Get Thee To a Spa!

Two of my favorite things about RVing are:

• In addition to our location changing constantly, we get to mix up the types of places we stay at.
• Meeting and connecting with amazing people.

And thankfully, we constantly get to bask in the glow of these awesome side effects of a RVing life.

Our next segment of travel would take us from Sacramento and down to the hot pools of Desert Hot Springs.

Sacramento, CA

After the storage unit purge was complete, we ended up extending our stay at Cal Expo RV Park (our review) by one more day to catch up on sleep, and hit the Apple Store across the street to utilize their internet to download the Maverick’s update.

On the CalExpo WiFi, it would have taken over a day to download – but plugging into Apple’s ethernet, we had it down in minutes.

On Sunday morning, we were ready to leave the gravel lot that served us well for our chore. The location is great, but the park is sort of on the basic side – even with the great access to the biking trails.

And I just don’t understand their site booking process. If they were near capacity, sure – but in our entire time there it was never above about 25%. So how on earth did so many rigs get parked right next to each other in a big empty lot?

We could constantly hear our neighbor’s TV, and their dogs would go into a barking frenzy anytime we dared to walk around inside our bus.

Regardless if another day of catching up on sleep would be worthwhile, it was time to leave this parking lot in the dust!

Fresno, CA

Our next stop was the Fresno area, where Russell Long (aka ‘RJ’) lives. Anyone in the bus community would probably recognize his name. He’s been one of the most supportive, enthusiastic and helpful bus nuts since we bought our 4106.

He used to be a bus driving instructor, and has a passion for old GMs.

So, it was long overdue to finally meet in person and share a Pepsi!

We had a very pleasant evening hanging out, swapping bus stories and getting to know each other.

He also very graciously gifted us a set of front corner marker lights – and he was happy to give our spare taillight kit a home. Trading rare bus parts has been an enjoyable part of vintage bus ownership.  Thank you RJ!!

We picked a Passport America park to stay at, and the park itself left a bit to be desired. You can read our review of Viking RV Park if you’d like the scoop on where not to stay in the Fresno area.

And definitely being awoken at 7:30a to tree trimmers out our door did not leave us even in the slightest bit tempted to stick around another day.

Desert Hot Springs, CA

Dreaming of this next stop kept us motivated to get done with the storage unit. Way back at Cape Blanco Lighthouse, we had planned to rendezvous again with our WheelingIt buddies to soak in hot water together.

Everything lined up perfectly between their boondocking adventure down 395 and completing our task. We were absolutely giddy to arrive and hug on them.

Our biggest decision was whether or not to make it a long driving day, or split the 300+ miles into two days.  We decided to play it by ear and see how we felt with our exhaustion levels.

Zephyr fantastically climbed the grades out of the valley, and before we knew it we had zoomed through San Bernadino. We decided to just drive the final hour and enjoy a well earned evening soak!

It’s been fantastic here at Sam’s Family Spa (read our review), which is a long time favorite of Nina & Paul’s.

We’ve been enjoying at least 2 soaks a day in the 4 hot mineral pools at various temperatures, and enjoying the sauna and steam room.

It never gets old that some days we’re parked on boring gravel lot, and some days we’re living at a spa resort with fantastic neighbors!

The weekly price of $300 is a bit high, especially compared to the killer deal of $540/month – but it has been oh-so-delicious to indulge ourselves in jello-blobbing. And in comparison to the $195/week rate we were paying at CalExpo, it seemed like a great deal for a much needed all-we-can-soak experience.

And not to mention all the social time with Nina & Paul, who we just don’t seem to get tired of. Shared meals, margaritas, wine, soaking, street fairs, hiking, photo fun, deep conversations and bonding.

And as a complete serendipitous bonus, we managed to select a spot nearby Rick & JoAnne of RJRVTravels, who’ve been enjoying getting to know too!

One of my other favorite things about our lifestyle is getting to introduce amazing people to each other.

Friday evening, we invited our friend Sean Mahoney over – who we met a few years ago on a prior visit to this area.  We knew full well he and Nina would click on photography geeking. Sean is an amazing night photographer, and just as soon as our yummy gluten free ravioli dinner was consumed, we headed out across the street for an impromptu night photography workshop.

Here’s some of the shots Chris got from the evening:

Lots of fun, and lots of great images made (check out some of Nina’s great shots on this post).

Oh, and more social fun – followers Dustin & Steven came out for a visit to drool all over our bus. They’re future bus nuts who are starting to shop for a bus to full time in. Dustin has done his homework, and totally blew our socks off with how into buses he is.

We look forward to our next rendezvous with these guys – we had a lot of laughs in the couple hours we shared.

While nearby to Palm Springs, we also took care of getting Kiki into the Banfield vet location to update her annual shots. We love Banfield – they’re located in most Petsmarts across the country, and sell an annual plan that includes all her bloodwork, vaccinations and office visits. And they keep centralized records that we can access as we travel.

Perfect for nomadic pets! (Now why can’t we human nomads get easy access to medical care like this?)

What’s Next?

We’ll head out this morning after a final soak and prying ourselves away from Nina & Paul, continuing our trek eastward with a goal of making Austin by November 24th.

We’ve booked a few nights this week in the Phoenix area, and then we’ll keep working our way east letting serendipity guide the way.

Thank You Veterans!

On this Veteran’s Day, we’d like to extend a huge thank you to all of our followers who are veterans or active duty – we greatly value your service in preserving the freedom we cherish.

(the below offer is now expired)

In honor of the service of both of our fathers (Chris’ dad in the Army, and mine in the Navy), we’d like like to help our veteran & active duty friends in pursuing their own nomadic dreams.

Today only, we welcome all veterans & active duty personal to a free PDF copy of our ebook The Mobile Internet Handbook, written to help you understand your mobile internet options and decide what gear & plans you actually need to stay connected while RVing.\