boondocking – Page 6 – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

September 24 Over the Rockies

We headed west over the Rockies today, no more agenda, no more visiting or guests, just homeward bound. Of course, between here and home lie the red canyons of Capitol Reef, my heart home and sweet spot on the planet. Before we slip into canyon country, however, I thought it might be fun to wander west via a different route than the fast, winding interstate across the mountains out of Denver.

We chose Highway 285 south from Littleton, across Kenosha Pass, famous for its mountain bike trails, turning west on US 50, the road that crosses the US from coast to coast. Another climb, Monarch Pass, looked challenging on the map. How in the world do we haul the baby car over 11.300 feet?! The best part of the day was going to be the ability to drive as long as we felt like it, and then stop wherever we wanted to stop.

The passes were a piece of cake, really, most of the way had two lanes and the steepest grade was maybe 6 percent. The MoHo has an automatic transmission downshift, so that makes the downhill sides of the passes easy and safe as well, even though we don’t have any extra brakes on the car. The aspens are turning at the higher elevations, and the colors were backlit by the afternoon sun.

The only problem with this plan is that it all went by much too quickly. We saw two forest service campgrounds on highway 50, just before 1pm, and thought it was way too early to stop. Once over Monarch Pass, however, the west slope of the Rockies opens up into big wide ranching country, and by the time we found a place to stop around 3, the landscape was as barren as any we have seen in Nevada.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the desert. Rabbitbrush and sage are familiar to me and camping in the wide open spaces is something we actually seek. But on this day, somehow, I thought I would be camping in the Colorado Rockies, among spruce and aspen. Instead I am at the Stevens Creek BLM campground on a reservoir of the Arkansas River, surrounded by sage and silence. The skies are clear, and at 7600 feet, I am sure the stars will be breathtaking.

Not far north is the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, a dramatic National Park, and yet the drive there looks tortuous and we have decided to continue west on 50 tomorrow morning and camp tomorrow night in Canyonlands, at the Island in the Sky, at Horse Thief BLM campground. Canyon country calls, red canyons, not black ones, and I am a bit like a horse heading for the barn.

The rest of the photos for this day are linked here>

Day 1 Memorial Day weekend

May 22, 2009

When Mo and I planned to go camping on the Memorial Day weekend, our priorities were simple. Not too far from home, and a campfire. Of course, water is always on the list, since camping usually for us includes kayak time. Well, maybe not in the desert. When I indicated that I could get away from work for a long weekend, Mo said, “I really want to go camping, and I want a campfire.” I said, “Didn’t the desert work for you?” “Yeah, but that was last month. I need my camping fix at least once a month.”

So we cast about for places close by that would fit the bill and decided that the perfect spot would be Diamond Lake. A little jewel of a place that isn’t too far from home, and where we scoped out some campsites a few years ago, intending to return. Of course, it is Memorial Day weekend and we do have enough common sense to realize that things may be full and we may have to leave early. I am still working, and so for me, early was driving 8 hours to Klamath on Thursday and pulling out of Mo’s driveway bright and early Friday morning. Not early enough, probably, but the best we could do. There are more than 485 camping sites in the three campgrounds around Diamond Lake, many of them rv sites. What wasn’t clear at all from the website for the Umpqua NF was that only one campground would be open, and only half of that one. Snow still is in big drifts along the roads leading to Theilsen View and Broken Arrow camps, but we still really don’t have a clue why half of the Diamond Lake Campground was still closed. With the lack of personnel around and the continued closure of the Diamond Lake information kiosk operated by the Forest Service, we surmised that it probably had to do with a lack of funding and people to clean the bathrooms and empty the garbage.

We arrived around 10 am, scoped the available sites which were all filled, some even still snowed in and waiting for a camper with a shovel. We drove up to the north side of the lake to the Diamond Lake Resort store to ask about possible locations. The crusty owner said, “hell you can camp up on the hill” and when I asked how much, he said, “nothing.” So we drove out and found the dirt driveway leading up to some primitive sites that were filled with debris, and dirty snowbanks. But the sites were big, long, and level, had some great firepits, and a view of the lake. Never mind that that view is accompanied by the constant sound of big diesel rigs hauling boats out of the water. It still was better than the parking lot at Half Moon Bay, where we camped for the last Labor Day weekend when we ambled off with no reservations. I guess it seems to be our style to just wander around and see what we can find.

After we pulled in, with the sites a bit ambiguous, a fellow camper came up to tell us that the resort was requiring everyone to leave tonight because the fancy rv park down the road had opened today and the resort wasn’t allowed to compete. Hmmm. Well, maybe we will just sit tight for a bit. We set up camp, put out the nifty solar panel and let the batteries charge up nicely, put out the slide, opened the awning, the table, the chairs and a couple of glasses of wine. Perfect. Later in the day, after we drove around a bit and checked out the packed RV park and the rest of the packed campgrounds, we returned to our little spot in the woods to find some more people trying to park. Seems as though the resort owners here gave up since the rv park was full and they were letting people park in this lot.

So, once more, instead of camping in a forest service campground as planned, we are boondocking. Free camping, a water faucet that actually works, and Mo has a great huge fire going. Then, after deciding to check out the electric outlet, we found that it worked as well. Couldn’t be better. We spent a lovely evening watching a great movie on DVD. Hmm, does it still qualify as boondocking just because it is free? For the entire weekend, we watched people come and go, with the mystery of who was paying for the electricity and monitoring the site unanswered. We didn’t find out until we pulled out on Monday morning that we were parked in the official employees quarters for the Diamond Lake resort, and that it was a one-time deal. Great luck for us! We also were thankful that by this time next year I will be retired and we won’t have to wait until the holiday weekends to find a place to camp.

We took a little afternoon break and then explored the closed road to Theilsen View Campground, 4x4ing through the snow banks as far as we could before we took off walking the bike trail. The views of Mt. Theilsen were gorgeous, the water was clear, and we found a great spot for a kayak launch the next day. We spent the rest of the evening enjoying the fire. Perfect. There was even a huge pile of debris all around us for burning, so we won’t run out of firewood. The sun was shining with no rain in the forecast, the temperatures just cool enough for a sweater, and not a soul within 100 yards of our camp!

Day 8 and 9 Boondocking in the Alabama Hills

Can you see the MoHo tucked away in the boulders?

Photos here

Some time ago, Laurie (of Semi-True Tales) blogging fame, wrote about how much they loved boondocking in the Alabama Hills on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada. Mo and I tried to get there last fall, but were stymied by a winter storm that closed the passes. This time Mo traveled the desert for a week before I caught up with her in Kernville, and I’ll write about that a bit later, but I wanted to share some photos of the hills where we spent two dark and quiet nights, all alone, free of charge.

Funny thing, we found a BLM campground not far away on the other side of Whitney Portal Road, 10 bucks a night, and even at half price with our Golden Age pass, and couldn’t for the life of either of us figure out why someone would pay to stay there instead of tucked away among the boulders in the perfect boondocking site.

The hills were a great jumping off point for a couple of days exploring Old Highway 395, checking out the fault slip generated by the 1872 Lone Pine earthquake, driving up to Whitney Portal, and getting as high in the White Mountains and the Bristlecone Pine Forest as the roads would allow, and of course, searching for wildflowers.

Day 2 through 6 Wandering the desert

Saturday March 21
Route: south on I-5 to 138, hwy 14 to hwy 18
Photos are here at Picasa, Mo and the MoHo in the Desert

Digital Desert Mojave is a really great website for the Mojave Desert. If you plan on traveling there, it’s worth perusing at length. It is filled with detailed information about the landscape, rock formations, and documents the flow of bloom in the desert. After reading about the Antelope Valley Poppy Preserve and the promise of gorgeous displays, Mo decided to go there. It was a bit early in the season, but the photos show it can be lovely in spite of fewer flowers in full bloom. Another site along the way is Mormon Rocks, worth a stop and a look if you have the time.

Mo continued on to the southern entrance of Joshua Tree National Park. Arriving late on a Saturday afternoon meant that she was really lucky to get the very last campsite available in the Cottonwood Campground, and it took a bit of jockeying to fit the MoHo into that space, even at only 26 feet. When we got this rig, we were thinking that we wanted to be long enough to be comfortable, yet short enough for tight NP spaces.
On Sunday morning the weather was perfect for a day exploring Joshua Tree, enjoying the cholla and ocotillo gardens, and all the amazing granite formations. The park has several routes in and out, and Mo had to exit and then go back in on Hwy 62 to get to the Blackrock CG which is large with many available spaces on this spring Sunday evening. These camps have water only, so it isn’t exactly dry camping, but almost. The JOTR website is filled with information about routes, ecology, camping, and hiking information.

Monday morning Mo left the park, following historic route 66 a few miles before going north on Amboy road to Amboy, then north again to Kelso in the Mojave National Preserve. At Kelso there is a nice visitor center in the historic Depot, but Mo thought that perhaps the preserve wasn’t very old since there wasn’t a great deal of interpretive information in the area other than the depot. After a day of wandering, taking lots of flower photos, and enjoying the desert, Mo camped at the Sunrise Rock Roadside CG in the Preserve. It was again dry camping, with no water, but the hiking area was wonderful and Abby enjoyed the views as well.

Leaving the Preserve on Tuesday morning, Mo traveled north into Death Valley. The flower show was still minimal this far north, so she went on to Tecopa, checking out the hot springs and campground for future reference, and visiting the Dumont Dunes ATV site. After some more wandering,she headed for the Flying J at Barstow, hoping to repeat her boondocking experince from the previous Sunday. Once there, however, she was overwhelmed with the noise and huge number of trucks at this major desert crossroads, and decided instead to head for Kramer Junction at the intersection of 395 and 58. There is a huge solar generating station here that you can see for miles. After settling in for a pleasant evening at a great little wayside with other rv’rs, she discovered to her dismay that a sewage plant was nearby and little whiffs from the fragrant ponds made it less than pleasant.

On Wednesday, the 25th, with just one more day until our scheduled meeting, Mo headed back north on 395 to Inyokern to check out the active ghost town of Randsburg. There were many old buildings in use by small businesses making an attempt at survival in the tourist trade. Back south to Red Rock Canyon State Park and CG where the cliffs are lovely for hiking and climbing through the rocks and canyons.

Day 1 Wildflower journeys

Freedom. That is what it is all about. Springtime in California, snow in Oregon, a motorhome waiting in the driveway, and time. In the beginning of the trip, however, it was Mo who traveled alone. Unbound by the work world, she decided that it was time to find the wildflowers. we made plans for a long weekend, arranging to meet in Kernville, but before then, Mo traveled unfettered by schedules, free to wander the desert in search of the best wildflower shows, to find somewhere to park at night, to wake when she felt like it and wander off to another field of color the next day. That is what this RV’ing life is all about.
Friday March 20
Route: south on J-59, south on 99, south to I-5
The familiar bumpy route south of J-59 to Modesto gets tiresome, and it seems that no matter where we go, we follow this road. Abby hates the bumps as much as we do, but the poppy show was at its height all through the foothills on this route. Yellow fiddleneck was also prolific, and while fairly common, it still makes for a lovely show.

South to I-5 and once more rewarded with a sea of blue lupine stretching all the way from the interstate east to the foothills south of Bakersfield. It’s smart to find a place to “be” before too late in the afternoon and around 4pm the Flying J on the Grapevine at Frazier Park was a perfect place to boondock. Mo said that when she went to sleep after watching a lovely sunset, she was basically alone in the big lot. Morning found her surrounded by 5 other motorhomes who also knew about the great free parking on this major route to and from LA. When in need for a quick and easy night stop, if the truck noise isn’t too bothersome, it’s worth finding a Flying J.