Left out before daylight. Sign said breakfast from 6-9, so we had bought breakfast at Loves last night. And when we checked out this AM at 6, people were in eating breakfast so no idea how long it had been open.

Most places first light is about a half hour before sunrise. Out in the desert you can see the outline of the hills long before that. It was daylight before we got to Gila Bend. US 85 is four lane until the outskirts of Gila Bend so daylight was good. Did check out the Best Western for parking in case we end up there next time. Lots of room. Restaurant attached.

They have confusing signs in Gila Bend. One sign post has three highway signs on it and under them it has an arrow to the right. But only the bottom highway turns right. Same town, after that it says I-8 right lane. Two blocks later the right lane turns/ends. The I-8 entrance is still a couple of blocks down the same street.

First stop is a rest area near Dateland, about 100 miles from start. Second stop is Seeley, CA, another 100 miles after that. We did have to stop at the AZ exit scale that is closed 90% of the time. Just weight and go. Stopped again at the ag inspection area. The scale there says NO picks/RV's so that makes it pretty clear, we haven't been stopping in CA anyhow.

Also had to wait in line at a border check. This is one that is only open sometimes. When we got close enough I was watching how close together the cars were clearing. One got held up more than a flag through and sent to the side for more questions. Two people in a pickup, not topper, etc.

We did stop again 40 miles before the drop on the exit ramp to make sure we both had enough fuel. We did, but BB's low fuel light came on 17 miles before our exit and mine came on ON the exit :) I like guessing that close.

I had looked a the website for the wash this time and saw that they had one larger bay so I took that one, still I went past it and backed in instead of trying to swing it. Mine was so long I had to wash it in two sets. Should have took a before and after, they were both really bad.

Fueled at the same place as last time and I was watching when we got it it to see if I was going to bottom out. Bottomed out in the middle and the rear leaving the motel this AM so next time we will have to park somewhere else. I got into the gas station OK but wanted to back out for 'swing' reasons. But someone was behind me so it took four pull aheads/backing to make the turn ... and then I bottomed out at that exit. Next time we will try to fuel somewhere else if we remember.

No one ahead of us at noon when we get to the drop but the inspector is on break so we unload our stuff and walk to Hertz a few blocks away ... in the rain. Car is just about ready when we get there, but they have the fuel wrong and have to take a whole bunch of pictures 'because the car isn't in there system?' Looks like a Vemo issue (Vemo is the program that our last company used.)

We get back and the guy says he is almost done, but it is most of another half hour before he is done. No notations on either RV. I call the bus dispatcher but he doesn't know if he has anything, call him back in a half hour.

At this point we should have headed north, instead we go and eat. Really good food and twice as much as either of us needed. And we eat it there. Half hour later dispatcher still doesn't know, says he will call me back in five minutes. Finally a couple hours later he calls back to say he will know more after 5, he never calls back again.

By stopping and eating, we end up in rush hour traffic and it takes us about five hours to get a couple hundred miles around LA. Traffic was all bad, it likely could have taken us twice that. 16 lanes the one place we counted. Got caught again being in the left lane when the freeway exit to the right. managed to get over, last time I did it with a bus :)

By the time we are past LA it is dark and decide to stay in Bakersfield. It is a little out of route but CA-99 doesn't have much for motels. We end up at a Comfort Inn, if there was something close we might have had soup, instead we had cookies and I'm still not hungry.

Will find out where we are going tomorrow. Never did the math to realize we needed to get going out of El Cajon to get the car back in time. Now we have to be up by 5 AM and may still have to drop me at the bus and run to get there in time. Opps.