It’s get away day again and this one will be a doozy. We’ve got a 10+ hour day of driving from Zion Ponderosa Ranch to Sequoia RV Ranch in California. We’re getting better at packing things up quickly and had the chairs thrown in and Jeep loaded up in no time. We pulled out at 7am and drive it roof 50 feet into an empty gravel parking lot so we could turn in the generator and make coffee without disturbing the neighbors.
We actually need to chill out here for a little while because we need to take the RV through the Zion tunnels that we went through yesterday. When you’re driving something that’s either too tall to hang in right lane or too wide to fit side by side with another vehicle, you pay a $15 fee and the rangers shutdown traffic going the other way so you can drive the middle and not cause a horrible wreck jamming up the tunnel. The rangers don’t start working till 8am, so we arrive then, pay the fee and drive through in luxury.
The drive down the Zion canyon was a little more white knuckled than it was in the Jeep. I took it slow and steady and braked generously. It has electronic grade breaking that switches the gears lower to help slow down more and not melt my brakes – that made things fairly easy. Definitely took awhile but we made it to the bottom fairly easily.
We meet up with Dad closer to their campground and head out. Travel was fairly easy through Utah. We take 9 west over to 15 south and will take that for 300 miles. But first, we need to make a very important stop – we need a new relay for the AC so we don’t cook to death in this hot box. The first big city we ran into, we filled up on gas and ran in to O’Reilly’s. They had some rain-x washer fluid, the right size batteries for remote, and most importantly – 2 of the right relays. I bought both of them, popped in one of those bad boys, turned on the AC and it blew ice cold!!! Thank you for stocking Chevy 4500 express relays O’Reilly’s – you saved the trip.
With the AC blowing max power we head out into the desert and through Las Vegas where the local temperature is 108. I don’t care if it’s 0 percent humidity – it’s still hot as hell. Not sure how people survive in this. We decide to jump off the highway to drive down the strip to show the girls the buildings and where they could end up working as dancers if they don’t study hard in school.
We were all getting hungry by now and most of the family had never been to an In and Out burger place before so we find one next to a mall parking lot. As we pull in and park, I hear an alarm going off inside they camper. We open the door and figure out out it is the carbon monoxide / propane fume detector. Is this camper about to explode? We shut off the propane tanks and air it out a little and the alarm stops going off – explosion avoided for now. May experience a different kind of explosion as we load up on In and Out burgers – animal style, the only proper way to order.
Ryan suggested we fill up on gas early at the gas station there for $3.85. I think we can do better if we head down the road a little to outside of Vegas touristy gas. We definitely should have listened to Ryan. There wasn’t another gas station until exit 1, the last station before California and it was $5.39. That was a very expensive mistake.
From there it was a long long day of travel through the Mojave desert. It’s a whole bunch of nothing with long uphill climbs through mountainy terrain. It was 8 percent grade for miles in several areas and they have a special truck lane for big rigs like us to chug up the hill slowly. We still weren’t sure if the thermostat has fixed the overheating problem yet in the Lexus, and it did start to get a little hot when we were going up the hill fast, but if he slowed down a little, it cooled back down. The overheating problem looks to be fixed – great work Ryan!
Halfway through the desert, Google maps started freaking out trying to reroute us due to an accident. I took the reroute, but it tried to send us down some dirt road that had 18 wheelers that must have also been rerouted there backing up because it was not navigable. I guess Google maps doesn’t know everything. The delay was caused by an overturned tractor trailer having a much worse day than we were.
It was cleared shortly after we arrived in the line and we continued on. The desert turned to California orange groves and we started enjoying the views much more. Eventually we arrived at our final destination, the Sequoia RV Ranch, a nice spot with water and electric hookups. We quickly setup and the ladies cook up some tacos that we quickly eat and head off to bed. We have a busy day planned tomorrow with a visit to the big trees in Sequoia national park and traveling to Yosemite after that, so let’s recharge and be ready for a challenge tomorrow.
