Detailing the lives, times and adventures of young professional boondockers, sometimes AS THEY HAPPEN!!
With pictures!
With pictures!
What we're about...
~~~Travelblogue~~~
Saturday, January 17, 2004
Quartzsite, AZ
Now, let's see, where were we...
We pulled into the B-10 campground in Quartzsite on Monday, did some exploring of the town on Tuesday, including hitting the humungous flea markets (such as the Main Event on Main Street, and the Tyson Wells Flea Market on Kuehn Street):
Pic #1 of Tyson Wells
Pic #1 of Tyson Wells
Welcome to Quartzsite!!
On Wednesday, we moved into the Tyson Wash area of the La Posa BLM land area. We found us a nice little "isolated" spot (well, as isolated as one can get surrounded by snowbirds, LOL)
About 15 minutes after we unhooked, we got to meet one of our neighbors - a gruff but friendly old guy named Roy came over to greet us. Like many folks we've met boondocking, it turned out he was a musician as well ("ya don't mind if I make some noise with my guitar, do ya?"). Mike was only too happy to point out that I was one as well (tho' I wasn't really sure about revealing that - this is "country" area, and I'm not sure I'd fit in, but what the hell...), so we agreed to go over and "jam" with him if and when we were around to do so.
On Thursday, we drove down to the Imperial Dam BLM area to take a look around there. The spirit of that place was more like Slab City, in the respect of folks being allowed to run their businesses and stay as long as they wanted there. But it wasn't as pretty as La Posa (I thought).
A trip through the Imperial Valley, and we ended up in Yuma. It wasn't as small a town as I thought, but folks there were pretty friendly (a nice congenial mix of seniors and Mexican immigrants - WAY different atmosphere than what I witnessed in San Diego). The KFC lady was kind enough to give us easy directions to the local Walmart when we stopped for lunch, and even at the super-crowded Walmart Supercenter, folks went out of their way to say "excuse me" or "pardon me" - DEFNITELY something I didn't have living in CA all my life.
Outside of that, Yuma seemed pretty much like Santa Clara, CA - full of chain stores and auto dealers lining the main highways, with LOTS of mobile home and RV parks instead of overpriced suburban real estate.
On our way back, along HWY 95, outside of Stone Cabin, I stopped and took even more pictures:
I took this picture because I, initially, thought this was a "Stone Cabin". I eventually came to find that not only was it not a "Stone Cabin", but that the "Stone Cabins" were about 5 miles off the highway, off of dirt roads. We decided to leave that for another time.
On Friday, we ran some errands in the morning and relaxed in the afternoon. Mike heard Roy picking on his guitar in front of his rig and went out to join him. I eventually followed with my guitar. Roy taught me a few tricks (he can do lead and rythym at the same time!!), and while it was obvious that I wasn't a country musician, I was able to play along and enjoy his company.
Today, we're hitching up and moving on to Parker, where we'll be staying at the Blue River RV Park (right by the Blue River Casino). The T-mobile access map says there's no cellular internet connections there, so the next update on our travels will either happen in Williams, AZ (sometime next week), or Vegas (which we should hit around the first week of February).
See ya then!! :^)
Friday, January 16, 2004
Quartzsite, AZ
Today has dawned bright and beautiful in BLM land...
I've never camped among cactus before, so this pic was quite a thrill.
Sorry if it's a bit big...
Nothin' like a caravan to spoil your view of the mountains, but, hey! This is public land after all
Batteries are running low...I'll upload some more pics later...
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Quartzsite, AZ
Well, outside of the quick little Christmas greeting, I haven’t updated the Travelblogue since we left Sacramento. There’s been several reasons for this: 1. We spent a month in the Bay Area, and it was less for touristy reasons than to visit family and friends (it was around Thanksgiving, after all, and we also offered to help two of Mike’s best friends move). 2. We spent ANOTHER month in Slab City, which, again, while it was beautiful and all, and certainly a unique, and for me a singularly life-changing experience, as you are about to find out, it was primarily to rest our weary bodies and heads, not to mention giving our finances a much needed break (it turned out we had spent half our travel budget just from hanging out in the San Francisco Bay Area, paying for overpriced RV parks and going out to dinner with friends among other things; we decided that, as much as we enjoy the company of our family and friends, we’ll be crossing that destination off our future RV travel destinations – we were natives there anyway, so the place is primarily nothing new to us and we’ll be moving to Reno when this is all over, so we’ll be three hours from said family and friends – huzzah!!) . 3. In some of the places where we stayed, the signal for our cellular modem was either slow, unstable or just non-existent (just getting online in Slab City was a chore that involved figuring out which time of the day was best, how to work out running the laptop using the house solar power without running down the house batteries, among other things). Therefore, posting pictures was a bit tricky at best (I think I got lucky on New Years Day, when I posted my performance pics on my OTHER blog).
Anyway, enough with the excuses, here’s what we went through!
From November 15, 2003 through December 12, 2003, Mike and I resided in and around the Bay Area proper. First stop was a night in the Vallejo Walmart where, despite the no overnight parking signs posted everywhere, we were not disturbed (well, we did try to make ourselves as inconspicuous as possible, and parking in what was technically the Food4Less parking lot probably helped). Next was Larkspur, so as we could see my brother and sister in Law in Mill Valley and my mom in Sonoma, as well as several of Mike’s best friends in Corte Madera and San Rafael. The park we stayed in was probably the most expensive we had been in yet: $35.00 a night, $230.00 a week for what was essentially a gravel pit with hookups, and no amenities, such as a shower or a Jacuzzi (the pool was closed for the winter). Laundry was the most expensive I had seen anywhere: 2 bucks to wash a load of laundry! EESH!!! What the park lacked in amenities and ambience, it made up for in convenience and scenery: The 101 highway entrances were a block away, it was a five minute walk to a mall where one found a Barnes & Nobel as well as a Cost Plus, and the Larkspur ferry was a 10 minute stroll away.
Plus the back wall had been knocked down so that folks could take their dogs out walking and/or jog on the abandoned railroad tracks in the back of the park and view scenery like this:
One day, Mike and I went bike riding up to Tiburon and I took the opportunity to stop along the way and take some pictures:
Two of my infamous trail pics – These went along the Marin Wetlands
Mt. Tamalpais
A trough in Corte Madera
A nice view of St. Quentin – folks STILL think it’s a hospital!
Some pictures of Tiburon taken from our vantage point
After a week in Larkspur, we spent a several days in Vallejo, primarily so as we could have easy access to Mike’s family and East Bay friends, and also be closer to San Francisco, in terms of driving. We weren’t all that impressed with the Vallejo RV park. Aside from being not much less expensive than the Larkspur one ($30 a night), we were kept given reminders that we weren’t in the best of neighborhoods (apparently, the hotel next door was populated with crack fiends and the like). Fortunately, we kept having people over, so our place looked occupied for most of the time we were there.
The day after Thanksgiving, Mike and I went to San Francisco for the annual “Bird and Brew” at our friends the Riggenbach’s cave, er, apartment. It was essentially 30 to 40 people chowing down on turkey and having scintillating conversation concerning anarchist and libertarian philosophy, among other things, in an area the size of a normal walk-in closet. Hey! you can’t beat a meal that looks like this:
Thanks Suzanne!!!!
Also while there that day: I took the advantage to shoot some street scenes for your pleasure:
Hiphoppers
Powell Street
Good ole Union Square
I thought this wailing harmonica player looked good enough for some, er, “fame”.
After Vallejo, Mike and I hung out in the East Bay, alternating between spending the night at the County Fairgrounds RV park in Antioch (so as to spend some time with Mike’s family), and boondocking in an old Montgomery Ward parking lot just off of the 680 freeway in Pleasant Hill. We ended up spending a good week living in that parking lot, which, as it turned out, was a pretty popular stop over spot for truckers as well as other travelers. Every once in a while, Pleasant Hill’s finest would drive by, but we just figured they were doing their job (tho’ we did get a little concerned when one of our friends visiting us at said lot for dinner was swigging some exotic liqueur right around the time a cop drove by. And while he did slow down, when Mike went outside to greet him, the guy just smiled and went on his merry way). At this time of the year, the Christmas Festival and Mart was happening at that particular mall, so I’m sure our patronage was appreciated. On top of that the “new Pleasant Hill downtown” (really, just a built up outside mall) was a couple of blocks away on the other side of the freeway, and, along with the plethora of both independent and chain restaurants and bookstores, a Peets’ coffee house had just opened!! YUMMY!!!
We were in Pleasant Hill just to help our friends Brian and Sharon move from their old apartment to their new house. Once that was done, we hightailed it to Lake Chabot Campgrounds. We had just realized how much cash we had hemorrhaged while staying in the Bay Area, and we were anxious to get out and into less expensive areas. But we had a few more people we need to see, and, well, it’s hard to beat this kind of scenery for 20 bucks a night on county grounds:
We spent 3 days at Lake Chabot visiting my friends Randy, Serena and Rick (Thanks Rick for all those CDs!). After that was done, we spent two days at an RV park in the wilds of Morgan Hill, off of Watsonville Road:
Mike relaxed from his travels, while I FINALLY got two weeks worth of laundry done, and went to see my OTHER friend Rick, and his friend Bill, in Aptos, where we did what we usually do at Rick’s place in Aptos: Power up the synths, the Tascam SX-1, the mikes and the guitars and jam over some loops. Rick felt we had some good song ideas going there. Hopefully, I should get some samples soon to provide for you of what we did!
After Morgan Hill, Mike and I raced to the Walmart in Bakersfield for our first boondocking experience outside of the Bay Area in a month. We were joined by other travelers and also took advantage of some really good, as well as inexpensive, Chinese food in that particular mall.
The next day, we raced through the Mojave Desert to our next destination, the Yucca Valley Walmart for yet ANOTHER night of boondocking. Along the way, I took some more of my infamous road pics:
The Walmart in Yucca Valley was actually pretty picturesque at night. I was kinda sorry that I wasn’t able to take a picture of the hills at twilight, but the next morning, I got to experience the Yucca trees across the street from the Walmart parking lot:
After that, it was Slab City or bust. And at 12:30 pm, we rolled into Niland off of Hwy 111, made a right onto Main Street, and drove 3 miles into a free thinkin’, free-livin’ paradise that starts at Salvation Mountain. We had a few false starts (including one guy who warned us about parking right by his urinal), but eventually we settled in Area 3, an area that wasn’t too populated and wasn’t too sparse, and afforded us views and sunsets like these:
This blog entry is already incredibly long, and I could go into incredible amounts of detail on how cool Slab City is, but well, this person could explain it better than I can. I’d just assume show the pictures and tell what happened.
The last time I was in Slab City, there was this godawful smell of rotting lettuce that permeated EVERYTHING, and even stayed in the trailer up to two weeks after we left the place. This time, no such smell occurred. We did get some nice breezes, and some FREEZING temps at night (darn! I guess I’ll have to keep those tank tops packed away a little longer), but one of the coolest things to happen in our first two weeks here was to experience the community Christmas Lights parade.
The following pictures don’t do it justice, but 5 of the folks who live here dressed their cars in Christmas lights and paraded around Slab City and Niland on December 23 and 24. It was a sight to see:
Another thing that happened was that Mike encouraged me to sing at Slab City’s outdoor venue, The Range, for jam nights. The crowd and the other musicians (Stephen, Sticks, Brad, Jaye et al), as well as the venue owner Builder Bill (everyone there is known by their CB name) that I was asked to sing at their New Year’s Eve Party.
As you can see, it was a swingin’ old time:
To say that this provided an epiphany for me was an understatement. I had no idea I could move a crowd until I came to Slab City. I felt really comfortable onstage, and since I am striving to be an entertainer of some sort anyway, this REALLY boosted my confidence. I'll definitely be looking into singing gigs when we get to Reno!
Despite a small two day side trip to El Cajon, Mike and I spent a good month at Slab City. The jams brought us closer to the people there, and got us a little more involved with exploring that community and the surrounding areas.
We got to visit the library started by the late Rosalie:
We also spent a day running around the Salton Sea:
Eventually, alas, it was time for us to go. We are seeing that this trip might be ending soon, and we wanted to get some more sites seen on our schedule. We said goodbye to all our new friends during the last Sunday afternoon jam that I sang at, exchanged addresses, phone numbers and emails (I also recorded some of those jams to mini-disc, so I’ll definitely need those addresses), and wished everyone the best of luck (especially Brad and the potluck/talent show on the 31st! Whew!) Brad came over later and had dinner with us, and we ended up recording one of his songs to mini-disc as well. I’m hoping, when I have time during our travels, that I’ll be able to do justice to his tune with some kind of backing arrangement.
On Monday, Mike and I hitched up, barreled down Hwy 111 through Brawley, turned onto Hwy 78, and drove through the Imperial Dunes. We had been there before, but I wanted to stop and take some pictures, so, we pulled out onto the lookout along Hwy 78 (which was stuffed with RVs and Toyboxes, but we still found some room to park) and I did a little snapping:
We continued on through a pass in the Chocolate Mountains. When the “Check Engine” light came on, Mike pulled over to give our truck “Hank” (yep, he’s named Ole Hank) a rest, while I did some more snapping:
After a brief stop in Blythe (where I ordered lunch from the slowest Dairy Queen I’ve experienced in recent memory), we waved California goodbye for quite a while, as we crossed the Colorado River into Arizona.
Mike had made reservations for us to spend a couple of nights at the B-10 Campgrounds in Quartzsite. The first thing I noticed as we drove through the desert: RVs parked all over the place! After the hoity toityness that was California, this was a rather refreshing change. Quartzsite was covered with tents and signs, the true persona of a perpetual flea market. I quite enjoyed it, and couldn’t wait to get some shopping done. But first thing we did was, after checking in and unhooking, was to scout for the LTVA facilities outside of Quartzsite. Oh Boy!! My first experiences with real, live cactus!! WOOHOO!!!
Mike and I spent the next several days getting our selves organized, going shopping (DON’T go to Big Market, DO go to the General Store), exploring the Main Event flea market (I bought two pairs of sunglasses and a small backpack purse), and getting more info on BLM land usage (we couldn’t just camp and pay per day, we had to buy a 14 day permit for 30 bucks. Oh well).
Tomorrow, we’ll be hooking back up again and hanging out in BLM land for a few days. After that, it’s off to Parker for a week while we visit Lake Havasu, Parker Dam, and other points in that area. After that it’s Williams, where we’ll see the Grand Canyon, Flagstaff and Sedona. If we get a signal there, I’ll fill you in (we should get one in Williams, at least).
In the meantime, I’ll do my best to maintain. Two months is an AWFUL long time to be incommunicado…
Thursday, December 25, 2003
Niland, CA
Greetings from Slab City!
Yes, it's been a while since this blog has been updated. Much of the last month has been primarily involving visiting famiy and helping out friends in the San Francisco Bay Area. Since last week, we've been boondocking it here in Slab City (which has given our finances a well-deserved reprieve). Great for camping, bad for internet access!
I'll be updating our blog with pictures later this week. In the meantime, HAPPY HOLIDAYS, EVERYONE!!!
Sunday, November 16, 2003
Sacramento, CA
Yes, it's been a while.
We've been holed up in the Cal Expo RV Park for the past week, kind of as a "vacation from our vacation". I had come down with a rather stubborn cough and needed some recovery time, anyway.
Lots of catching up and pictures to provide. The brevity of the info provided due to my sometimes pathetic memory should be made up for by the images.
Mono Lake was not to be. We had pulled into Lee Vining, the nearest town, to find it covered with snow, and the sole RV park in town shut for the season. We got some incredible pics of the lake, tho'.
Back down 395 we went. We decided to hit the Nevada border by night fall. We drove over 8,000 foot passes, then in to these green valleys, and hit one more lake before seeing the state border:
We ended up staying the night at the Carson Valley Inn in Minden, NV. Food was excellent and the RV park provided by the Inn was adequate. The mountain scenery was amazing.
We pulled into Reno about 12:00 PM. We were going to stay at the Bonanza Terrace RV park, but a lack of response from them regarding spaces available resulted in us staying at the Reno RV Park on Mill Street. We were warmly greeting by one of the owners of the park, who assisted us in pulling into our space. We needed to extend our sewage hose, and she just happened to have an extension available (cost us 27 bucks, but still...).
We spent the next day getting housekeeping chores done (laundry, cleaning, etc.), then set out to explore the area.
Mike and I are considering moving to either Las Vegas or Reno when our travels are complete. Two good friends of ours were already living and working in Reno, and proceeded to show us all aspects of the town not just the evening we first arrived but over the next few days as well. We were encouraged to visit such places such as Virginia City and Pyramid Lake, as well as a few of the neighborhoods in town: We set out to see Virginia City that Thursday. We did stop to take a few pictures of Truckee Valley and Reno on the way:
Virginia City, at about 5,000 feet above sea level, was COLD and I had forgotten my jacket (boy, did I get spoiled by Southern California weather). I also noticed that lots of "business for sale" signs were hung on some of the older buildings, possibly victims of the current economy. That didn't seem to dampen the spirits of the folks still working there, tho'. The restaurants were bustling and the scenery was absolutely stunning.
On Saturday, we decided to take a walk from our RV park into downtown Reno and go along the River Walk:
We later did some strolling around downtown Reno and had some lunch there before heading back to the RV Park.
The next day, we drove down to Pyramid Lake. The area around it was really desolate and full of signs saying "Do Not Go Into the Lake Without a Permit" (well, this was on an Indian Reservation). The Lake itself was quite nice.
On Monday, literally the day without clouds in the mountains, we drove up to Donner Pass and took some pictures:
We later drove to Lake Tahoe, had lunch at Rosie's Cafe in Tahoe City.
We then drove around the lake, on both sides of the state border, and took our time stopping and enjoying the sights.
We stopped at one more lookout, where we saw Carson City in all it�s glory.
We left on a beautiful Tuesday morning and headed over the mountains to Sacramento. We were going to boondock at our friend Dan's house in Orangevale, but, while un hooking, we got some strange looks from the neighbors. Mike became rather jittery at all the attention, and we decided some time at the Cal-Expo RV park would be a better use of our time (suburban and urban California has never been friendly to RVers.).
There's not much to see in Sacramento, outside of the State Capitol (where Arnold Schwartznegger's being sworn in as governor on Monday, which accounted for the buzz around town this past week). I've been a little too under the weather to get involved in it all, with the exception of hanging with our friend Dan, not getting out of the trailer until Thursday, when we went to see the latest Matrix movie (I don't recommend, it, btw - and I'm a big Matrix fan). This past week has mostly been resting and enjoying friends.
Our next stop will be Larkspur, where we'll be seeing family and more friends. Even tho� the San Francisco Bay Area, until a couple of years ago, had been our lifelong home, we�ll provide pictures of that part of our travels for your viewing pleasure. Hopefully, the gap between posts won�t be so long, and the text not so shallow!
See you then!
Sunday, November 02, 2003
Bishop, CA
This morning, I got up early and went around for a bit to take some pictures of the neighborhood.
There's a creek that goes by the spot where we are staying, so I took a few shots for posterity:
This following shot was taken at the Creekside Inn about a half a block away. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, which means I get my mountain shots today, woohoo!!
Later, we decided to do some exploring, so we drove back down south through the towns of Big Pine and Independence. We had lunch in a French-run American Cafe before heading back.
We did a couple of detours, because Mike saw these sattelite dishes far away and wanted a closer look.
We drove off the highway and down a dirt road to what turned out to be Klondike lake. Didn't make it to the sattelite dishes, but the mountain views were spectacular!
Tomorrow, we'll be hitching back up and heading to Mono Lake for a night of glorious dry camping - in the cold.
We'll be catching up in Reno. See ya then!
Bishop, CA
After our two hour layover at the Ridgecrest Walmart, we spent another hour and a half on the road. Despite Mike�s protestations, I made some minimal practice of shooting pictures out the window of our truck. Despite my efforts to keep the right side mirror out of the shots, I still had to some cropping in Photoshop. Oh well�
At about 4:00 PM, we had reached the outskirts of Lone Pine and decided to call it a day driving. The sun was sinking behind the massive cloud bank covering the Sierras, and we didn�t want to scout for open space in darkness as we had done the night before. We came upon an RV park called the Boulder Creek RV Resort and inquire about dry camping possibilities. First thing we noticed was that this place had a convenience store, a VERY well stocked convenience store. We talked to a cordial and congenial young man with a goatee and what I detected to be a Greek accent. He said there was no dry camping, and that it was 28 dollars a night. We decided it wasn't a bad deal, especially in this area, so we went for it.
We were then shown the facilities: the tiled jacuzzi, the spacious showers, and an extravagantly decorated rec room done in a well detailed western motif. There was also an aivary in the rec room which housed representatives of the local bird population.
We also found a cute, funky playground outside with a large cage where 4 goats were kept:
The goats were in love with my red jacket. They got REALLY shy once I whipped out my camera, tho'. They must be tired of stupid tourists taking their pictures. Its as if noone's ever seen a goat before, hehehe:
Mike and I made short order of the jacuzzi. We hadn't had a nice soak since before the Cedar Wildfire, and Mike's muscles were still sore from replacing the water heater, not to mention the tension from pulling a 30 foot trailer up into the mountains. The help kept coming by and cleaning the leaves out of the jacuzzi, and tested the water to make sure it was hot enough. I've never had this kind of customer service in an RV park before. Absolutely amazing.
We decided to hook up a little anyway (batteries on the lappies were running low), and after we cooked our dinner we checked out the doings in the rec room. Turned out, there was a small Halloween party of sorts going on there. A reunion between friends and the owners of the RV resort. So we met Jaqueline, Art (the RV park owners) and a few of their friends, who had just driven in from Fallbrook. So the fire was definitely a topic of conversation. It was really refreshing to actually meet new people again, and not have to deal with any kind of hidden agenda, which was my experience in dealing with people in Southern California. We were among honest, open and friendly folks again. Mike and I had a wonderful time.
The next morning, I woke up to a cold trailer. I worked the thermostat a bit. No heat. When Mike got up later he did some further investigation. The heater is broken. Oh well...we've got about three propane heaters as backup. I'm alittle concerned how we'll make out as we get further north, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it...
I tried to take pictures of the Sierras again the next morning (I was a little disappointed about the cloud cover obscuring the mountains from the night before).
Somewhere in there is Mt. Whitney...
Inyo Mountains
We were kinda sorry to leave that place. Out of all the parks we've stayed in, that has to be one of, if not THE nicest, RV parks we have ever stayed in. We'll DEFINITELY be back!
Two and a half hours later, and we pull into Bishop. We were enjoying cruising the downtown area, when we happened upon J's Mobile Ranch and RV park. Looked rather "lived in", but that was ok. Lots of trees, and it has a little creek running through it. The duck crossing was a nice touch as well.
We had a rather gruff individual greet us, but eventually he warmed up. I took note of all the sayings on the wall: "He who gives up liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security - Ben Franklin", and the picture of an elderly standing in his wheelchair while a military parade passes whiel the rest of the crowd sits". OK...we've got some rugged individualists, or hard core militants here. No matter. $24 bucks a night. And he helped up pull in. Neighbors were cackling and laughing as we set up camp. I found it kinda irritating. Mike didn't care. Said I shouldn't either. Oh well.
We had lunch at the Firehouse Grill where we, again, discussed the So Cal fires with the waiter, who then proceeded to let loose his frustration with the media. OK, in this town, everyone's got a mind to speak. After the fearsome political correctness that represented San Diego County, even if we didn't totally agreed with it, this was QUITE a refreshing change! We like it!
After lunch, we took the bicycles down and went riding through town. I took a few pictures, but only one was savagable enough for public consumption. Besides, I've got plenty of Inyo Mountain pics anyway...
We got back from our bike ride about 2:30 pm, and decided that we had enough daylight to do other things. While Mike chilled, I went next door (yep, next door) to the Erick Schatt Bakery and got my first mocha since we left San Diego. Delish!!
That whole place is sight to behold, actually. If I weren't on the Atkins diet, I would have helped myself to the breads and pastries there. They all looked so YUMMY!! They also had quite a selection of beef jerky too. I'll have to try that out. Cute Euro motif too!
Later, we took the truck and drove further down 395 to the Inyo National Forest.
Later that night, we were relaxing in the trailer, when we got a knock on the door. A woman outside was having problems with her propane sensor and needed some help. Mike got out his RV handbook and went to help her out. Turned out it was the sensor on her fire alarm that was all screwed up. We had a good laugh about it, and invited her in for a spell. Her name was Marsha, and it turned out that she too was a full time RVer. It wasn't clear what she did for a living, but she was actually in town to possibly show photographs at the local art gallery, and was considering doing that for a living. We spent a good half hour discussing boondocking, where to go in the mountains for safe camping, the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, NV and just life in general here in the Eastern Sierras.
It's nice to discover the lost art (well, it's lost for me) of meeting new people and helping folks out. I tend to keep to myself, but, in the last few days, I've probably had some of the most scintillating, and fun, conversation I've had with strangers in quite sometime.
This morning, I woke up about 6:00 to no running water. I checked the temps outside. 28 degrees F. Pipes are frozen, dammit!! Welcome to an early winter! I was still able to get my coffee thanks to water in our tanks, but my personal lack of preparedness regarding this climate kinda irked me.
Temps NOW are 65 degrees F. Things heat up quickly around here.
Today, we'll be going back to Lone Pine and stopping at a few of the smaller towns we passed yesterday for a closer look. Tomorrow, we are hitching back up and heading to Mono Lake for a dry camping spell. Hope there's not too much snow up there.
I'll load some more pics tonight, or possibly tomorrow morning, as we won't have internet access at least until Carson City, NV.
Stay tuned!
Friday, October 31, 2003
Ridgecrest, CA
The day dawned, for once, bright and shiny. For the first time in, well, YEARS, we had bacon and eggs done WITHOUT the use of a microwave. Something wonderful about that, and being able to do it curbside!
I also appreciated the fact that I was able to take some pics of the surroundings of where we stayed the night before:
A little later, we just kind of smacked our heads in dismay in seeing, nearby, along 395, all these services, such as RV parks and truck stops, available, if we had only bothered to keep going!
We also saw the Southern California Logistics Airport, the storage area the airlines use to store their airplanes, OOPS, I mean AIRCRAFT, a few miles off of 395. Mike couldn't believe we were just a mile or so from it last night. Definitely will be a stop the next time we come back here.
U.S. Route 395 is a major route for truckers and RVers either going skiing or heading south for the winter. Today, it was unusually light, with only the occasional truck or two (thankfully) slowing us down. The morning saw us going into hillier country and through towns such as Red Mountain, which looked almsot empty except for the funky museums which I'm sure brought in the easily bored trucker or two, and Johannesburg, which actually had a post office amid all the shrubery, cactus and joshua trees. But about noon, we had reached the exit to Ridgecrest, which was about a couple of miles off the freeway. It was in a pass surrounded by beautiful mountains, and, while we were resting in the Walmart parking lot, I took some pics:
The beginnings of the southern Sierra Nevadas
The beginning of the Inyo Mountains
We had to do some grocery shopping at the nearby Albertson's, and, wouldn't you know it, THEY'RE on strike too!! It was also Halloween. I could tell because all the help had cat faces drawn on, both there and at Walmart.
It's also incredibly windy here, and it was just enough for us to dodge the stray shopping carts doing their dances in the parking lot.
Tonight, we'll be heading up to Lone Pine for another possible boondocking night, and then on to Bishop for a couple of days. The scenery is starting too look pretty good, so hopefully, there'll be more pine and less sagebrush. Stay tuned!
