We've now been here in California for a month, and it has been a pretty manic time, but not all work and no play.
We bought Badger probably a bit quicker than we maybe had expected, but the more we see around the RV park and talk to other people the more we think we have made a good choice. It's comfortable and we are getting used to living in it, and seem to have spent much of the past 3 weeks shopping for crap to fill it with - I've lost count of the number of trips we have made to walmart, target, ikea and hardware stores, but we are getting there.
Took it out for its first run today since the test drive, as the dealers had finally got all the parts in. At least I've had a month of driving on the right so did a better job of staying in lane, and had a practise around the carpark yesterday so managed to get it back into its berth quite well - it is a bit of a barge, after all. Have to take it back again tomorrow as they didn't have time to finish fitting the tow hitch and electrics to Toad, so left him there overnight and will hook them up tomorrow and try towing. And the awning motor they ordered in turned out to be wrong, so it will have to go back at least once more, question is if it will be before we are due to leave here after Thanksgiving.
On a more fun note we have had time to visit some big ships - The Queen Mary and USS Iowa (WWII battleship) at Long Beach, and the USS Midway (1945 aircraft carrier) at San Diego, plus Seaworld. And I've bought a new bike so have been cycling along some of the beachfront cycle paths that you see in movies - all the beautiful people, and me.
This isn't a part of the world I have ever particularly thought of visiting, but because so much of the TV and movie industry shoots here, you just have these images and impressions that are actually born out - LA really is swathed in smog, there are tall skinny palm trees everywhere, empty river floodways and the freeways are manic. What did surprise me was the oilfields - The scenes in Beverley Hills Cop 2 with the nodding donkey pumps - there are hundreds of these things dotted all over the LA basin, and there are loads of offshore rigs really close to the shore as you drive up the coast highway.
Our plans for the next few weeks are also starting to take shape. The RV dealers threw in a local camping club membership as part of the deal, so we have booked a week with them out in the desert near Palm Springs after we leave here, and another week up near Vegas before we hit the strip for Xmas. There are a couple of Air museums I want to visit, plus Death Valley and the Hoover Dam. Have a week to kill between locations so may head inland to Lake Havasu before turning north to Nevada- can't turn down the chance to walk across the old London Bridge in the middle of nowhere just to remember the days of commuting. Then after new years we will start heading East to the Grand Canyon, down to Tuscon and across toward Texas. Its been nice to stay in one place after the time on the road in NZ, but I'm starting to get itchy feet....
