Focht Family Blog

We left St. Louis on Friday morning. Friday night we stayed at a Walmart in Oklahoma City. We actually stopped at a Walmart between Tulsa and Oklahoma City first but Nathan didn’t feel good about staying there so after we made dinner we continued on to a bigger area. We made good enough time that we were able to have short driving days the next two days. It was so nice to go outside on Saturday morning in a short sleeved shirt! :)

Saturday night we drove until Amarillo. There isn’t much available for overnight anywhere outside of Amarillo if you are traveling on I-40 so that is why there were 9 or so campers in the lot with us. :) Unfortunately a cold front came through so the short sleeves are back in the closet. Tonight we are at a KOA in Bernalilo, NM. This is the KOA we stayed at right after we purchased our Allstar. We were going to stay at the Cummins because they are going to fix an oil leak in the morning but it was a bad area so we decided to just pay for a campground so we could dump and fill up with water. If we need to be in NM tomorrow night we will probably just stay at a Walmart. Once we leave here we are headed to the Grand Canyon.

I didn’t realize how long it had been since I updated. Sorry. So this one will be a bit long. After we left Seattle we drove down 101 (coast) through Oregon. It was raining and overcast but we pulled over to take some pictures of the ocean.

It is rather scary driving along the coast and going past many areas where the road has fallen in. We actually had to stop and wait for construction crews in a coupe of areas where there was no road in one lane. I’m glad none of the road decided to cave in while we were driving on it. We spent a couple of nights among the redwoods in northern California.

Driving down the coast in CA the weather was a little better so we stopped again and got some more pictures of the ocean and took the family out for a picture. It had just started raining so I think it is blurry because water may have been on the lens.

Next we headed down a little further for a few days in a town called Manteca. It was a relatively central location for Nathan to visit with some customers. Nathan stopped at Making It Big, a place that sells clothes for larger women and also at Artisan Sweets, a candy store that sells specialty candies. They gave us some caramels as well as some natural candies for the kids. Everything was delicious. These were both stops on the way into the campground.

The next day we went out and Nathan stopped in at Wild Horses 4×4. This took a bit longer because they sell off road equipment for broncos. Nathan is missing his Jeep. After he was done with customer visits, we went to lunch at an Old Spaghetti Factory and sat in the trolley car. It wasn’t as good as I remembered from when I was young but I still enjoyed the spumoni ice cream. :)

We spent the rest of the week riding bikes at the campground and fixing and cleaning. We also had a visit with one of mom’s friends who moved to California. On Saturday we checked out and put 10 hours of driving on the road. We made it to Kingman, AZ so we were officially out of CA. Unfortunately the Walmart there does not allow overnight but we got some groceries and called the Cracker Barrel down the street. They gave us permission.

We were up early this morning because we didn’t want to block all the spaces for Sunday morning diners so we were back on the road by 7:00 this morning and we will be stopping in Albuquerque where this whole adventure started to pick up an antennae that we lost somewhere at Aloha RV where we purchased our Newmar All-Star. We are making tracks for Indiana. We are taking the All-Star back to Newmar to get some things added. They do discounted work during this time of the year because this is their slow time. We are going to have gel batteries put in since they have more charge time plus you don’t have to check the water or worry about rust. We are also going to have the slide repaired where I caught Nathan’s jacket in it.

Originally we were planning on staying the night at a Walmart in Albuquerque but since we are making good time Nathan is thinking about trying to get to Amarillo, TX before we stop. It is going to be a long few days on the road putting at least 10 hours of driving in a day. I am looking forward to stopping in Indiana and relaxing for a bit. Since Newmar doesn’t have laundry facilities we need to go to a laundromat while there anyways so I plan on stripping all of the beds and washing comforters (cannot fit in most machines at campgrounds). I am also looking forward to going to lunch at the little cafe a few blocks away. They had great homemade soups. Samantha is looking forward to going back to reading time at the library and also going to the large playground they have in town. Hopefully there will be no tornadoes this time around. :)

For those of you who check this blog regularly, I have added pictures to the last two posts.

We picked up our new “home” yesterday. We have most everything put away that was with us. We still have a lot of work to do to get the RV all put together. These pictures are still quite messy but it gives you an idea of the RV.