In my almost 2 years of full time RVing I have never had to chase good weather for 2 weeks like I did April and May of 2022.
One of the biggest benefits to living in an RV is you get to run from bad weather or weather you simply don’t like. Usually living out in the western part of the United States there’s plenty of places to choose great weather! But can you remind Mother Nature of this?
Let’s establish what bad weather is when living in an RV.
What is Bad Weather for an RVer?
We’ll start with wind. No RVer likes wind. It’s no fun to drive our boxes around in wind and it certainly can make you feel motion sickness while stopped.
Heat. This one is a personal preference, some people like the heat. Me? No way. When it starts to hit 80* F I’m out looking for cooler weather.
Cold. Like heat, some people like or prefer colder weather. I don’t. BUT I will tolerate it. Minnie Rambles, my RV, on the other had HATES freezing weather. Her tanks and pipes may freeze and that can be no bueno.
These are the big three I avoid and any combination of 2, well, I’m in one hellava pissy mood.
There are other weather factors like hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, etc you get the idea. People in general will avoid these, duh.
In Search of Perfect Weather
Like I stated, I’ve been full time RVing for almost 2 years. I’ve been pretty good at finding places with great weather to stay. Last year Colorado offered this all summer long! And Arizona all winter long.
It was late April, Arizona deserts were heating up and our time had come to move north and/or to higher elevation for cooler climates.
So we were Oregon bound!
Let me preface this post at this time with I checked the southern Oregon weather before plotting our course. Yes, there was going to be rain but intermittent with sun and temps in the 60’s and 70’s.
Did You Order a Side of Crappy Weather?
The route was set, we’d head up through Nevada into a sliver of California then drop into southern Oregon to camp and hike.
Cruising north from Lake Havasu (our homebase) we stopped in Las Vegas to have dinner with my youngest, that’s always a bonus! From there were drove highway 95 stopping close to Area 51.
Weather this leg : windy and 20’s overnight, aka crap weather but it’s ok, just passing through.
April 30th Continuing our journey we stopped in Hawthorne, Nevada. Weather : very cold, slightly windy and sun.
This is where it officially got worse.
May 1st Outside Reno, NV we stayed overnight in a casino parking lot. Weather : super windy, very cold.
May 2nd Outside Susanville, CA at Eagle Lake. Weather : crappy. Super windy, some sun, and freezing overnight.
May 3rd Somewhere off Hwy 395 in Northern California called Ramhorn Springs Campground. Beautiful setting! Weather : sunny but high winds and rain.
May 6th We made it to Oregon! Stopping near Midland, OR because the weather report was, you guest it, high winds! But this one came with a bonus feature of pouring rain.
This is where I decided to look again at the upcoming forecast for Southern Oregon. The forecast for the next week was, you may have guessed it by now, gusty winds and freezing temps for the next week!
I was so excited to stay and hike Oregon’s beautiful forests but I made the difficult decision to move south and east – possibly Colorado.
May 7th Winnemucca, Nevada. We found a sweet little trailhead called Bloody Shins to park overnight. The forecast was wind gusts and close to freezing temps overnight.
This is where I about cried, or laugh, at our circumstances – we woke up to SNOW on the ground.
REALLY? Really Mother Nature?
Needless to say we didn’t get a chance to hike Bloody Shins trail the wind was so cold it made snow flurries. I only hike in that weather if I have to.
By the way, I’m not done. Crappy weather continued.
May 8th Sacramento Pass, Nevada. Absolutely beautiful campground and free!! There were some trails nearby that we could hike BUT, no mystery here, the weather was windy and fridged.
May 9th Great Basin National Park. Leaving Sacramento Pass CG to head further east we decided to stop at Great Basin NP. I checked the weather – blue skies and no wind that day! Woo hoo! A ray of sunshine so we could visit a peak!
Nope. We drove up the road to Wheeler Peak for a few miles and was stopped. Road closed due to snowy roads.
UH! I was beginning to think that I just can’t get a break.
May 9 Outside Salt Lake City – gusty winds.
May 10 Manti Community Campground, Utah. Amazing CG but there was still snow on the ground. No snow was forecasted yet it was really cold!
May 11 Ivie Rest Stop, Hwy 70 Utah. Guess the weather.
I was at a loss. I had checked forecasts for weeks now to find weather barriers everywhere. We contemplated going back to Arizona.
Then there was a break!
Capitol Reef National Park showed sun, sun, sun! And temps during the day in the 60’s with overnight not freezing.
How Did I Mess Up So Bad on Planning Out Good Weather to Travel In?
So…
What happen?
I still don’t know. I checked the forecasted weather for Oregon for at least a week before leaving Arizona and all looked great! Yet as we approached a nasty storm hit the west coast. There were days I didn’t have a phone signal so I must have missed the important updates until it was too late and we were in the heart of the storm.
How does that saying go? Oh ya.
Shit happens.
I prefer “You can’t have a rainbow without the rain“. I appreciate the sun and warmth even more now than ever. I grew up in Southern California where we didn’t have such drastic weather. It took until I am 50 to know bad weather really does exist.
