Wednesday, October 29, 2014 (Travel to The Lakes RV Resort, Chowchilla, California)

Well, one nice thing about having to move from one parking lot to another here at the casino was that it was much further away from the highway...and much quieter! We had a good night's sleep and were up at our usual early hour, enjoying our usual start to the day before getting going.

Steve went out and took pictures before we left. 

Besides huge parking lots they also have a 4 story parkade...

View from our window...

We eventually found our way out to I-5 and headed south.

 Reminds us of the 24 miles of raised highway in Louisiana...

 Sacramento River...

Sacramento...

As we made our way through Sacramento, we followed Serena's directions to Hwy 99 south. We passed this old DC-3....

This is the first accident that we came across on our drive along Hwy 99.

Tractor is all smashed up but the tanker trailer looks okay from this side...

And then about an hour later, we came across our second accident.  As far as the eye can see...ahead and behind...45 minute delay...

A semi lost it's load of hay...

It must have been close to 3:00 by the time we pulled into The Lakes RV Resort in Chowchilla. This is a beautiful resort with good sized sites, having nice hedges providing a privacy barrier between them. It is a little pricey at $50/night for the pull-through site (#81) that we were assigned, but we are here to visit friends that we met at the RV-Dreams Rally back in September, 2012 in Oregon.
Harry and Vicki are still working but moved one step closer to their plans of full time RVing last spring when they sold their house and moved into their fifth-wheel. They are living here until next spring when Harry retires. Vicki works from home and plans to continue for a couple of more years once they hit the road.

Pool and hot tub area...

This is the view out of our dirty back window...

We had just finished getting all set up when Harry stopped by on his way home from work. Vicki is in Oxnard, California, north of L.A., for work and will be home tomorrow night. After a wonderful greeting, Harry continued home to take their dogs out for a walk...he'll be back shortly to join us for happy hour.

We sat outside chatting with Harry until about 7:00 when we decided to call it a night. We're looking forward to getting together again tomorrow night when Vicki will be home.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014 (Travel to Cache Creek Casino Resort, Brooks, California)

We were up early this morning, enjoying our coffee when Steve opened the blinds to the start of another beautiful day. There were some clouds hanging around but nothing too menacing.
Not a bad sunrise.....

 A couple from Quebec stopped by to check out our truck...they had a pretty cool RV as well...

We pulled out of the casino parking lot shortly after 9:30, made our way back to Hwy 101 and continued south.

Some pictures taken along our way...there won't be anymore pictures of the ocean; the highway goes inland now.

We crossed the Eel River many, many times...

Richardson Grove State Park...pretty narrow section of road through here...

There's the Eel River again...

We went through Willits...

About 15 miles past Willits, we turned east onto highway 20. We passed Lake Mendocino...it's very low...

Blue Lakes...

We took the southern route around Clear Lake and after stopping in Kelseyville for diesel, continued on through the vineyards and then reconnected with highway 20 east.

Looks like there has been a forest fire through here...

Before hitting the I-5, we turned south on SR16...a very picturesque route that winds through Cache Creek Canyon...

Once through the canyon, it really opened up and the road became rather bumpy.

We arrived at today's destination...Cache Creek Casino Resort just before 4:00. Our GPS took us to the wrong entrance as we pulled into a huge parking lot that was empty except the sections closer to the casino. We drove through one section and then noticed "No RV Parking" signs so swung around and parked back in a big empty section where there were no signs. We figured that was where the RV's were supposed to park. After getting leveled and set up, we were relaxing with a cocktail when we heard a voice...hello, casino security. Apparently, we were not allowed to park where we were...RV parking is in Lot B, way around the other side of the casino. We'd been there 2 hours and they finally come around to tell us this? Sheesh!

So we quickly packed up and were escorted by a fellow in a golf cart to the RV parking area. The casinos we have stopped at all have signs directing RVs to the parking area...except this one. Well, at least we didn't see any. Oh well, I guess it serves us right for not checking first. It was a bit more of a challenge getting the trailer level, but we managed and were soon set up...again!

We had dinner and then went for a long walk over to check out the casino. It is huge! And pretty high end. The weird thing is, though, we couldn't find a bar open where we could stop for a beer. So we ended up just walking all the way around the inside of the casino and back out through the hotel lobby...and back to the trailer.