Day 61 Easter Monday April 17

We are finally pointing our nose north. We got up, I had my coffee, and Sheila had her tea & breakfast.  We got everything unhooked, stored & put away.  Judy & Larry came by to say goodbye and thank us for the 2 carpet mats we gave them.  Sheila drove the car to the GVP office to put in our survey form on the park.  I took the RV out of our spot at 9:55 drove around and parked it ready to hook up the car.  We had the car hooked up & rolled out of GVP at 10:15 at 45958 miles, not exactly a crack of dawn departure but we are off.  We arrived at our planned gas stop at a Pilot station at 11:45 at 46024 miles. Filled up, 69.115 USG at $2.749 per gallon, $190.00 on the Pilot Charge card. The speedometer said 512 miles to MT. As it was now 12:10 we made it a lunch stop with pizza from the Pilot station. Finally out at 12:35 & onto Hwy 395, north to the junction with Hwy 58 & then west to Bakersfield & Hwy 99 north. Up Hwy 99 to the Sun & Fun RV Park in Tulare, CA. We arrived at 46220 miles at 4:20. Out temp read-out in the car was reading 30C, (86F) when we got here. The speedometer now says 345 miles to MT.  We drove 196 miles from the gas stop, the speedometer says we used only 167 miles worth of gas; I have no idea what that means, good gas mileage or inaccurate gauges or ??? We hit slow traffic getting through & out of Bakersfield, it just crept along.  Up the highway we found one lane out of 3 closed and probably the whole highway had been closed for a while due to a truck that had been on fire.  It was at the side of the road and the whole front end & cab were completely burnt out, no tires, paint or anything left.  It looked like it had ignited some of the dry grass beside the road. So that added to our, on the road time, a lot.  They don’t have an open pool at the campground, it’s closed for repairs, but they do have cable so Sheila can watch Dancing with the Stars.  We had a supper of leftover ham from yesterday with some mashed potatoes & gravy that Sheila bought at the Pilot station. Tomorrow’s destination is a Wal-Mart in Willows Calif. across the road from that great restaurant – Nancy’s Café.  That’s the one that was closed due to flooding on the route down; we hope it is open again.

Distance covered – 262 miles – 5 hrs 15 min driving time