring, heading out and drying long before summer begins.  But it is no less beautiful and it tugs at my heart, because although I am still nearly 300 miles from home, this is a landscape I've known all my life.  It is not unlike what the hills of Yerba Buena, later to be called San Francisco, must have looked like before they were transformed by steam shovel into the densely built city where I was born.  These rolling, golden hills dotted with oak trees are found in many places in central California, and I’ve known and loved them all my life.

These are particularly spectacular examples of this kind of landscape, and that alone makes them worth seeing, but when you add in the trains you get a picture that is almost too perfect to be believed.  Tehachapi’s trains are beloved by rail fans, and there are few more picturesque places to trainspot.  As I drove along, to my left a long train wound among the hills.  I actually watched this train rolling through two tunnels at the same time.  There might possibly have even been a third tunnel, I couldn’t tell.  But I can promise you that parts of the train were visible on both sides of one tunnel while rolling out of a second tunnel.  It was so perfect it looked like an intricately designed model train display come to life.  If you love (or even just like) trains, part of a day hanging in and around Tehachapi and the Tehachapi Mountains will reward you with many fantastic vistas of trains in striking scenery.  It’s a great chance for photographers with a little skill.  Which I’m afraid I don’t have much of, and anyway I was driving, so there was no chance for me to catch that perfect picture for you, the one of the long train winding its way around the shoulders of the mountains and in and out of tunnels.

I grabbed this pic from here, which is a good read about Highway 58, a very scenic road, by the way, with awesome views of the Mojave Desert scenery, my beloved Joshua Trees, and the Tehachapis.

 

Before long I was descending into California’s great Central Valley.  This is the breadbasket of the state, and in fact grows food that supplies much of the country.  It is rich agricultural land, with a mild climate that allows multiple crops a year.  Irrigation and flood control have transformed the historical feast or famine cycle of flood and dry into an evenly watered farmland that produces huge amounts of food crops.  Bakersfield has oil wells, and is known for that “Bakersfield sound,” made famous by Buck Owens and Merle Haggard.  Some views as you drive through Bakersfield look arid and dry, with pump jacks nodding in the flat, white distance.  But other angles let you see the abundant farmland that surrounds the city.  Bakersfield is a bit of a rough and scruffy town, but like a lot of other places that have grown up with time, new development has slapped a bit of a genteel topcoat onto much of it.

I wasn’t spending much time in Bakersfield.  A quick stop at the Flying J to get a quart of oil for Goose (she only used one and a half quarts in more than five thousand miles of hard driving!!!), a chance to walk around a little, fix a fresh cold drink and use the facilities, and I was on my way.  It was odd to think about the last time I had been at that Flying J.  It had been less than six months ago, coming home from Slab City with friends just after New Year’s.  I was numb with both grief and wonder.  Wonder at the great gift of healing and love I’d been given, and grief at the loss of an extraordinary human being who had shared his last days and hours of life with me.  That had been winter, with the damp and chill so bleak after the hard, dry, brightness of Slab City.  Now it was summer, and the sun was hot, the air full of birdsong even over the rumbling of the trucks idling, the smell of growing things mixed with diesel exhaust.  It was a different season, and I was close to having accomplished a great task and come through a great adventure.  But I was not home yet.  I was afraid of getting cocky and jinxing the whole thing with overconfidence, so I tried to treat these last miles as just another part of the drive.

I pulled out onto the road, a short jog north on 99, a westward cutover on 46, and then north on 5.  Next stop, Harris Ranch.

Update

Hey Peeps, I updated the post "Joshua Trees!" with more text and one extra picture.  It picks up the narrative after the Kingman to Barstow episode.

Kingman to Barstow: Dark Night Of The Soul

“Yeah one thing about this wild, wild country
It takes a strong, strong
It breaks a strong, strong mind
And anything less, anything less
Makes me feel like I'm wasting my time”

                            - Drover, Bill Callahan

If you’ll recall, I tried and failed to get coffee at the McD’s in the Kingman Walmart, and paused to take a shot of the vintage cop car parked in the lot.  My first mistake was not taking the time to make myself a big cup of coffee.  Actually, my first mistake was not taking time to rest more, never mind the no-camping signs.  But I had 205 miles to drive to Barstow, I knew I wouldn’t be going very fast, and I needed to get going while the cool of night lasted.  So I struck out into the moonlit desert night, leaving Kingman around 12:30am.

At first it was ok.  The wide desert of western Arizona was open and flat around me, the waxing moon a bulbous lump that gave quite a lot of light.  I made good time to Needles, the air coming in the window pleasantly cool without being the least bit cold.  I was back in California at last, my home state, and only about 500 miles to go to home.  And then the road began to climb.  The moon was touching the hills with a pale light and a slice of sky I could see out my side window was flung with stars.  The climb continued, and I let Goose take it at about 45.  But it didn’t end.  There was no break, no level spot, no downhill section to relieve that steady climb.  It went on and on.  Just when it seemed it must surely end, it didn’t.  A truck lane opened up on the right, and I got into it.  The climb continued, without the slightest dip or pause.  I let Goose down to 40, then 35.  Trucks passed me, not going very fast themselves, but still rumbling past me.  The moon was dipping lower and lower, getting to be a deeper yellow with every passing minute, until at last it looked like very old parchment with a light shining through it, a deep, smoky amber.  The climb continued, and my eyes were getting bleary, light from oncoming traffic striking the windshield hit streaks I hadn’t cleaned off very well at the last stop and left prismatic blooms on my field of vision.  Light from the reflectors on the roadway made feathery spikes rising up from the road like mist.  I blinked and rubbed my eyes, but it didn’t help.

The climb went on, and I began to feel like I was in a bad dream.  The shoulders of the mountains rose around us, only dimly visible in the light of the lowering moon.  The landscape was felt more than seen, and it felt wild and terribly lonely and inhospitable.  This was South Pass, a long, difficult climb to an elevation of 2,630 feet, which seemed far too low for that terrible climb.  It was because I was taking it so slow that it seemed to take so long, and because I had quickly run through my reserves of energy and wakefulness.  I had not gotten sufficient rest to tackle this long drive in the dark, but it was too late to reconsider now.  I had passed my last stopping opportunities, and even if I had stopped to rest, I would only have had to deal with the crushing heat when day came (the daytime temperature at Needles was around 106).  And so I drove on.

The climb finally ended, and at first it was a great relief.   The road angled down into the Ward Valley, but I only know the name because I’ve since looked it up.  In the moment I simply knew that the awful climb had ended.  But another kind of torture was beginning, because now my eyes were refusing to focus very well, and I desperately wanted to lay my head down and sleep.  There was no stopping place.  There was an exit sign for Water Road, but it was just another hopeless path into an empty wilderness.  There was no sign of human habitation but the road, and my only company was the sinking moon and the trucks thundering by.  The road began to climb again, this time to the Mountain Springs Summit at 2,770 feet.  This climb wasn’t so bad, since most of the elevation had been retained from the original climb, but there was another truck lane on the right and I got into it.

I saw the sign for Highway 66 and Amboy and Palm Springs.  I’ve been to Amboy, a ghost town relic from the days when the original Route 66 was the major route crossing the Mojave.  It has a place called Roy’s Café which is a must see if you are at all interested in this area, a living relic from the time before Highway 40 took over and diverted most of the traffic.  But Amboy was not on my route, and would offer no comfort now anyway, so late at night, and thinking of it, itself a lonely, desolate place, only made me feel lonelier.  The big rigs became fewer, the road curved among dark hills, and at last the moon gave up and slipped down behind the brow of the mountain, looking for a short while like a funny old man with a cone shaped head just peeking over the edge of the hill.  Then it was gone and I was alone.  The darkness pressed in, the road winding ahead narrowly in my headlights.  I so desperately wanted to stop.

I saw a sign for a rest stop some miles ahead.  That was it.  My salvation!  I didn’t care if I wasn’t done with the trek across the Mojave.  I absolutely had to close my eyes.  Now I had a hope of doing that, I just had to make it some 20 or so miles until that point.  I hung on grimly, through a dreamlike landscape that had become surreal and endless, without a single light or building or any other human presence in the lengthening gaps between thundering trucks.  Finally there was a sign that the rest stop was just a mile ahead.  I slowed and took the ramp, anticipation of relief giving me a moment of wakefulness.  I took the fork for cars, not trucks.  The truck side seemed full up.  I couldn’t swear that every spot was taken, but it seemed so.  And now I was rolling slowly through the car side, looking for anywhere I could stop.  There might have been a place I could have wedged in, but I kept rolling in search of a legitimate spot.  And then I was at the exit which led back onto the highway and there was no way to loop back around, no way to try for another chance, I was back on the highway before I even knew exactly what had happened, passing one last van that had squeezed itself into a slim space along the exit ramp because there was no other room.

It was like a terrible, cruel joke.  I had been promising myself sleep if only I could make it a few more miles.  To be denied like that was the worst kind of cruelty.  I could have wept, but it wouldn’t have helped, so I kept driving.  Shapes darted across the road, shapes I felt fairly certain weren’t there.  Things loomed up by the side of the road that probably weren’t there either.  I took deep breaths and bit my lip hard to try and wake myself, I took sips of a cold drink I had, but nothing really helped much.

I have tried, in my driving career, to not drive under such conditions, and I’ve been fairly successful.  There have only been one or two other times when I was nearly this tired and yet kept driving for any length of time.  But this was the worst.  There wasn’t any place to pull over, not even a wide spot in the road.  I had to keep going, and so I did.  When I saw another sign for a rest stop, my spirits lifted.  This time for sure, I thought to myself.

I exited at the ramp and very slowly pulled through, but it was the same all over again.  No room at the inn.  Again, I might have found a little spot if I’d been in better shape, sharper and able to make quicker decisions, but once again there was no second chance and no real room for me.  I wasn’t the only one desperate for sleep and rest, it seemed.  Big rigs were stacked up and jammed into whatever room was available, even on the ramp, and the car side had no space big enough for me with the trailer.  For the second time I was being shunted back onto the road.

But this time, something different happened.  I got angry.  What the fuck?  How was this fair?  Why weren’t there more spaces, and why hadn’t those thoughtless bastards left enough room for me by aligning themselves together a little better?  I was filled with a towering rage, and with that rage came a fresh wave of energy.  Suddenly I wasn’t sleepy anymore, I was very pissed off.  I sped up, pushing Goose up toward 55 from the 40 and 45 I’d been going.  Fine!  Just fine!  I was going to go all the way to Barstow, and then, fuck all, I was going to sleep.

The pain abated some, my vision cleared, I saw no more mysterious shapes in the dark.  Before much longer the road had descended out of the mountains (the Piute Mountains it seems, and may I never drive through them in the dark again).  To my right a cool white light appeared in the sky.  I wondered if it was the lights of a town over the ridge, but when the light kept growing and began to take on a rosy tint, I knew it was the dawn coming.  I felt I was racing the coming day, because when the sun came up, if I was still in the desert, I’d have no chance to sleep.  I pushed on, and at last saw the lights of a town ahead, the remaining curves of the foothills becoming clearer in the growing light.  I made better time, and at last I was entering Barstow, and the GPS was telling me to take the exit, and I was pulling in to the TA I’d selected months ago as my stopping point.  Ample parking spaces greeted me, and I pulled in at the end of a row, and shut off the engine.  Morning had come, the first yellow light of the sun just moments away from cresting the top of the horizon.  It was just after 5:00am.  Could I have been driving for five hours?

I hurriedly took what I needed into the trailer, closed and locked the door behind me, drew the curtains and put things back together from where they’d been tossed about from the bouncing of the road, kicked off my shoes, and lay down.  I could have wished for a little more seclusion, and even more, a few hours of darkness.  But I closed my eyes at last and slept.

Lazy Day

I've spent almost the entire day sleeping.  My wonderful boss let me have one more day off (he probably knew I wouldn't be good for much at work anyway) and told me to get some rest.  I finally got up to go out with family for a meal--not at a truck stop!  Gave them the daylight tour of KD.  They had a brief tour last night when I got home, but it was dark and the priority was to get critical stuff brought inside and then sleep.  It feels a bit odd to not be driving and blogging, but after eighteen days on the road, I welcome the break.

I will try to update some older posts that I never got to and tell you about the last parts of the drive home tomorrow.

Every time a journey ends . . .

. . . A Shasta gets its wings.

Pulled in at 11:59pm.  Thanks for riding along.  I will post and update more, but first, kitties, then sleep.  Love you all.

Harris Ranch

150 miles to home.  Harris Ranch at sunset.

 

 

Update:  Harris Ranch is one of those traveler's oases that offer respite in what is essentially the middle of nowhere (though it is certainly not as remote as some places I’ve been on this trip).  The address is listed as Coalinga, but the property is well outside of the town proper, about 13 miles away by road.  Coalinga itself is a small town with a bunch of interesting facts attached to it, like the etymology of its name, which evolved from the Southern Pacific Railroad’s designation of the spot as “Coaling Station A,” from which the word Coalinga was coined.  If you aren’t from around here, you might be interested to know that the first “a” is pronounced, so that it goes CO-ah-LING-ah, emphasis on the third syllable, and said with a hard “g”.  Who knows how these things get decided.   Probably some out of towner took a stab at saying the word out loud and it stuck.

The legendary California bandit Joaquin Murrietta  had his hideout nearby, where he was killed.  The town is an interesting footnote in the history of reverse osmosis systems for drinking water.  The local water was so bad that everybody had three taps, hot, cold, and potable, for the drinking water that had to be trucked in until they pioneered one of the first practical large-scale uses of reverse osmosis to get the water decently drinkable in the sixties.  There are other interesting things about this little place that might make it worth a visit, but I didn’t go into town.  I just pulled off Highway 5 to the Shell station that serves as the fueling point for the travel center part of Harris Ranch.

Harris Ranch is supposedly the biggest producer of beef in the state.  It is astonishing how much meat flows out of this place.  They do it all, from feedlot to slaughterhouse to neatly packaged parcels sold to In-N-Out Burgers and many grocery stores.  They grow crops there too, and raise Thoroughbreds.  In the seventies a restaurant was opened, and it grew because of the demand from travelers on busy Highway 5.  A fancy hotel was added in the eighties, and now there is the hotel, a substantial gift shop, the gas station with convenience store (that also has a few gifty items), car wash, and the restaurant.

I overnighted in the lot last year on my way south, and had breakfast at the restaurant.  As you might expect, the menu features beef.  It was good, I thought the price was reasonable if not cheap, and the service was excellent.  The handsome restaurant has a great western-themed décor.



I took pictures of an enormous painting that I fell in love with, but it would have required a huge house to showcase it.

The gift shop was nice, with knick-knacks, stuffed cows, housewares, and a nice selection of thoughtful toys that impressed me.  It was Christmas at the time, and they had a huge, lighted gingerbread house and many beautifully decorated Christmas trees.

In some ways Harris Ranch reminds me of Little America, but it is not quite as elaborate in terms of number of guest-oriented amenities.   Harris Ranch is a more diverse operation and not as entirely focused on being a travel stop as Little America is.  This is a view of the hacienda-style hotel.  It's actually much fancier than this limited view shows.

I’m not aware of any official policy on overnighting there (other than at the fancy hotel), but we did it and had no trouble.  The generous sized lots and 24-hour gas station, convenience store and clean restrooms make it an appealing alternative to a regular truck stop if you are on the road and looking for a place to crash on the cheap (or with an RV).

The smell of the feedlot can get pretty strong at times, depending on how the wind is blowing.  If you absolutely hate that smell, this is probably not the ideal stop for you, or perhaps you’ll want to restrict your visit to a quick gas-snack-and-potty break.  But I do recommend the restaurant if you want a nice meal on your travels as a changeup from the usual truck stop and fast food fare.

This time I just gassed up and got a coffee and an ice cream to boost me along on the last 150 miles home.  Made a call to the Home Office to update them on my location and ETA, then hit the road for the very last leg home.