Walmart Boondock, Summer Lake Hot Springs, and La Pine State Park

We are now at La Pine State Park, 15 miles south of Bend Oregon. Before writing about “now”, I need to go back a few days.

Craig and I rarely boondock, but if we do it is most likely to be at a well-lit parking lot, such as at a Walmart. I don’t like to travel more than 300 miles per day, and our next planned destination, Summer Lake, was almost 500. As it turned out, after a week on the road, there were a few items that are best found at a Walmart, that we needed to buy. Thus it was a logical decision to overnight at the Walmart in Susanville, California. 

We arrived mid-day and there was only one other RV in sight. We circled the lot and parked near the Garden Shop, as recommended online. All seemed good. We checked in with a manager and did our small shop. As evening approached, a number of other RVs also pulled in. We could hear the expected traffic noises, but the night was warm and we left the windows open to enjoy the air.

Just before midnight I was woke by a loud, high pitched, throbbing noise. I looked out and saw a large, refrigerated “semi” had parked near us. It went on and on, and I realized he would be running his generator all night long! We closed the windows, but this only muffled the sound somewhat. I did manage to get back to sleep however.  Then a little while late I woke again and noticed the noise, while still there, had diminished considerably.  A large Walmart semi had pull in between us.  The rest of the night was peaceful.  I guess when the spot is free, you get what you pay for.

Our destination for Wednesday was Summer Lake Hot Springs.

Like many of the hot spring sites, it is privately owned and operated. But one feels it is in a transitional period between being run-down and being rejuvenated.  

The open RV area was a bit rough, but had 50 A full hook ups. Only a few other rigs were there. 

Unfortunately this one was right along the entrance road. It was a bit of an anomaly. Usually when you see a junk site, like this the RV is also a piece of junk, old and neglected. But if you look closely you can see that it is a newer trailer in good condition, hitched to a newer truck. I wondered what the story was.

[From Craig] At first we thought this site was unoccupied, but come evening the resident appeared. First he built a good-sized campfire, and when that burned down he turned on one of those rotating blue-light “sprayers”. So he has resources for fun, just not for neatness. I bet he is recently split from a significant other who made him keep things orderly.  

There was a lot of construction going on. There were several new cottages that have been stuccoed recently, and were awaiting painting. In another area several wood units were available for overnighters, and one could see new wood and repairs on the older barn and storage buildings.

The metal building that housed the 20’ X 30’ hot pool is the oldest such structure in Oregon and designated a Historic Site. Much of the interior wood was old, but the overhead supporting beams were newer.

It was difficult to take a picture of the pool because there were so many reflections on the water from the windows and skylights. The pool was cement bottomed, with a constant flow of hot mineral water and a depth of 3’ - 5’. The mineral water temperature was about 100°, and no chlorine or sulfur smell. I enjoyed two long soaks on the day we were there. One when we arrived, and a second after dinner. Craig joined me for the first.

There were also three small outdoor pools. I could imagine a dark night soak looking up at the stars, but for a day visit preferred the deep water of the main pool.

I’m not sure we would stop here again, but it was interesting for a one-day visit. It would be great for someone coming home from a ski trip!

And I understand it is a favorite “after Burning Man” party place. 

We will be at La Pine for a week. As I’m writing this on Saturday, and I see that the full hook up sites are all full. When I made our reservation several months ago, I looked on Google Earth to see if I could find a satellite-friendly spot. I did, however, our Verizon reception is weak, and since it is our hot spot, so is the internet. I’m wrote this in Word and posted it down at the library in town.

On Friday we visited the High Desert Museum, just south of Bend. 

      One of several life size bronze sculptures outside the entrance.

In addition to some very good displays of things belonging Oregon Trail pioneers and the Indians, they had some very healthy live animals on exhibit. We were told than they are rescues that cannot be returned to the wild. It didn’t feel like a “zoo” , and the critters looked peaceful.

My favorite were the Porcupines.  

They look so soft and cuddly, which is of course deceiving.

This is the fattest Bobcat I have ever seen. He seemed happy, and in his enclosure he had toys and a big cardboard box to explore. What cat doesn’t love a cardboard box!

Can you do this?

It was a treat to see this Red Tailed Hawk up close at the "Raptor Encounter talk.

We see so many flying and perched on fence posts as we drive country roads. 

This bird was a rescue and is just getting used to being in front of a crowd. 

In the next few days we will be taking some walks in the park and enjoying some cool, quiet forest nights.

I’ll post when I can.

A Post

[From Craig] The second night of our trip was in a Walmart parking lot in the Phoenix area. At 3:30 AM I woke up to an amazing noise that sounded like a machine grinding up rocks. Got up and looked out to see a machine that looked like a small truck modified with a pickup head on the bottom and a shredder on the back.


There was another man with a blower who led this contraption to debris that it consumed. The whole operation struck me as about the least efficient way to clean up a parking lot that anyone could imagine. But maybe the objective wasn't to clean the lot -- maybe it was to wake up and annoy people sleeping in the lot, so that they would go away? Is this too paranoid? 

After at least 20 minutes of horrible noise, it moved on to other lots.

[From Merikay] The noise didn't wake me. Free parking is free parking. I consider Walmart allowing RVers to overnight a service to travelers. I don't think they are trying to annoy people, they are just cleaning their property. 

The rest of this post is mostly about RV things, hopefully interesting to other RVers, maybe not so much to non-RVers.

We arrived and checked into the Alfa National Rally with only one problem.

On I-10 before Casa Grande we were hit by a good size rock in the middle of the windshield that left a ding about the size of a half dollar. We had a glass man look at it last night, called the insurance company and will have a new windshield before we leave here. $250 deductible. We have been in touch with Allstate and a glass man and should have a new windshield by the end of the week.

One of our goals for the Rally was to get the Alfa weighed because when we bought new front tires last fall she was weighed, but Craig was not happy with the numbers. We were able to get it done Monday afternoon shortly after we arrived. The weights on the individual wheels were similar to what we got last fall. We are not overweight and have plenty of cargo capacity available, but we are very unbalanced from side to side. I'm not sure what we can do about it. The heavy side has two slides, the couch, the clothes closet, the large cabinet in the bedroom and the large pantry drawers and cabinet. 

We have some serious shifting to do, but I'm not sure we will ever achieve a good balance, but we need to be mindful about where we put heavier things. We managed to shift about 90 pounds from one side to another, but we would need a 500 pound shift to balance.  This is impossible at this point. There is not much else in the heavy side that we can move! 

Four of the crew of five guys washing the Alfa

As I type this, Tuesday morning, there are men on the roof cleaning it. We have had the Alfa for 19 months, and except for a few free washes at Alfateers after repair work, she has not had a bath. We are having her washed, paste waxed, buffed, and given a roof treatment. Some people say buffing is not good, but because she is white, any swirls will be less noticeable. It has been a long winter, and a lot of pine tar has accumulated on the roof and slide topper from being parked under the trees.

This is one job Craig is OK with paying for. He will go up on the roof if he has to, but cleaning pine tar is not a fun job.


It is now a couple of hours later, the Alfa looks great! No swirls. The windows are sparkling, and the roof and slide topper no longer have black gorm on them. They also washed the awning. We are satisfied with the work and cost. About $7 per foot plus the roof treatment.


We were just feeling good about the washing service when the refrigerator started beeping an alarm. We got ahold of the Alfateers Norcold tech, they have a service group here at the Rally,  and he tried to reset it. It seems the Norcold recall fix has failed. After going around with Norcold on the phone, he did a temporary fix and we will be trying to find another recall kit from a dealer in the area tomorrow! The refrigerator is cooling, but we were advised to not run it on propane until it gets fixed.

What a couple of days! On the plus side, although we had to skip the introduction to Pickle Ball lesson this morning, we managed to get over to the pool for an hour or so this afternoon. We also enjoyed a nice happy hour get together with a small group of Alfa Owners from our local club, and a nice welcome dinner with the entire rally group on Monday night. There are almost 100 Alfas here.

We went out to dinner tonight after the happy hour gathering. There was a "paid for separately" Prime Rib dinner tonight, but because I try not to eat much beef we chose to skip it.

Dinner was fantastic. 
Bed time now...

Travel Day 2

Our first night at Walmart was fine. Seems to me that if you're just driving through an area, it doesn't matter much where you stay as long as it's level, legal and safe. When you close the blinds it is much like anywhere else.

We did have some traffic and train noise in the night, but it wasn't loud and did not disturb our sleep. Craig was fascinated by the amount of late-night activity in the parking lot of the 24-hour Super Center Walmart. He got up and raised the front shade to look out several times.  I felt quite safe with the security patrol car constantly driving around.

We intentionally got a late morning start because Craig wanted to get a Schlotzsky's sandwich in La Quinta and a Shield's date shake a few blocks away for lunch.

We remember Schlotzky's from when we lived in Texas many years ago. They have no locations in our home area. We were not disappointed. Our sandwiches were as yummy (and unhealthy) as we remembered from the early 80's when we lived in Texas.

We had one little glitch when Craig took a corner too tight in the Walmart parking lot, but we solved it by unhitching the car, backing both it and the Alfa up, making the turn, and rehitching.  A bother, but better than frame damage!

We drove about 300 miles and stopped at another Walmart in Avondale AZ, just west of Phoenix.  Casa Grande, the location of the rally, is less than 70 miles away and we don't check in until noon.

The weather here is hot and sunny.  We ran the heater this morning, and have the windows open now to catch some evening breeze. 

We all know Karen's husband Steve can do a brake job in a parking lot while they are on a trip.

Craig tried to chase down a squeak in the step while in the Walmart lot this afternoon.

Every time he does this, he says it's the most challenging lubrication problem he's seen.

What can I say!

And he brought me flowers last week too!

Meanwhile, I have been relaxing as we drive and wearing my happy feet socks.

I do my share. We trade off as driver about every hundred miles or so.





Gil has arrived safely, posted his first blog and video from Thailand.  See it here.

First Walmart

Well, I didn't have much time to feel sad about Gil leaving for Thailand, because as soon as we got back home we went into getting ready for departure in the Alfa.  I had taken many things up to her over the week or so before, and assembled trip necessities on the dining room table. Having a good list sure helps when you're in a hurry.

The rally we're going to starts Monday.  We have two and a half days to cover almost eight hundred miles.

Everyone has there own way of traveling and their own best times. There is no way either of us could live through a 5:00 AM departure like some of you.  For us, getting up at 7:00 AM is early, and by the time we have breakfast, shut down the house, bring the Alfa down to the front drive, fill the fresh water and load the refrigerator we are satisfied with a 10:00 AM pull-out. 

Getting the Alfa up our road, onto the freeway, and then stopping to hook up the toad went very smoothly.

Our driving day was the best kind. Uneventful. We had sunny skies and no wind. Traffic was light and this was the best L.A. has ever been.  We ran into only one slow down!  That has to be a record. 

So here we are at our very first Walmart.

We drove 360 miles today, getting an all-time high of 8.7 mpg.

The good mileage was mostly due to the fact that we drove straight down the center of California on I-5.  Flat and straight. We have also been keeping our speed between 55 and 60.

Gil left a coment on my post from yesterday.
 "Sitting here in the Singapore Airport reading your blog. So far, so good, although I'm not actually there yet." 

Love the internet!