Out West - Day 47

Monday, October 20, Day 47 - Fresno, CA.

Today was a beautiful day, weatherwise. We left the campground in Kingsburg at 7:30AM, destination, Fresno Truck Service, the local Freightliner Oasis Dealer, to have work done on the motor home. We dropped it off at 8 o'clock this morning, and the service department told us that it would take most of the day to peform the work. My first thought was, "Hmmm, this is going to run into lots of money." The sign above the service desk read "Labor Rate: $94/hr." Holy cow! But, since we have no choice, we have to accept the consequences.

We packed the doggies in the car (they do not like being in the car!), and they started whining almost immediately. Next, we found a nice cafe for breakfast (if you're ever in Fresno, be sure to stop in at "Irene's Cafe", on Olive Street. Good food, nice, clean restaurant, open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, with a friendly staff. After breakfast, we had to find a place to buy dog food for the pups. We found a Petsmart and got the food, and we also bought them a new "COW", as the old cow was disgusting! The next order of business was to find a new table-top propane grill, since our other grill was destroyed when the tire blew. We checked out a Home Depot, Target and Wal-Mart, but they all said the same thing, "It's a SEASONAL item, and we're gearing up for Christmas." Imagine, grills are a "seasonal" item in California! Hell, we use grills all year long in Massachusetts (everyone I know does, anyway), so how come it's a seasonal item in CA, where the weather is nice year-round? Doesn't make sense to me. So, we started looking for Wal-Marts in the area with the GPS. It lists the telephone number, as well. We started calling various Wal-Marts to see if they still had any. We found one, 31 miles south of Fresno, in Hanford, CA. Since we had nothing better to do, we ended up driving there, much to the dismay of the dogs. Did I mention that they HATE being in the car? Anyway, we got there and checked the grills, and guess what? No table-top PROPANE grills, only charcoal! How did we know that was going to be the case?

Anyway, we returned to Fresno, checked on the motor home (not ready yet), then went in search of a car wash to wash the filthy beast! We found one, only Kathy was not feeling too comfortable about the neighborhood. We heard on the news that there have been several shootings in the area in recent days, so we got out of there quickly. On the way back, we stopped at a Camping World store here in Fresno, attached to a motor home dealer (Paul Evert's RV - a Monaco Coach dealer). We had stopped here yesterday afternoon and checked out the grills, but they only had grills priced at about $100 and up (Kathy checked on these). Today, we had decided that we were going to have to "bite the bullet" and pay the $100 for a grill. When we got there, I went in to look at the grills and I did find a grill for under $30, so we bought it. Now, we have a grill to cook on.

We returned to the Freightliner Service center and found that they had completed the work on the motor home. I had to wait around for about 45 minutes for them to figure out the bill, thinking "Damn, this can't be good." I was right, it wasn't good! I will not bore you with the details, but suffice to say it was another arm, leg, and a little bit of heart! However, I have been assured that the problems I was experiencing will be eliminated now. Great news! We still have lots of mountains to cross before we reach Florida.

The trip from Fresno to Oakhurst, CA, was uneventful. We did encounter some "hills", which raised us to over 3,000 feet elevation, but the motor home took them in stride, with the car in tow. We are now restfully ensconced in a campground in Oakhurst. Tomorrow we will travel into Yosemite, about 17 miles to the north of Oakhurst.

Stay tuned for details of our adventures in Yosemite National Park.

Sorry, no pictures today, as there was nothing to take pictures of.