Florida to California PCS

[A3M0N]

Hi everyone,

In March my family of 4 + dog moved from the Florida panhandle to northern California. I know this is a late report, but I have been busy with military training and school (mine and my kids), etc. This is my first trip report, so if the photo coverage is slim, I apologise. I tend to take in sights and live in the moment, so this will have pictures of mine and my wife's.

We drove a 2007 Saturn Aura (not exactly an overlanding vehicle) and a 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee. My daugher rode in the sedan with my wife and the boy and our dog was with me in the Jeep. We did our best to stay off the interstate, but had to spend a few hours on it. We also planned to camp at the Grand Canyon, Death Valley, and Yosimite; unfortunatley the Grand Canyon and Death Valley we're booked solid. We went to the Grand Canyon but passed by Death Valley this time. The Tioga Pass into Yosimite was still closed due to weather, so we just stayed in hotels this trip.

Day 1: Niceville, FL - Shreveport, LA

The trip started with a bang! We had the vehicles all loaded up and had to get them weighed (military PCS move) and that went great, until I wanted to fix a zipper pull that was flapping on my Jeep roof. When I cut the pull off the knife went through like butter and into my left index finger! I wrapped it up and we pressed on, I think it stopped bleeding about 2 hours later. I probably needed stitches, but I just wanted to get on the road.

Day 2: Shreveport, LA to Wichita Falls, TX

Day 3: Wichita Falls, TX to San Angelo, TX

These are the only 2 pictures I have of those first days, it gets better, I promise!

 

[A3M0N]

Day 4: San Angelo, TX to Alamogordo, NM

Next stop was Alamogordo, NM. We stopped at Carlsbad Caverns NP on the way. I have some buddies stationed at Holloman AFB so our families caught up over dinner while we were in town.

Rest area in NM

 

[A3M0N]

Day 5: Alamogordo, NM to Phoenix, AZ

Day 6: Phoenix, AZ to Flagstaff, AZ

We drove through Sedona on the way to Flagstaff.

Day 7: Flagstaff, AZ to Henderson, NV

We stopped at the Grand Canyon, then on to Henderson.

 

[A3M0N]

Day 8: Henderson, NV, AZ to Bishop, CA

We rode on RT 66 for a few hours, it was very underwhelming. Bishop is a pretty town, we had some awesome BBQ there at Holy Smoke BBQ. Having been born and raised in the South, I was very surprised to find such great BBQ in California.

 

[A3M0N]

Day 9: Bishop, CA to Beale AFB , CA

And our last day. It was supposed to be a nice easy 4 hour drive, we checked the weather around the Donner Pass everyday of the trip with no bad weather, to include this morning. Well, as soon as we pulled into the Lake Tahoe area, it started to snow. We got to use snow chains for the first time in our lives. Interesting drive, took us 10 hours with the weather slowing us down. We stopped at Mono Lake on our way through.

It was so windy my kids were being nearly knocked down!

We don't see snow a whole lot.

Thats really about it. We came out of the mountains and pulled into Beale with little incident. The only problem was reopening the cut on my finger while taking the chains off our tires. We wanted to camp and see some more of California on the way, but we'll be here for a few more years, I plan on spending a week or so in Yosimite in the spring/summer. And we have Tahoe NF and Mendochino NF close by to explore.

Thanks for taking a look, and thanks to all those who helped me plan our route!

 

[4x4x4doors]

And thanks for sharing!
Looks like you had a great trip. I hope Beale is good for you and your family.

 

[A3M0N]

It really was a great trip. I was dreading it until I found this website. We didn't get to do a few things I had planned, but we kept our driving days to under 6 hours and avoided the interstate as much as possible, that allowed us to take our time when we found something interesting to stop and look at. My son loved the windmills along the way.

Beale has been good so far, we just need to get our and see some of the surroundings.