Week 182 - Rainy Day Photo Collection - 02-07-2010

"It never rains in Southern California . . ."

In the last four years, we have had in-depth conversations with hundreds of RVers, many of them full-time travelers. We have learned that the great majority of them have pretty detailed plans of where they are going, where they are camping, and how long they will stay. Most of the full-timers also "explored" for the first year or two and then settled in to staying at two of three or the same locations every year. Eventually, we are sure that we will do the same. But for now, we continue to explore. We have stayed in Hemet for four weeks (our longest stay in the last four years) and will visit our daughters in Escondido this weekend. What surprises our RV friends, is our answer to "where are you going after Escondido?". The answer is "we don't know!". We do have plans to head East, but beyond that, we have no idea where we will be next Monday night.

Why is that? When we visit a campground or RV park, we don't make reservations and we pay for one night only. If we meet people and want to stay longer or find pickleball or some other attraction, we stay longer. On the last night before we move on, we choose a direction. How? We look up www.Weather.com and it tells us. We find a warm destination. This is how we found RV parks in January 2008. We searched every Southern California city and El Centro was the warmest. El Centro? Yes, and we found two nice RV parks, one with 18 holes of golf and the other with pickleball. We stayed a few days, checked weather.com and moved on.

So what does this have to do with rain? We avoid bad weather at all costs. We don't do rain, snow and cold, unless it takes us by surprise. And it does and that's how we got the photos for this weeks' collection.

October 2006: Near Zion National Park we took at 25 mile ride on a beautiful day. As we rose in elevation to an area that received little sun, the road became snow-covered. Not good for vertical riding on a motorcycle. We have photos in previous travelogues that show it is very good for horizontal motorcycle positions.

October 2006: The rain is really coming down in Zion National Park. Not really, it is not raining at all. This is Weeping Rock. The rain water from the Spring collects in cavities in the rocks and pours out of this rock all year long. Very cool, and worth the hike.

November 2006: We were in Salt Lake City and the weather turned from beautiful to sour in a matter of minutes. We broke our rule of a maximum of 150 miles in a day and drove 300 miles this day and 280 miles the next to get to sunny weather in Lake Havasu, Arizona.

January 2007: We left reasonable weather in Atascadero and headed to DeMartini RV in Grass Valley, California. Overnight, the snow and hail came down and we had two inches of ice on top of the Mothership on the "slide toppers", the covers over the slides. By morning the horizontal covers you see were bowed down and touched the top of the slides.

April 2007: This RV Park is in Fort Davis in Western Texas. The afternoon we came in, it was 70 degrees and we went for a several mile walk in the evening. That night it dropped to 30 degrees and stayed at 30 for two days, day and night. Not a problem. We had everything we needed to stay indoors for two days: food, drink, heat, water, cable TV and Internet. We had a great time as we watched out our picture windows as the majority of the other campers were walking their dogs, twice a day!

April 2007: New Orleans, 18 months after Hurricane Katrina. We have hundreds of photos that look like this. We even saw boats blown onto the roads and still sitting on the road shoulders. While we obviously did not experience the hurricane, you can relate to its power by seeing all this destruction.

April 2007: Lake City, Florida. The smoke we saw lasted for many days of our travels in Florida. The Bugaboo Scrub Fire lasted for nearly a month and is the largest fire in history for both Georgia and Florida.

June 2007: We stayed a week at the Salisbury Elks Lodge in Maryland. The Elks has a very nice 18-hole golf course and an Olympic sized pool. And it had a fantastic lightning storm!

July 2007: Okay, so we weren't caught in a rain storm, but we have never been wetter! This is what you look like after you take the Maid of the Mist boat ride near the Canadian Horseshoe Falls. When you visit Niagara Falls, don't skip this attraction.

August 2007: Decatur, Michigan. On August 23rd, 2007 a tornado struck the city of Chicago. We were in Decatur, Michigan and after leaving Chicago the tornado headed directly toward our RV Park. Seeing it approach on the up to the minute TV news, we ran around the park to ask where we should go. Not a single person knew! So much for local knowledge. So we pulled in our slides and we prepared to hunker down under the bedroom mattress so that shattering glass would not hit us. The tornado lessened as it crossed Lake Michigan but still had plenty of power and rain as it struck the RV park. Ellen rather than hiding under the mattress was in and outside the motorhome taking pictures.

October 2007: Monaco RV Center, Harrisburg, Oregon. As you may know, while the state of Oregon is absolutely beautiful, weather like this can be very common.

December 2007: Avila Beach, California. Avila Beach has some of the most consistently nice weather of any California beach town. The city is on a nicely protected cove. But it is not immune as you can see from this photo.

August 2008: Palisades Dam, Idaho. On the same sunny day that we rafted down the Snake River in Wyoming, we were greeted by this rain storm.

September 2008: Outdoor Resorts in the Ozarks, Arkansas. 1) This "still" picture was taken at 2:25 am on September 14th, 2008 as Hurricane Ike passed our RV. 2) The damage seen the next morning was fairly extensive. Again, we had pulled in our slides and while the hurricane rocked us, it caused us no damage. Our neighbor Kevin was not quite as lucky.

We took a scooter ride the day after Ike passed and saw hundreds of downed trees, both large and small.

October 2008: The sky was clearing up after the storm passed in Gallup, New Mexico.

July 2009: Valdez, Alaska. The weather in summer 2009 in Alaska was fabulous. When we reached Valdez, the Elk's members told us we missed their most beautiful weather of the year by one week. Even so, Valdez is an amazingly beautiful area with high mountains surrounding the city. Even the meandering bay that leads to the ocean is bordered by mountains so you literally will see mountains for 360 degrees. We can't wait to return during the sunny weather to get absolutely stunning photos.

September 2009: Chelan, Washington. These photos were taken from the home of our friends Colly and Wally.

October 2009: Bend Oregon Elks Lodge. Apparently weather can change quickly. These photos were taken just a few days apart. This overnight snow storm even surprised the Bend locals.

"It never rains in California, but girl don't they warn ya, it pours, man it pours."

We will continue to rely upon weather.com for our next destination. At times, you just can't justify the cost of diesel fuel to avoid all bad weather. But, even when we encounter "non-sunshine", we can still find our Happy Place!

Rain or shine, thanks for traveling with us.

Love, Pete and Ellen

This special edition travelogue was brought to you as there is nothing new in our travel.

Photos from Oct 2006 to Oct 2009