On the Road Again

Bakersfield, California: We ARE keeping the party going! The RV was packed and the fridge was filled. The road was calling, we have nowhere to be all next week, so we pointed the Petit Peregrinus north this morning. Turned out it was the best day to get out of Dodge - the groundskeepers scalped every lawn on our street today, leaving the sky filled with dusty grass clippings and the front of our house looking like we lived in the middle of a desert. (Oh, that’s right, we DO live in the middle of a desert.)

The lawns will be left to wither for a week or so, then it will be reseeded and then irrigated like we lived in the Pacific Northwest. In November, our gardener will plant yellow pansies in the flower beds, the lawn will become lush and green, and we will return to our GO DUCK selves, ready for another winter in Paradise.

Until then, we have a lot of driving to do and today we had a lot of sitting-in-traffic driving. It took more than three hours to even reach Los Angeles (we normally reach Lisa’s house in just-over two hours), and we witnessed a car fire north of LA - but saw that everyone had safely escaped the burning vehicle. So much smoke and we can’t believe a fire truck showed up immediately to the accident. Traffic happily improved as we climbed over The Grapevine on I-5. Never a leisurely drive with hundreds of truckers also traveling the hilly route. The goal was to arrive to the Bakersfield RV Resort (now a KOA) and get the satellite dish up in time to watch the Dodgers. Usually not a problem, but after letting the dish sit idle for so many weeks, it is always a struggle for me. (All tech jobs are my jobs.)

O.M.G. Tonight’s set-up with the Dish Network involved a phone call to their tech center in Manila. The dish locked-on easily, but the app could not find us. Ugh. Seems we had been away during a serious software update, so that happened while we waited, and we were locked and on-line 15 seconds before the first pitch. Whew.

Since the temperatures in Bakersfield are well below 100-degrees, I did prepare our traditional first-night-on-the-road lasagna, but stoopidly prepped the casserole in a disposable aluminum pan. Idiot. Nothing can be aluminum in our RV Barbie oven! I think it is because it uses microwave AND convection? Not sure, as only the most rudimentary of all instruction booklets are included with the Barbie Oven. Happily, I had an 8x8 Pyrex in the RV and easily slipped the 8x8 aluminum lasagna pan into the glass Pyrex. Whew. The oven will only heat to 390 degrees and in less than ONE HOUR, our dinner was ready.

We also had a salad, but went to bed 15 seconds after the Dodgers beat the Brewers. Shohei Ohtani had three homers tonight, and the Dodgers move on to the World Series.

There is another game tomorrow - Ducks at Rutgers. 3:30p pacific on the Big Ten Network. Buffalo wings will be served… where ever we stop for the night… and hopefully in time to make-sure our TV satellite system locks on.

Until my next update, I remain, your aluminum-free correspondent.

Campground Information: Bakersfield RV Resort

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