RV There Yet? » California

One Word Wednesday

steph — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 00:22:22 +0000

Fred’s?

Less Rocks, More Water

steph — Sat, 15 May 2010 17:30:21 +0000

Before I get too deep into our Saturday chores – laundry, vacuuming, dusting, toilets (blech), etc.- I wanted to share our “Saturday One”. After our two week “Rock Tour”, Gary has just about had it with the entire sightseeing venue. However, persuasive female that I am, I manage to convince him that we did need to get to Lake Tahoe. I mean, really, we might never come this way again.
So off to Tahoe we went!

And my goodness, what a beautiful lake/area that is!

We drove around the lake counter-clockwise, coming down on 89 and going back up 267 to I80. All along the map were those little green dots. You know, the “this is a scenic drive” green dots. We love them. Especially when we’re NOT driving the RV. (We like them in the RV too, but sometimes it’s a little more hair-raising in the house!). ~~Poor~~ Dear Gary stopped every time I asked him too – scenic overlooks, state parks, waterfalls, any little whim. Not only was the lake beautiful, but the crowds were nil. Ah, the blessing of being a tourist during the “shoulder season”!
Take, for example, Sugar Pines Point State Park. Look at this place -

Can you imagine how full of people this would be in the summer?
This park is also home to the Hellman-Ehrman Mansion- built in 1905, and restored to its 1920 splendor.

The tours weren’t running yet (remember, it’s the “shoulder season”), but we could peek in the windows-

I love old houses!

After our lovely walk through the park and around the grounds of the house, we continued on around the lake.
Next stop – Emerald Bay, with it’s beautiful Fannette Island!

They say this is one of the most photographed views in America. Believe me, I did my part!
There’s a walk down to the shoreline and another mansion, but we opted to stay top-side and just enjoy the view!
And while not all the shops were open yet, we managed to find a great lunch in South Tahoe before we started up the Nevada side of the lake.

Our final official stop was at Memorial Point in Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park -

And there a sweet couple offered to take our picture, eliminating the need to find a rock or stump to balance the camera on (or do the out-stretched arm shot – boy, are we bad with that!).

It was an all together lovely day. And unless you actually want to go IN the water, or perhaps enjoy some of the amazing snow sports that this area is famous for, I’d highly recommend the “Shoulder Season”.

I mean really, ONE boat?

One final shot from the day –
We often see dogs hanging out the windows (or standing in the back of the pick-up) enjoying the breeze in their faces. Especially on back roads. But I think this is the first time I’ve seen a horse catching the breeze while zipping down the INTERSTATE!

Have a great Saturday – it’s way past when I should be getting some chores done!

More Death Valley

steph — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 17:21:17 +0000

Well, I’ve finished my second cup of coffee this morning (or is it my third?) and the pipes are still frozen (delaying my long hot shower) so I thought I’d keep plowing through my Death Valley NP pictures and memories.
We were on day 3, and still our list of of “things to see” was pretty long! We’d moved to a different campground the night before so our focus was more on the southern end of the park.
We started at Zabriskie Point -

How beautiful! The colors of these mountains just continued to amaze me!

Our God is an AMAZING artist!

That’s Gary, waiting patiently for me to finish taking pictures. He’s learned a lot about patience this trip!
After a quick drive through the Twenty Mule Team Canyon

we drove to Dantes View, over 5000 thousand feet above the lowest spot in North America, the salt flats of Badwater Basin.

(the snow capped mountains? That’s Telescope Peak – 11,049 ft.!)

See that big stretch of white down there? That’s where we were headed next!
First, though, we stopped at “Devil’s Golf Course” – “an immense area of rock salt eroded by wind and rain into jagged spires. So incredibly serrated that “only the devil could play golf on such rough links.”

We walked out for a little bit, but not too far. Not with my sense of balance anyway!
But what was truly spectacluar was Badwater Basin- elevation of 282ft. below sea level.

We walked out past the crowd –

but since it was 5 miles to the other side, we didn’t make it all the way across!

That’s Gary again, way far ahead of me. I’m back trying to find the “perfect” shot. Again.
Our final stop that day was the Natural Bridge – a good dirt road,

and then a short hike to the bridge.

It was pretty impressive, but I confess that we found it almost ho-hum after the beauty of the Mosaic Canyon.
And that about wraps up the different places that we experienced while in Death Valley. But I don’t think it really describes the amazing colors and designs of the mountains-

or the wonderful vistas as we drove through the park.

Oh, and the wildflowers were just coming into full bloom!

Such a wonderful mini-vacation in a truly specatularly beautiful place. If you can, GO THERE.
But let me say this – come in with a full tank of gas -

OUCH!

More pictures can be found HERE – if you have the time and the inclination!

Better get this day going – Gary is getting ready to be on the road. Next stop – Prescott, AZ and our April project at Prescott Pines Camp. It’s back to work for us!

But first, let’s see how that hot water situation is coming!

Death Valley – Second Day

steph — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 04:58:32 +0000

OK, dinner’s over – back to the memories.
I forgot to mention one other stop that we made on our first day –
The Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes

We didn’t actually get out and climb those big ol’ dunes, but there were others who did -

They were pretty amazing!
But, back to Day Two -
Remember how this is the largest park in the lower 48? Well, we were camped close to the middle of the park, and we still had a forty mile drive to our first stop -
Scotty’s Castle

We splurged and did a “combo tour”, so we got to enjoy both an Inside Tour (along with lots of stories about the castle and its builders), and the Underground Tour, which included details on the mechanics of the castle, which was quite an engineering feat.

As you can see, it is pretty remote and in the desert after all, but it did have access to an underground spring that produced 300 gallons of water per minute, so they had that going for them. Can you see the big hole in the ground in the front of castle?
Here are some close-ups -

That was going to be the swimming pool!!!! Check out the viewing windows in the deep end – how crazy was that?

I was standing on that center bridge when I took the pictures of the deep and shallow ends. I can’t imagine how over-the-top this pool would have been (not to mention how quickly the water would have been evaporating there in the desert) had not the owner run out of money. It was a facinating tour – and I took lots of pictures. Here are just a couple -

and plenty more HERE!
Next Stop -(down a 20 mile dirt road) – The Racetrack, home of the mysterious moving rocks.

The Racetrack is a large dry lake bed called a playa. It was pretty facinating just to look at-
from a distance

and close up -

and very close up -

But what really draws people to this remote spot are these rocks

that move across the lakebed

leaving trails behind them.

I haven’t a clue how this actually happens, but I’m glad we got to see them. Quite an interesting phenomenon, don’t you think?
After the Racetrack (and back that 20 miles of dirt road), we took a quick stop at the Ubehebe Crater -

and then we were on our way back to Lizzie,

and a beautiful sunset.

Another good day in the valley!

Revisiting the Bucket List

steph — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 01:12:00 +0000

Death Valley National Park
It wasn’t even on my “bucket list” of things I needed to do while on the West Coast. So when Gary said we were going there before we headed to Arizona, I wondered what there was to do there. I mean, with a name like Death Valley – sure didn’t seem like a very interesting place to me. Well, four jam packed days (and 700+ pictures) later, let me tell you, there is LOTS to see and do in Death Valley.
Did you know

The highest temperature recorded in the USA was in Death Valley (134 degrees)

The same year the highest temperature recorded (1913), the lowest temperature (for Death Valley) was also recorded – 15 degrees above zero.

Death Valley National Park is the largest National Park in the lower 48 – 3 million acres of wilderness.

The lowest elevation in the Western Hemisphere (282 ft. below sea level) is found at Badwater in Death Valley?

The highest point in the lower 48 (Mt. Whitney at 14,491 ft) is just 100 miles from that lowest point.

Enough of statistics! I was expecting to see desert and desert-y thing. What I wasn’t expecting were mountains of unbelieveable colors, volcanic craters, a castle, moving rocks, and lakes of salt. I’ve pared down my pictures, and tried to be at least a little organized, so here we go – the highlights of Death Valley National Park, Conrad-style!

Titus Canyon
Now there are two ways to see Titus Canyon. One is to drive to the canyon head (about 1/2 mile) and then hike up the extraordinary canyon. OR, you can drive all the way out of the park and approach it from the other side, driving along a “high clearance, 4×4 vehicle recommended” road for about 25 miles. Can you guess which one we chose?

The road was one way (which I LOVED) and never really got too “technical”, but we did encounter something that we had rarely come across before -

TRAFFIC!
And while we tried to stay back (mostly so we wouldn’t be choaking on their dust),

We did finally end up in a traffic JAM!

Looking back while we waited for folks to start moving again….

We eventually got around the crowd (they all stopped at various POI’s along the way), and made our way into the canyon -

and after an amazing drive through the canyon,

we made it out the other side! It was a great drive – and if you’d like to see a couple more pictures of the drive and canyon, Here you go! -
Since the drive took a little longer than we expected (you know, the traffic!), we decided to take in some of the areas that were close to our campsite.
Like the Harmony Borax Works -

And the Salt Creek Interpretive Trail -

The Salt Creek is home to the Devil’s Hole pupfish – an endangered species found only (so I’m told) here in the Death Valley region.

Our final stop for the day was Mosaic Canyon - Amazing!

A couple more Mosaic Canyon pictures are HERE

And that was Day One. I think I’ll split this up into a couple of posts, so you don’t get into picture overload (like that would ever happen on one of MY posts!)
Take a break – I’m going to make us some dinner!

Getting Ready

steph — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 05:09:54 +0000

So we getting ready these days.
We’re getting ready to pack up and pull out. Our project here is winding down (tomorrow, Thursday, is our last day), and Gary can just about smell the road beneath the wheels. We’ve enjoyed our time here, seeing some beautiful sights and making lovely new friends, but when Gary’s ready, he’s ready! Tomorrow after work we’ll be taking care of laundry, making one last trip to Costco, fitting in a stop at the Post Office, and maybe enjoying a final In N Out burger. (OK, so it might not be our final FINAL burger, but it will at least be our final one at THIS In N Out!)
And we’re be getting ready to say good-bye to our new friends. We had a fun group this month – one couple was on their first SOWER project, and the other couple had been full-timing for about 20 years! Quite some diversity! But we all meshed together just fine, and had a grand time. The work wasn’t too hard – the guys mostly worked on painting and refinishing things, while we ladies went between cleaning pre-school classrooms (you don’t want to look at the underside of those tables, believe you me), to putting together admission packets to filling eggs for the Easter egg hunt next week.

Gotta love the diversity of a Sower Project!
Here’s our little group -

Oh, yeah, we had a fun month!

And out in the field that Joshua Tree is getting ready to finish its burst into spring.
Here it was on March 11th-

and it was popping out a little more by the 17th -

And then this week, on the 23rd -

I certainly hope I get to see more of these as we continue our travels in the desert!

And we’re getting ready to be tourists for a week, too! We’ll be traveling to Prescott, Arizona, but along the way we’ll be stopping at Death Valley National Park and then the south rim of the Grand Canyon. Can’t wait for that!

And I’m also getting ready to get some potholders in the mail. The offer is still open, just so you know.

But right now, I’m getting ready to hit the sack. Can’t be shirking on my last day on the job!
Sweet dreams!

A VERY Full Day

steph — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 06:06:34 +0000

Remember last weekend and the “no adventure” post? Well, we more than made up for it on Friday. It was lovely potpourri of hiking, driving, and learning, with even a little shopping thrown in for good measure.
Ready? Let’s go!
First the shopping.

We’d been told about a very eclectic store on the way to Devil’s Punchbowl called Charlie Browns. They said it was a store where you could find just about anything. ANYTHING might be a little too big of a word, but there certainly a wide variety of “stuff”.
You could pick up your fresh produce

and turn around and enjoy a wine tasting.

If you wander outside, you can pick out a new lawn ornament -

(Quite a bargain, too, it seems).

And if cows aren’t quite your thing, how about a bison or a zebra or a dinosaur?-

or even your knight in (not very) shining armor!

You can pick up some speciality candy

or go for the standard gift shop sweets.

You can pick up a game for your backyard BBQ,

(or play it indoors – you can, you know!),
and even try something new for throwing on the barbie!

But I confess that what really brought us into the store was this -

We needed the energy. Honest.
On to Devil’s Punchbowl

We started out with a nice little nature walk before we tackled the hike down the punch bowl.

There is a creek that runs through the bottom of the canyon – it was lovely!

But judging by some of the rock configuration, it seems that once upon a time there was a lot more water moving around here!

We’re not sure how these folks got up on the top of those rocks

but hey, they’re young. I don’t know how they are getting down, either!
We did manage to spot some interesting (to us anyway) critters along our walk.

The Red Haired Velvet Ant (though it is actually a wingless wasp).

A Common Side-blotched Lizard

And a Western Fence Lizard.
All of these are pretty common in these parts, but since we’re not from these parts, we thought we’d document their existence here!
And one thing you need to know about the hike? The map indicated it was about a mile and a half round trip hike. Let me tell you, it might have been a mile or so down, but it was easily four miles on the way up. Easily.
But, since the day was still young (and we had all that donut energy helping us along), we decided to take a drive north to the Red Rock Canyon State Park. We took a route through Edwards Air Force Base, which we discovered is pretty much in the middle of nothing.

But we did find this interesting gate sign -

Don’t know if they were keeping the tortoises in or out or warning of possible tortoise crossings/stampedes, but it certainly caught our eye!
But I digress – the Red Rocks, right?

So the rocks were pretty cool, but this is what really caught Gary’s eye -

Oh, yeah. Dirt Road. 4-Wheel Drive Dirt Road.

It started out pretty tame – some good dips over the washes, but nothing too major. But that was about to change -

That’s Gary checking out the disappearing road at the top of the hill -

OK – it started to get a little better – this is like a little “resume speed” zone here

(See the “real” road over on the left? So near, and yet so far!)
But then the “serious off-road” stretch appeared -

Really, that IS the road. Really.
We pressed on, slowly, navigating around the biggest rocks, staying away from the edges

Until we came to a less-stressful stretch

but then we turned the corner and came to this.

We checked out going left

Or maybe going right

But the answer was always the same. DEAD END.
The only way out was to turn around and go back. And I confess that going back was (to me) much worse, because we knew what was ahead. And I also knew that now I would be on the “edge” side of some of the more precarious stretches. (No pictures of that either way since my eyes were clamped shut!)
We made it without mishap, but it was a very long ride back to that blessed highway! (Kind of like that 4 mile hike back UP out of Devil’s Punchbowl.)

So, like I said, it was quite a full day! And aside from a couple of moments of absolute terror, lots of fun all around.
And maybe when California gets out of it’s budget crunch, it can make some new maps of the Red Rock Canyon.
Please.

Nuts and Bolts

steph — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 04:33:02 +0000

On the road again…..Ah, those are lovely words to us. As much as we enjoy our projects, there is still the wanderlust in our veins. New roads, new places, new friends……
Here’s Gary pulling out the drive (we need a nice level spot to hook-up, so we were driving separately until after we got diesel.)

Our last drive down Dillon Road -

Our last time down the hill toward Palm Springs -

And then on to takin’ care of business -
Propane

Diesel

(Did you know that many fuel pumps will only let you pump $75.00 at a time. Trust me, that wasn’t nearly enough!)

And then comes the “hook-up”. While Gary is busy attaching the truck to the tow bar on the rig,

my job is to do the “inside work”. That means putting on the auxiliary brake (every time Gary hits the brakes on Lizzie, this brake also pushes on the brake in the truck. That way we don’t have a 5000lb. truck pushing us down the mountains.)

After I get the brake in place, then I have to do all the transmission “stuff”.

You can bet I stand outside while Gary pulls Lizzie forward, making sure that the wheels are turning and the steering wheel isn’t locked.

That would be bad. Really bad.
So, here’s the driver, all ready to hit the road.

Here we are, driving through the fields of windmills for the last time.

(And loving that we got to follow an In-N-Out truck for part of the way. We LOVE In-N-Out!)
We weren’t going all that far – only about 175 miles, but it did involve going up those mountains -

and then coming back down-

(when we really appreciated that auxiliary brake!)
We were headed to Palmdale, CA, which is located about 70 miles north of Los Angeles, in the “high desert”.

Those were pretty impressive high-tension wires – we think they probably came from the Hoover Dam.
We made it to our resting place, a Walmart parking lot in Palmdale.
And that is the nuts and bolts of our day!

Propane – $78.98
Diesel Fuel – $218.01 (but then again, we hadn’t filled up since November!)
Garlic Bread from Walmart (ah, small pleasures) – 1.74

Being on the road again (even if it wasn’t very far) – Priceless!

I spoke too soon!

steph — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 03:12:29 +0000

I hit the “publish” button for my last post – “The Promise of Spring“, took a quick nap and then joined the other Sower’s over at “their place” for one last game of cards. And wouldn’t you know it, over there, on their patch of desert, was this beautiful sight -

Now that is some beautiful Promise of Spring!

The Promise of Spring

steph — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:56:38 +0000

Now, I know that lots of you are still under a significant (and possibly annoying) blanket of snow, but here in the desert, things are beginning to feel like spring. I was hoping that we would still be here when the desert really blooms, but it looks like we’ll miss the Really Big Show. However, as I took a last little walk around the grounds today, and then checked back through some other shots I’ve taken this month, I definitel feel like the Big Bloom is just around the corner.
(Please don’t ask me to identify these flowers! Generally speaking, if they don’t come with an identifying spike, I’m clueless!)

Here are some of the pink ones -

And a selection of the yellow ones (I know, I’m getting pretty technical here….)

Some odds and ends (the one on the bottom right is from a tree, and the one with the truck in the background is a fairly good sized bush)

Ok, this one I know – the Ocotillo. This looks like a cactus, but is not. When it’s dry, it drops all of its leaves to conserve water. Once it rains, little green leaves pop out all along the stem. And then they produce those beautiful red “flag” flowers on the very tips. Not very many of the ones we saw at Joshua Tree were in bloom, but we did find a couple. Pretty cool, doncha think?

And then there are the cacti.
Can you see the buds hiding in the thorns on the top picture?

I bet they are going to be beautiful.
And these -

or this one -

Even the Cholla were getting ready to bud -

The flowers on the cholla will be magenta. Man, I hope we find some of those at our next stop!
Since the locals have all been commenting on just how green everything is becoming, I thought I’d compare a couple of pictures I took today with ones taken back in early February. The pictures on the left are from Feb 4, the ones on the right, Mar. 1.

Ok, I guess I can see a little bit more green. But I confess, it’s hard for this Pennsylvania/New England girl to really get caught up in how green everything is here. (But then again, PA nots so very green right now either!).
Ah, the Promise of Spring!

Tomorrow we will be leaving the Coachella Valley behind. We are heading to our March project, Crosswind Community Church , up in the “high desert” north of Los Angeles. I think there might be hope for Spring in the Desert yet!

PS – there are a couple more flower shots, along with the ones I used in the collages HERE, if you’d like to check them out.