Day 9 - Bakersfield to River Island State Park, Arizona

We didn’t have a set departure time but after coffee & showers, we drained the tanks and packed up. We were on the road at 8:40 a.m. and quickly up HWY 58 through the town of Tehachapi. The sky was clear, roads dry and a cool +4 outside temperature as we climbed up onto the Mojave desert. The truck hauled the RV with no problems.... just as I suspected :-)

On top we were treated to a change of topography as things flattened out, we had steady, but relatively light traffic to Barstow.  Lots of trucks use this route!  We arrived at the Barstow Premium Outlets at 10:45.... I dropped the happy shopper off and headed for some fuel. I still had more than half a tank but I hoped it would negate another stop.  (I see why Hartley put in a huge aftermarket fuel tank!) 

The Outlets at Barstow.

Kelly shopped for an hour then we went over to In & Out Burger for lunch. I had never had one of these so it was on my bucket list. I checked that box… it was good.

We headed east on HWY 40 and enjoyed stunning views along the way. This is my first experience of the desert expanse. Once through Needles we turned off to Lake Havasu. It was a pleasant trip with a couple rest stops along the way.  Diesel was cheap and easy to get so we topped off the truck at Love’s Fuel Station just off the highway. The drive through Lake Havasu was nice and in just over five and a half hours of driving, we turned into the River Island State Park at 5:30 PM local. A one hour time change for us so we are now on Arizona/Alberta time :-)

We drove up to the ranger station and found a nice welcome sign… just for us :-)

 We quickly set up in Site #29 and then took a walk around the park before darkness set in. A few things caught our eye.

Cactus Garden

Dog hitch.

Nice spot.

Stunning!

Great view of the hills & setting sun.

We have zero cell service at this state park so this blog update will not get posted until tomorrows drive around the area (you will hopefully see this in the morning sometime?)

For dinner we ate up some leftovers and watched a bit of Downton Abbey… no TV signal either :-(  Some planning for tomorrow includes a trip to Havasu and perhaps Parker and beyond?  

Almost forgot… we did a little upgrade by adding a small hand held vacuum cleaner to the cargo hold. Fits nicely and works great!

Daily KM driven: 536
To date KM driven: 2996