Ridgecrest, CA to Yuma,AZ

 We were up early yesterday as we had another 420 miles to go.  A nice morning with no frost. 

One of the trailer tires was down 5 pounds so we stopped along main street at a gas station for air.  Its the dumbest thing in the US...you have to pay to put air in your tires.  I didn't have change so I went inside and the station owner took my $5 and gave me $3 change and turned on the machine.  However, it wouldn't put 5lbs in so that didn't work.  The station owner tried...no dice.  Two bucks for nothing.

A beautiful morning as we headed south.

Left turn onto 395

An observatory?

After that a big pile of nothing and all quite ugly country. 

Coming onto the 58 bypass which will take us to I40.

Hwy 58 to I40 is relatively new and concrete.

I40 eading to 95 south.  The pavement looks good but the slow lane is a washboard.

 

Windy as hell here!!

Again ugly country as we go up and down, up and down.  On every hill there are burn marks at the edge.  I guess at 120 F in the summer everyone is overheating or their brakes are burning up. 

The high Mojave desert.

Coming down again.  The wind is still ferocious!  As we traveled along they were beautifying the meridian....maybe they should be fixing the highway instead!!

We used almost a tank of fuel from Ridgecrest to Needles because of the wind so we fuel up and pay the price.

95 south, the "ribbon candy highway" and the wind is behind us😊

Straight as an arrow and the trucks and cars disappear in the dips. 

We stopped at Vidal junction and had lunch and then into Arizona and on to Parker. 

From here to?  Turn right for Parker.

We always stop at the Parker Oil products station for fuel...half the price of Needles and...they had air and water, just help yourself no cost.  Refreshing.  

From Parker on to Quartzite where everyone boondocks for the winter.  We tried it in 2009 for 10 days...not our cup of tea.  Windy, stark, nothing to do and cold....no thanks!

Heading south on 95 to Yuma and....straight as an arrow!

The Yuma proving groud.  

Coming into the east end of Yuma on 95 and there are new plantings everywhere and the citrus groves are disappearing.  We always wonder how much of agribusiness is taking over here.

Ready for winter planting.  Everything is done by laser and is all just perfect. 

Some sort of brassica here. 

Bedraggled citrus so it's probably next to go. 

The cotton is dropping into big piles and then ends up in bales. 

All new four lane highway here.  They've been working on it for years. 

It's election day today...I wonder who will win.  I'll keep my thoughts to myself!

Pretty healthy looking and I'll bet some of it ends up in Terrace, BC.

Coming in on E32nd street and it's rush hour. 

We're staying at the Ramada for three nights to shop, do laundry and enjoy a few meals out.   When we arrived there were some Mexican workers blasting music from their truck in the parking lot!  What the heck...this isn't a party venue.  Eric called the front desk and they shut it down.  We thought we were in Mexico already.  The front desk said they were " chillin" well....chill somewhere else.

A beautiful evening and we had dinner at Curries which is right inside the hotel.  "Excellent food and 10% discount if you"re staying in the hotel but we forgot to tell them! There is also a Chopsticks in the hotel and nice area where we can get a hot breakfast "gratis"which we did this morning.  Scrambled eggs and waffles.  I even learned how to run the waffle machine.  Vietnamese right across the street as well.  I did laundry this morning and learned how to use wifi machines with the Wash Connect app.  Load it with money and it connects to the machine...who knew?  Eric's pooped and resting today.  We'll do some shopping and Eric will get an oil change on the truck today or tomorrow.  A good place to lay over for a couple of days.