Feb. 22, 2012 Playing in Pleasanton, CA.

We left Quartzsite, AZ just ahead of a storm on Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012.  We drove through some heavy winds and a bit of rain to arrive at Barstow, CA, Flying J about mid-afternoon.  After fighting the wind and rain, I was glad we weren’t  going to press on to Bakersfield like we usually do.  We had an appointment with Camping World to have air bags installed on the truck on Friday.

We got up and headed for Tehachapi Pass.  Wait, what is that white stuff on the hills??

Why it is snow, fresh snow.  Good thing we stopped in Barstow!

I had called Camping World on Monday and Tracy ordered the air bags with an estimated delivery date of Thursday.  Yeah, right!  We pulled into the Bakersfield Elk’s Club and called Camping World.  Whoops, the company didn’t ship until Tuesday and had an estimated delivery date of the 20th instead of the 17th.  Tracy agreed to call us on Friday with an updated delivery date—as Monday was also President’s Day and they weren’t sure FedEx would deliver on the holiday.  She called us Friday morning to let us know there was no hope for the Friday delivery so that the air bags could NOT be installed on Saturday.  We decided we needed to pull the plug on the transaction; it was going to drag on much longer than promised.  We needed to be in the SF Bay Area instead of stuck in Bakersfield, CA.

I am not happy--Camping World charged us for the shipping on a product they promised by Friday.  Had they told us it would take a week or longer, we would have waited until we were done in Antioch.  We ended up paying $49 to get out of the order—and almost a week later, we are still waiting for the refund of $251 from the rest of the deposit.  Camping World, we are disappointed in you charging us for your mistake!

We spent two nights at the Tracy, CA, Elk’s Club.  Once you find the way in, it is a peaceful spot for a few nights.  I  wanted to continue over to the Alameda Country Fairground, Pleasanton, CA, to see my sister, Diane.  We are here for 7 nights.

Welcome to the Alameda Country Fairground.  Campers register here for one of the 200-plus sites in the RV Campground

 

This is my sisters RV.  In addition to being very pretty, she had a bigger RV, smile. (And a prettier car too.)

And of course, us:

The sites are quite narrow.  It’s a challenge to get one of the bigger rigs into the site and even more of a challenge to find a spot to park your tow car.  We can live with this for a week.  And then on to beautiful Sugar Barge Resort for a month or two.  Larry will do lab work next Monday and by Wednesday, we will have some idea of what our near future holds.

In closing, here are two unusual RVs parked here:

They have their own patio.  And the next one has a loft:

Want to sleep up there?  Nah, me neither!  Bet it is cold during the winter months!  And so much for this week’s ramblings.  Next stop, Sugar Barge in the beautiful California Delta region.