It’s been a couple days since my last post.  We’ve been busy hanging out at my brother Ron’s house in Westley, CA.  Let me bring you up to date:

We arrived early Tuesday evening after our long day’s drive down I-5  and through Sacramento.  After hugs and a tour of the house and adjoining machine shop, we made a trip to the local WalMart to replenish the fridge and more importantly – get some steaks for the BBQ grill.     We spent time grilling and catching up.  It was great seeing them again, it’s been a long time… years in fact.

We parked on the street beside their house during our stay.  Ron graciously provided a power outlet so we could run one of the air conditioners or the microwave without having to start our generator.

Wednesday ended up being a full work day in the fully-appointed machine shop next to the house.  I conned (I mean, talked) Ron into doing some modifications to the Silverado’s bed-rails and motorcycle ramp.  Nephew James stayed home from work and helped out as well.  Ron figured out how to slice a long piece of aluminum off the bed rails so I can better secure my tonneau cover when I’m not carrying the Harley.  He also invented a quick-release mount for the motorcycle ramp to secure it on top of the rack.  Now I don’t have to struggle with a bunch of bungee-cords every time I transport the ramp.

Here we put everything back on the Silverado after having to disassemble the truck rack to make the modifications.

The tonneau cover now rolls shut and and fits tightly between the bed rails.  Thanks Bro!

Ron even took the time to modify the pivot bar that holds the three-piece motorcycle ramp together… the bar was too long and the hole for the pin allowed for too much movement between the individual pieces, so he cut it shorter and re-drilled a new hole for the pin.  Now it’s much safer to use, and there’s no chance for a foot or even worse – a motorcycle tire to accidentally slip between the pieces.

I forgot to take a picture of the quick-release mount that Ron invented to secure the ramp on top of the rack during transport.  But here’s some pics of Ron in action:

We closed out the evening with another great BBQ meal in the back yard.

It rained Thursday morning… just enough to make us not want to get packed up and move.  But, we need to move on down the road and get back to Colorado Springs before our son William comes to visit us in October.  So we slowly got packed up by noon, said our goodbyes’s  and thanked Ron & Terry for everything.  It was about 1 PM by the time we hit I-5 headed South.

Hopefully, I get to see my brother again on Thanksgiving… he’s planning on being in Arizona, as do we.

The roads between the many orchards in the area were muddy from the rain.  Lots of vehicles coming onto the roadway from the orchards had made a mess of the pavement.  Looks like I get to give the Urban Escape Vehicle and pickup a serious washing now.

The sun came out and it dried up quickly.  It wasn’t long before we had to turn on the dash AC again.

We started going through our routine of finding a campground or RV park while traveling down the road since we had good cell signal on I-5.  It looked like the Elks Lodge in Barstow would be a good destination for the day.  The website said it had 77 RV spots in the Lodge parking lot.  So I plugged it into the GPS and we decided to make it a long travel day.  Also, we still needed to decide what route to take back to Colorado, and Barstow happens to be located at the point where we can either choose to go North on I-15 through Las Vegas and then on to I-70, then I-25 at Denver to get to COS; or –  we can catch I-40 East at Barstow which will take us through Flagstaff and Albuquerque to get on I-25 to COS.

It so happens that my Mom, Stepdad, and other brother Steven along with his better-half Cheryl, are currently in Las Vegas on vacation.  So I contacted them to be sure they are still there (they will be until Saturday) so that cinches it – we now have our next destination… Las Vegas, here we come!

Typical highway scenery after we got close to Bakersfield.

It was 7 PM when we finally rolled into Barstow looking for the Elks Lodge.  We found it, but it was closed!  We wondered why the Elks.org website didn’t show info on the Lodge but we did find all kinds of info and reviews on google.  The place looked like it was being sold.   Anyway, we chalked that up to another lesson learned… don’t trust google without verifying!

So we did a quick search for other overnight options and found a Flying J truck stop 4 miles further down on I-15.  Good enough for the night since it’s late anyway.  And besides, we now want to hurry up and get to Las Vegas tomorrow so we can get as much time as possible in with my Mom/Stepdad & other brother Steven and his better-half Cheryl before they go back to Phoenix and/or Las Cruces on Saturday!

We did 335 miles today… whew!  I don’t want to do that too often.

Signing out from the truck stop… C U tomorrow!