Done Visiting

Peggy and I hitched up Winne yesterday and made the relatively short drive down CA Route 99 from Sacramento to Merced. We managed to navigate the maze of freeway interchanges in Sacramento without error and bumped and rattled our way down. Parts of CA 99 are newly paved but other parts are in real need of some investment. I wonder where all the California gas tax money goes these days?

We have traveled down to Merced and stayed nearby on a couple of other trips. On the first trip we stayed in Mariposa near Yosemite National Park since we wanted to visit there as well as visit with Peggy's sister Carol and her family. Last trip through here we stayed at the Merced River RV Park which was "OK" but certainly not a "wow" experience. There really aren't many options in this area but I did find one that sounded worth a try. 

Atwater, CA is just north of Merced and was home to the Castle AFB which was a booming SAC base up until about 15 years ago when it was closed down. Although the locals have been trying to redevelop the base over these years it doesn't appear to me that they have had much success. There is a Castle Air Museum on a small plot of land near the old base which is run by a bunch of volunteers and it has a small RV park - so we thought we would give it a try. The RV Park consists of about 8 full hookup sites and several other sites where you can dry camp if you wish. We were able to pull in to one of the full hookup sites which offers water, sewer, and 50 Amp power for $25 a night. Oh yeah - the $25 also includes one free pass to the air museum! Not a bad deal for California! I think we are going to be hitting the road relatively early this morning - so I think the pass is going to go unused this time - but I think we might have to try and take advantage of the deal in the future. I believe they have a B-29 Superfortress, a B-52 Stratofortress, and a SR-71 Blackbird over there. Three pretty awesome airplanes!

Well it looks like our relative visiting is over. We spent a few hours visiting with Peggy's sister Carol and her family yesterday afternoon/evening and that finished our list of sisters. We have certainly had an interesting several weeks here on the left coast visiting with everybody - but it's time to start heading home. We love 'em all and part of us wishes we lived closer so we could visit more often. But then there is the part of us that wants to head back east and spend some time with our gang. California is a diverse place with some really pretty places to see and visit ... and we are blessed to have great sisters with fun families ... but there is no place like home.

So ... we plan on heading south this morning and we will probably settle for the evening near Barstow and then head East to Arizona tomorrow. 

Only about 3,400 miles to go!