Travelin' Daze

We set out Saturday morning, destination Elko, Nevada, Super Wal-Mart. The drive was smooth and uneventful. The weather was noticeably warmer in Nevada then in SLC. We picked up some odd and ends in Wal-Mart and got permission from management to stay overnight. It is mostly understood that RV’ers can overnight in the Wal-mart. We always make sure we get permission and I make a mental note of the manager’s name, just in case we get that knock on the door from the local police at 2am saying we can’t stay there.

Sunday, an early start and the longest day of our 3 days of driving. We scheduled 360 miles from Elko to Sacramento, CA. The drive through the Tahoe area on I-80 was gorgeous. I am, however, revising my “Worst roads” list, and putting I-80 from the Nevada state line to Sacramento as the worst road we have ever traveled. We have traveled dirt roads that were smoother then this stretch of interstate! It was pot holed, had truck tire grooves in it and very rough. Most of this, I’m guessing is due to the chain requirements when the weather is bad. The elevation was around 7,200 ft. We reached our destination, a Camping World, located in Rocklin, just outside of Sacramento. Bad news, it was right along side the freeway. The noise was horrible! We headed out to find a quieter spot. We located a church with a huge parking lot only a few miles down the road. We had no trouble getting permission to stay there. We’ll have to remember the church idea in the future.

The extra mileage on Sunday left us with 120 miles for Monday. That would give us plenty of time to make all my account calls, set-up and hit a few wineries in Healdsburg. It is a good thing we pulled into our campground early; it was not at all what was advertised. They had no sewer hookups of any kind, not even a dump station. The nearest dump station was at a campground in Windsor, 12 miles away. Since we have been dry camping for the past few days, our tanks are filling up. “No problem”, says the campground guy, “when you’re ready to dump, just head over to this other campground and dump for $5.” “why would I stay here and go there to dump, when I can just stay there and not have to worry about driving somewhere else, and paying to dump”, was my reply. Of course, this kind of logic completely baffled this guy. “Sorry, we don’t give refunds,” was all he could come up with. They do have signs all over the office stating this policy. So, I see the game, lure you in with pretty pictures of the campsites next to the Russian River, advertise you have full hook-ups, but to them that means water and electric. We did manage to get the owners cell phone number and we are tormenting him for a refund, we’ll see how that goes. In the meantime, a notice to our RV readers, DO NOT stay at the Alexander Valley RV resort and Campground. There are many other alternatives in the area.

We pulled into the first campground around 11:30, by time we made alternative arrangements, drove the rig there and set-up, it was 3:30. We did manage to hit a couple of wineries before dinner time. After our morning, we needed it!

-Rich-