Woke up freezing, the AC in this room works. Later BB got up and decided to turn the heat on so it wasn't quite so cold getting ready in the AM. Opps, blew the circuit breaker. Easy enough to re-set, but the heater kept blowing it. Later I told the front desk about it.

Breakfast? Juice or coffee and two kinds of packaged pastries. BB was glad to have her left overs from last night. I had a pastry and a breakfast bar from a prior motel.

When I went to check out, the staff at the desk asked how my stay was, other than the AC/heater. I mentioned I would be glad when breakfast was back to normal. She wasn't sure that was going to be any time soon ... we talked a bit about it.

We weren't in any rush today so we did a few laps around the parking lot/motel building. 20 minutes worth. Dogs, we saw dogs. And remember, do not put your ice directly into the ice buckets. Some people use those for water dishes for their dogs.

I don't remember bottoming out with the front of the bus coming out from here before, also bottomed out with the back of the bus. Didn't bottom out at all going in.

Some people ??? the first one I saw today was someone who had pulled onto the frontage road and stopped and had their <> six year old boy peeing towards the freeway so everyone could see him. Could have had him pee against the car tire, or against the pole that was six feet away ...

Later coming down the freeway ramp there was a driver of a truck that was peeing towards the gas station which was just on the other side of the fence. Again, could have done it against his truck tire.

Interesting area for me. Farming. Watching the herds of people harvesting produce. People working in the orchards. Animals grazing on the dried grass. It doesn't look like they should be feeding there, but how is it different than hay that has been dried and stored?

Somewhere on this stretch I saw a helicopter dragging what looked like a banner. Then a second helicopter ... then a third. Finally I saw the third one coming in close to the power lines. There were 4-5 people on the high voltage power poles and the helicopters were moving the men from one pole to the next. Instead of using trucks and coming up from the ground, they were coming down from the top. I've never seen that before on existing lines. I have seen something like it when the lines are going up.

1st required fuel stop is Barstow for CNG. Three islands, fuel from either side, one hose per island. One trash guy was sitting there when we got there, still sitting there when we left. Hope he was broke down as he wasn't fueling. Potato chip trucks started pulling in after I got there, glad we got there when we did. I was in, fueled, out in 15 minutes. 4,000# pressure. At a Sinclair station I think. Station and tourist trap. Racking instead of shelving, to the ceiling. All kinds of stuff.

This route puts on the slow street into Bakersfield. Miles of stop lights. We used to go this way a lot until they were done working on the next highway north. Either way it is about 20 miles of two lane, 55 mph highway. But that is it until we get to the last miles before the drop in town.

2nd stop - Tehachapi, the Pilot and PJ's. PJ's is just the dressed up version of their 'shelf food.' This place has close to a dozen items in skillets plus a couple of kinds of pizza's. We get the meatloaf. BB likes the veggies and I get the mashed potatoes. Forgot to ask for butter, again. No indoor seating, there is a Wendy's there also and all the tables are gone and the other area's are blocked off.

So we eat sitting on the step of the bus. Someone has to hang on the the food container at all times. It is windy.

Yes, windy and dry. At the next where the Bakersfield National Cemetery is I could see a bunch of trucks lined up for miles away. I got closer and could see that all had their headlights on so the trucks were running and ready to go. Go, to the next fire. They were all fire trucks.

Right now there is something called the Apple Fire going on in southern CA. So far it as burnt 41 square miles and 1,000's have been evacuated.

Back to our food, once we were done I called to get my permits. AZ and NM. I got one for tomorrow and one for Thursday. Just because that is the way I have always done it. So now we can't stay in Gallup NM tomorrow night. We will have to drive less than 500 miles tomorrow.

3rd and final stop is at the Quality Inn in Barstow. We often stay at the Comfort Inn but it was $30 more tonight and this place has lots of parking. Lots of parking if you are the first ones here. We got a spot at 3 PM but there have been trucks coming and coming since we got here. We will have to walk around later to see where they are all parking.

For a while when we got here we could hear someones base but that didn't last too long.

After a couple of hours we walk down and order our food, to go. It is still way to hot to sit outside and eat. OK. If we had to, or if it was warmer inside than outside. After we order we walk part way around the lot and then go back inside and wait. Yes lots of trucks, so far still lots of hour. Our food was ready in about 10 minutes.

Good food, BB had some kind of enchiladas supreme. I had one cheese and one chicken enchiladas. Plus we each got a salad. The salad wasn't real fresh but the rest was very good. Can't remember if we have eaten here before our not. I know the restaurant was here last time we were here.

Picked up my permits. I wasn't sure I would get them because the email address to send to the motel was 'printer@' something, but a little while later I got an email saying the pages were ready at $.25 a page, $2 minimum. But when I picked the pages up they said NC.

Covid - MN still staying under 10 a day, even with the cases and hospitalizations going up. Deaths are a lagging factor so we have to wait and see how much they go up.

Even with all the signs and months of lock down, there are still people going into stores, places without masks on.

We have our basic trip planned from now until delivery. Subject to change.

Load board

US - 107

IA - 8

MN - 9

WI -0-