A simple little trip

THE PLAYERS:

Bigfokkerdog, BFD.  The man of the operation, primary driver of The Beast.  Your host here and on YouTube, Twitter and Instagram @bigfokkerdog.

E is Erin, My wife, loving spouse, light of my life, secondary driver.  @ErinMaj on twitter.

The Beast, Beastie Boy.  Our 2007 1/2 Chevy Silverado 2500HD (Duramax) extended cab LTZ with 8 foot bed.

Piper.  Our 2008 Forest River Sandpiper 295RKS fifth wheel camper.

So…. We had this simple little out of state inaugural trip planned with Piper.  Go to northern or central California and spend a week hanging out, maybe in Napa.  We had decided that we would do the trip planning on the day we departed and leave our destination fluid, little did we know……

We packed Piper with the stuff we thought we would need (remember, we are new at fifth wheel camping) and hitched up The Beast and pointed our little show south on Interstate 5 in a light rain.  Our goal? Travel to the sun and set up camp.  E gets on weather underground and discovers that there is a storm system that extends from Washington to Mexico.  The forecast is calling for driving rain for the next week.  She checks all the local forecasts for northern and central California and it is the same.  She checks east to Montana and south to Las Vegas.  Freezing temperature for anything east of the Sierra/Cascades.  We look at the NOAA weather satellites and the only sustained clearing is in Las Vegas and southeast of there.  The hard rain and wind is supposed to start on Saturday morning.

We decide to power through and get south of Weed California as soon as possible as gale force winds are predicted there.  We persevered and powered through a seriously driving rain (road? what road?…just water flowing out of the sky) and the wind gusts at Weed. We napped for a couple hours at the Weed rest area and again just north of Sacramento.  We switched over to US 99 in Sacramento which is our usual route when driving to Vegas.  Got out onto the flats through Sacramento and hung a left at Bakersfield.  We never really noticed before but the state of disrepair on 99 is appalling. You really notice all the holes and deformed pavement when hauling 13,000 pounds of Piper.

We pulled into Vegas and E had called the Silverton hotel earlier and got us a room.  Vegas is packed, it’s NASCAR week and even the RV places are full (we did have reservations at a park starting Sunday night.  I think we got the only room available in Vegas.  The desk clerk actually gave us the “you better have reservations because I have no rooms left” look when we walked up.  Got in for the night, nice dinner in the steak house and half off cocktails from the bar from 9 to 10 pm.  We staggered to our king non smoking room and I passed out around 10.  Woke up a couple times but didn’t actually get out of bed until 9.  Both up, breakfast in the coffee shop and drip coffee from Starbucks and on our way across the freeway to the Oasis RV Park.  Our stay at the Silverton was definitely a pleasant surprise as the last time we stayed here our experience was horrible.

E had booked us in to the Oasis RV Park which is off Blue Diamond Road right across interstate 15 from the Silverton. We run across the freeway and hang a right into the semi private road.  Pass through a concrete entry arch and stop at the manned security booth.  Guard comes out and asks if we have reservations and then records both the truck and trailer plates.  It’s an easy entry to a big pull thru registration parking area and a walk up to the registration/clubhouse building.  More about this park in the next blog.