It was only 9 when we finished out food but we headed over to Walmart anyway. We wanted to see a movie but will all the bad reviews, I’m still afraid to see The Wolfman and nothing else was playing. I love Benicio too much to watch him flop. I might still go anyway and think it’s fine. I usually don’t read reviews but I cant remember the last time a movie I wanted to see really bad had got a 20-30% approval by rotten tomatoes and paid critics.. a sad state. I suspected the effects were terrible but that rarely bothers me when a story is good – sadly the story is said to also be total crap. We decided to save money by just eating Thai and watching a movie at home. I wanted to see a large male comedian flop around like an idiot, so between what was on instant on Netflix for John Candy and Chris Farley, Beverly Hills Ninja won. Sad that I would rather watch Beverly Hills Ninja than The Wolfman but that’s how afraid I am right now.

Boondocking at Walmart almost always works out pretty great. We get left alone far in the back of the parking lot – by security, customers and other RV drivers, and we have a bathroom open 24 hours. We run the generator if we feel we need extra electricity (than our backup batteries can provide) and we can cook, run the heat and do anything that doesn’t involve running water. We even got to see some cops search a guys car right outside our front door – an unfortunately uneventful event, but nevertheless -something, and we left feeling good about our 40 year old RV as the guy in the Southwind motorhome next to us was stuck with his hood open and looking grumpy. It was also the first time we left before the other RV’s in the parking lot – and we left at 10 so we were shocked, but nevertheless we finally WON! (dork)

Cocodrie, LA

We drove to Cocodrie pretty much immediately, heading south on highway just barely elevated out of the swamp. The weather had managed to pull itself out of its extreemly long slump to give us a 71 degree day, humid and windy in telling of the coming storm. When we arrived in Cocodrie we were pretty impressed. We expected what was at the end of the last swamp highway, a stilted fishing town with one closed market, but instead got a stilted fishing town with a closed market AND a closed marina/restaurant/boat rental! It was actually pretty though, unlike Holly Beach and Creole. Aside from a couple nice houses, Creole had no awesome trees, fishing boats names “Big SexSea” or a bubbling outdoor pool. Cocodrie is a fisherman’s wet dream destination town as we deducted. The whole area is full of things they call “camps” which are basically rental cabanas on the water with docking, parking and of course, the pool. Said on the marina website to be the best fishing in Louisiana, while completely surrounded by swamp, several lakes and the gulf of mexico, we really couldn’t doubt it. There was even a small airport for say… boats that land on water? Men who jump onto marlins from helicopters?  Unfortunately the cabanas go for $75 and up a night or we might have rented one.  There were 2 trailers with hookups parked among the cabanas, causing us to get giddy at the thought we might be able to stay for the week, but on closer inspection – those were the only 2 empty spaces with hookups and they were probably just the “houses” the owners of the lots chose to setup. It was a really interesting town and reminded me of the town in Robin Williams Popeye, although much smaller of course. Anyway, Ross decided to take a look at the bushings and try to tape them into place, so me and Chena walked around and took photos. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many little skeletons stacked in one place as I did in the mountains of oyster shells in Cocodrie.

Chena on the oyster mounds

We left disappointed that we couldnt stay and made it into New Orleans about 5:30pm. We drove around the French Quarter till after 6:30pm, the biggest vehicle on those narrow streets, and checked into camp just after 7. More on that tomorrow!

I’ll post some more photos tomorrow when I have better internet. night!

We go to Austin Tomorrow and we’re tying for a place closer to town, The weather should be getting better next week and I plan to do something with it (and blog more) . Stagnation and stability are my ultimate killer, or maybe just boredom and the lack of someone to meet for coffee?

Hiding out at North Shore, CA

We left the Slabs in search of better internet speeds for work and just up the road we found a place to park and work at North Shore. We ended up staying the night and plan to return after some errands in La Quinta. It was a fairly perfect spot aside from the smell of the salt water, dead fish, cat pee and bird poo. The view was worth it. North Shore is on the East side of the Salton Sea, about 14 miles south of Mecca, CA.

Driving to New Mexico with 3 cats, a dog and 3 people in a 19 foot RV is about as fun as it sounds. Well, it wasn’t that bad, especially since my mom spent every night with the cats in a hotel. Surprisingly I was able to find hotels for her that take pets and cost under $40 the entire trip, Motel 6 being the most common one she stayed at. Often we were even able to use the shower in her room – less often the internet but that was usually our own fault for not asking for the password.

A couple nights we stayed down the street from the motel, once at a Walmart, other times truck parking outside Casinos or we were able to stay in the parking lot of the motel – Motel 6 being the coolest with using showers, bathrooms, internet and their parking lot.

The first part of the trip went smoothly. We didn’t run into any mechanical problems and covered allot of ground the first couple days. After the first night in Goldendale Oregon, an uneventful place where we spent hours at a kinkos just slumming the parking lot and printing services, we headed on to our shortcut to New Mexico, a mix of small curvy highways across Nevada. The first highway between the I5 and Reno is a horrible, dark little highway over a tree filled, icy mountain range. We had allot of trouble staying awake for that stretch and ended up staying in Susanville, CA rather than pushing on to Reno, our goal. Susanville was a horrible little town 80 miles from anywhere and next to a state and federal prison. Susanville didn’t have a Motel 6 but we managed to find a Motel 9 that was open ( not any sort of chain, nor an upside down 6). When we went into the office to get a room, for only my mom, the concept of my asking how much a room is for one adult – while being in a group of 3 was too confusing for the rude bastard behind the counter. About the time his blank face got its blankest, I explained we had an RV. His response “what do you mean you have an RV – I have an RV too – I dont think this is going to work” – having the assumption that we planned to use the shower and bathroom in the room, while sleeping in the RV in the parking lot of his hotel. I promptly told him “no, we plan to go park at a Walmart or something. You could have just asked rather than assume we plan to scam you.” (being the blunt person I am). He soon got much less assholish and told us a decent place to park since Susanville has no Walmart. The hotel was a total piece of crap and just to make sure we didnt scam him, he put my mom in a room directly across from the office and was standing outside in the morning watching us load her things into the RV – making sure we didn’t take long enough to shower or flush a toilet. We were glad to leave.

The next night we made it past Reno and on to central Nevada – somehow convinced we would make it to Vegas. We would have, even if it would have been 2 am by then – had the alternator not died on us 20 miles out of the closest populated town, Tonopah. We were in a town when we noticed the but a town without a gas station open after dark was no place to be stuck the next day. We limped back to Tonopah after our trusty iPhones told us they had a Napa Auto parts and a Motel 6. The next morning we went straight to Napa who told us they would have to order a part that would be in the next morning at 9, then gladly referred us to a mechanic just across the street. Since we were running only on battery, driving the Brougham all over town was risking a worse fate, needing a tow (really we would have just had to charge the battery with our generator or drive with a house battery but I like to dramatize). Next day we were there and ready – completely unaware of whether the mechanic could see us right away or we would be waiting all afternoon. Luckily he was ready for us right away, even putting off picking up a stranded hunter (we liked that) to install our shiny new alternator and fan belt. We left full of hope, heading to a casino/restaurant next door and returning just before he was due to go to lunch. “Ive got bad news for you” was the first thing we heard walking up. The new alternator had fallen apart after running for about 30 seconds – just literally cracked open. The mechanic blamed the defect on it having been rebuilt in China. Lucky for us this wasn’t your average shop or average mechanic (like the ones we often get) and while we were gone he had already scouted out a used alternator to install. This was great, even if the arrangement for the used one meant the owner of the used one got our reordered one (to come the next day), we still didn’t have to wait another day in Tonopah and that was great. We got out of town about 1pm, having to stop only once in Pahrump to get a voltage regulator (to stop the new alternator from frying our stereo) then on to Kingman by midnight.

Arizona was a great state to pass through and we did it in only a day. The highways were smooth and pale pinkish black (if that wasnt a color it is now), and we had no mechanical troubles till we met the bumpy rugged roads and insane freeway drivers of New Mexico. About the time we passed Gallup by about 20 miles (our lucky breakdown number), we stopped at a rest stop to find radiator fluid under the cab. We lifted the hood and concluded it was a fat short hose going from the radiator to the engine, filled it up a little and headed back to Gallup for the night. Gallup also being a town with a Napa and Motel 6, our new favorite types of towns. We were able to stay in the parking lot of the Motel, use their showers and make a pizza before bed. The next day we messily replaced the hose in a Denny’s parking lot. We later noticed it was not that hose,… but the one next to it. We bought more hose, and sealed the pinsize leak with electrical and duct tape till we had time to change it (which worked great for a day by the way).

The next day – late at night. We made it to Santa Cruz, NM. The drive after Albuquerque to Santa Cruz was a rough stretch of angry drivers and rough roads destroying the frame of our RV. It was much colder than we expected, getting down to 35 at night, and my mom’s place was without heat when we arrived because of something wrong with the heater. We loaded her up with blankets, helped out a bit, hung out a bit and went to bed. The next day we worked most the day and quickly realized, especially after I was reprimanded by AT&T for “off network data usage”, that we would not be able to work from her place. We had planned to stay a week but with the work issue and the weather planning to drop to 24 degrees at night that Wednesday, we left for Arizona.

By the time we got to Tucson we were so completely drained and behind on work, well, it took us till now to blog about it. Our normal traveling time was intended to not be a rush but getting my mom to New Mexico was a bit of a rush job for many reasons. We’re vaguely keeping track of mileage and gas costs and rushing across the country as fast as possible is not the cheapest way to travel we are discovering quickly. I also didn’t get to stop as much as I usually would to take photos so many are from Tonopah during the 2 days we were stuck there – so here’s a few at least.  Many more to come as the wandering becomes more paced out and we can hang out, work and enjoy our trip!