Day 1 - Kingman, AZ

We made it through our first day of travel successfully!

The highlight was celebrating my mother's 100th birthday.  As most of you know, she has had Alzheimer's for the past 15 years.  Our visit with her was one of the best we have had in many months.  She was in a good mood, alert and talking with us as best she could.  It was a good, good visit.  I was so grateful to have such a good visit on such a important day.

We traveled about 420 miles today, a long day pulling a trailer.    With stops we average about 50 miles an hour. Usually we try to stay below 350 miles in a day.  We won't have any rest days for the first five days but will have plenty once we reach Austin, South Padre Island and New Orleans.

Note to those who live in SB:  Cal Trans moved all southbound traffic onto one lane on the northbound side for a few miles just north of La Conchita.  Not bad on a Saturday morning but will not be fun during the week.

We were surprised to see so much snow in the mountains.  This was taken from the Mojave Desert near Victorville.

Note the lack of prices posted below the Chevron sign 30 miles west of Needles.  That's because the station was charging $7.80 for regular gas!!!  In Needles, on the California side, gas was $6.85 a gallon and just a few miles across the border in Arizona we paid $4.36 a gallon.  That is a $50 savings per fill up for us, pretty unbelievable.  We are very happy to be out of California for the rest of the trip.  We will definitely be using Gas Buddy to search for the best gas prices.

This is the Cella Winery in Kingman, Arizona, where we are staying tonight.  Yes, a winery in Kingman, AZ!   It is really nice, but very, very windy.  We joined Harvest Hosts, where you pay an annual fee to stay for free (for one night only) at various places throughout the US (no hookups).  Well, almost free.  Harvest Hosts asks you to purchase something from the hosts.  We are staying mostly at wineries and breweries so that shouldn't be too hard.