Heading South for Winter

Posted 3 years ago by Mike

After a little stay at my mom’s so Emi could visit family in Puerto Rico, we hit the road again. We have almost 2 weeks to make our way down to Southern California and Anza Borrego State Park. This is our first time winging it — no reservations. Thanks to tools like Campground Reviews and Campendium, we feel confident yet nervous. On these long treks between destinations, our plan is to do 200-300 miles followed by a rest day and repeat until we arrive at our final destination. Well, final meaning our next 2-4 week RV park stay.

We stayed at Barton Park for a couple nights — our first stop. Beautiful county park. Maybe the most well-maintained park we have ever camped. Close to Portland so we met up with friends for dinner. It felt great to see some of our friends again.

The next morning I noticed our badly worn right side trailer tire. First stop, Les Schwab Tire in Sandy, OR. They installed new tires in under an hour. Excellent. Except for one small detail, they were the wrong tires. They said just don’t put a heavy load on them. Umm, a 4000 lb trailer is not exactly a light load. Very disappointing. They put the old tire on and the spare and we hit the road again. Next stop, Les Schwab Tire in Madras. While they didn’t have the exact same size tire, they had something close that would work. They installed them and back on the road again. I am hoping I don’t have to write about tires again for the rest of our year-long voyage. Fingers-crossed.

We pulled into Bend, OR around 3:30 PM and parked at our very generous Boondockers Welcome host. We enjoy Bend – a great town full of breweries, great cycling routes, nice hiking, pretty much all the things we like to do. After a relaxing day exploring Bend despite some wind and rain, we will hit the road again in the morning. Next stop, Chiloquin, OR near Klamath Falls.