Trip To Susanville - (Chester, CA)

I spent the morning looking over our expenses in detail for the first six months of this year and writing about it.  But we were getting low on some supplies and needed to make a trip somewhere.

Neither of us wanted to drive the 120 miles to Reno, or the 90 miles to Anderson, CA to the nearest Walmart Supercenter.  Nor did we want to drive the 85 miles to Chico to the nearest Costco.  So we chose to drive the 30 miles to a regular Walmart in Susanville.

Since we were heading that way, we decided to call Art & Connie.  Connie has been an RV-Dreams reader since we started the website, and she emailed us recently that they are workamping in Susanville.

We made one wrong turn, but eventually found them at the Hobo Camp along the Bizz Johnson Trail, a Rails-to-Trails conversion.  They are hosts at the BLM day use area which has access to the trail and to the Susan River.

You can read about their volunteer experiences on their blog: Art & Connie's RV Adventures.

We had a wonderful chat for a couple of hours.  They still have a house (designated by a new RVing friend as their "expensive storage unit") in the San Francisco area.  But the full-timing bug has fully infected them, and they will soon be preparing the house to sell.  They had already started the purging process, and, in their time back at the house this spring, they experienced what we call "homesickness for the road".

We talked about that transition period Linda describes as "being caught between two lives".  We've experienced it when returning to Louisville even without a house.  We found that our old friends cannot relate to what we are doing, and we have no desire to acclimate back into their world, our former world.

It's really hard to explain.  It's like those special effects on TV where we are in a bubble while everyone and everything around us is in super fast-forward.  We look at each other and think "Did we really live like that?"  :)

Around 5:00, we departed Art & Connie's campsite with the usual hugs and handshakes.  I had my eye on the Wednesday night Texas Hold 'Em poker tournament at the Diamond Mountain Casino in town.

Linda & I arrived crossing our fingers that it was a "no smoking" facility.  It wasn't.  Usually, the poker rooms are non-smoking, but this one wasn't.

I checked out the buy-in, add-ons, and re-buys to see the maximum amount I could be out if I played.  The total was $65.

Linda & I split a sandwich in the hotel lobby (where it was non-smoking) while I pondered whether or not to enter the tournament.  Well, of course I entered.  :)

Fortunately, they did not allow smoking at the tables themselves, just at the bar in the poker room.  That helped a little.

There were 35 players and I learned that over half of them were correctional officers from the local prisons.  At least one of them was a warden.  I didn't realize it, but Susanville is a prison town.  It has three prison complexes housing over 11,000 inmates.

In fact, a documentary about the effects of the prison industry on rural towns was made about Susanville - Prison Town, USA.  Just a little sidenote tidbit.  :) 

Well, I lasted through the first hour and beyond.  During a break, Linda informed me that she played nickel slots in the hotel lobby and won $80.  Cool!  :)

She quit and headed on to Walmart while I continued to play.  I have to say that I felt I played very well tonight - much better than in my last tournament.

With the numbers down to eleven people, I had last week's tournament winner "all-in" and I had the best hand.  I had King/Queen to his King/Nine.  We both had a pair of Kings, but I had the higher "kicker". 

I was two cards from going to the final table with a huge chip stack.  Plus, if you knock out the prior week's tournament winner, you win a free cheeseburger platter.  :)

"Aaaargh!"  He got a nine "on the river", the last card, and pulled it out.  That's at least three tournaments I've been in where I played well and had the odds in my favor near the end only to lose most of my chips on a lucky final card.  Oh well, that's poker.  :)

I still made the final table, but I didn't have enough chips to make the plays I needed.  I went out in tenth place.  They paid the top four.  It was frustrating because I would have had an excellent chance of winning.  But at least I played well.  The odds were in my favor even if the luck wasn't.  :)

The one unique thing I hadn't seen before is that everyone is given a $5 real bonus chip.  Every time you go "all-in", you throw the chip into the pot.  So every time you knock someone out, you win their $5 chip.  Having knocked three people out, at least I left getting $15 of my $65 back.

With Linda's winnings, we left the casino up $30 for the night.  :)

We had a good time on our little trip to Susanville.  We met some new folks and had an evening of free entertainment.

The only challenge from that point was getting back to North Shore Campground in the dark without hitting a deer.  Just before getting to Lake Almanor there is a sign:  "Major Deer Area Next Four Miles".  Not just "Deer Crossing", but MAJOR Deer Area.  :)

For the 30-mile return trip, I followed closely behind a truck so he could run interference and I could use his headlights to see farther up the road.  I only saw one large mule deer right by the side of the road that sort of startled me.  But we didn't encounter any deer bounding across.

Whew.  Safely home.

Tomorrow, we get to sleep in as we start our day later.  They want us on the job during the afternoon Fourth-of-July-weekend-invasion that gets into full swing with lots of check-ins tomorrow.  Wish us luck.  :)    

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Comments

[Ken]

Howard, Arts site URL takes one to the BLM site also. Bothe links are the same?

[Rick Norman]

When you get a moment, could you double check the Art & Connie Adventures link? For me, it repeats the BLM site. Thanks for your time and creative writing.

[Howard]

Oops. Sorry Ken & Rick. Thought I had copied the correct URL on my clipboard when I cut and pasted. It should be correct now. :)

[Robbie and Alice Simons]

We are in Seattle where we retired from, visiting friends, doctor appointments and stocking up on goods and services.

We too can't understand how we ever lived and worked in this bedlam. The traffic is horrible any time of the day, and the people are all in such a rush to go no where.....We're ready to go somewhere, anywhere away from here!

We love our simple fulltimng life!....the one without stop lights.

[Susan Anderson]

I would like to place a request for some photos over the 4th holiday weekend if you can work it into your schedule.

It's been several days since we have seen any of your fantastic photography!

Even some of the guests and their RV's!

Just driving home from my corp job today I saw lots of RV's on the road already (US27) getting a jump on the weekend.

Me I will be working on Friday :-(

[Janette and Steve - Omaha]

boy can we relate to the homesickness for the road. Last year when we have to move back to a stick and brick, it was so hard, we cried. This year we went out on April 20th. We are not sure what our jobs will bring since the economy is hitting our place finally. Not sure what we will be doing but heading south is our only option until we have a covered and heated underbelly.

[Jerry and Suzy LeRoy]

We certainly share the I-don't-want-to-go-back-to-that-life syndrome! We've been out of it about seven years on the road (except for this year waiting out some medical situations), and we never even go back to the old home town.

Road, you are IT! We're getting back out there ASAP!

[Greg and Barbara Jones]

We experience the "friends can't relate" to some degree when we return to Boise, but I imagine your friends are younger and therefore harder for them to relate to such a change. Our friends are older and wanting a change and more fascinated with our new lifestyle.