We were so excited about heading out on our first adventure, that we could hardly wait. We poured over Google Maps looking for places to go around southern California. Places within a half-day drive so that we could make a weekend of it. Our first trip was to a place we had been wanting to go to for a while – Salton Sea. We had driven then before, but in a car. This time we would be able to find a spot and stay the night. Great!

We decided to take a relatively indirect route through the mountains to put the R/V through her paces. This was the initial shakedown drive where we wanted to break whatever was going to break, before we took the big trip to Utah. If she was going to overheat, we wanted to know. If there were other problems, this was the time to find them.

We ended up leaving the evening of the day we bought her – November 7th. We left late and made our way down IH10 towards the mountains. Because we had left late, we knew that we would not make it all the way to the Salton Sea, so we planned our first stop of a Wal-Mart that allowed for overnighters. We stayed at the Wal-Mart in Beaumont, along with fifth wheel that was there before us. The night was uneventful with the exception of the security guard rounding up stray shopping carts with his car. Too funny. We make the bed in the rear and planned to get up around opening time so we could start to stock up on goods for our new home. It was to be a fun time!