Category: California

Sunset Beach and the Elkhorn Slough

We planned this trip to the Elkhorn Slough some time ago, after reading about the restoration efforts there. http://www.elkhornslough.org/paddling.htm

Our first estuary experience in South Carolina last December whetted our appetite for more of the same and we wanted to experience the Pacific version of this delightful way to be on the water. What I didn’t know before visiting is that the agency I work for, USDA-NRCS, has been working the Slough for several years, contributing the the restoration in many ways.

Choosing to travel the weekend after Memorial Day, we hoped that some of the crowds may have thinned a bit. What we didn’t plan for was cold winds and highs in the 50’s! Of course, Mo used to live near the coast, so she was more accepting of the cold weather than I was. Finding a place to camp near the beach is hard, and finding anyplace to camp actually ON the beach with a view of the water is even harder. We settled on Sunset Beach State Park, just west of Watsonville. It was about 10 miles north on HWY 1 from where we planned to do our boating beginning at Moss Landing.

We left Jamestown by 10 or so, and got to the beach by 3 in the afternoon. The drive to the coast is becoming familiar, but we do like to skip around some of the major roads and check out the side roads. This time we traveled down 101 from Gilroy, which smelled fabulously like it’s famous garlic, and crossed the coast range via historic HWY 129. I didn’t find any historic sites to speak of, so will have to ferret out the history at another time. What did become apparent as we got closer to Watsonville, however, was the incredible bounty of fruit that dominates this area in the spring. Cherries everywhere, and as we got closer to the coast, the cherry orchards gave way to vast fields of strawberries, brilliant red in their ripeness against the green leaves. They are grown on raised beds covered with plastic, and in some cases those beds look more than 2 feet high above the center rows. Farm workers were everywhere, harvesting, bent over picking, and the surprising thing was that there were so many cars all lined up near the fields, fairly nice cars actually. We only saw a couple of places that had the white farm labor buses for the workers transport. As we crawled though Watsonville, the traffic was slowed by long lines of semi’s waiting to be loaded, and small farm trucks piled high with empty strawberry crates heading back to the fields. I bought a flat of berries for making jam that were the size of small apples, and soft, ripe, and sweet as anything I have grown in my own garden.
The web site for the park discusses the fact that it is surrounded by agricultural land, and that our campground was in the dunes. I think somewhere in the fine print, it actually said there was no view of the ocean. Not only could you not see the ocean, you couldn’t hear it either, and when we were relaxing by the fire, there was nothing to remind us we were at the ocean except the sand. The campground itself was nice, except I neglected to remember that there were no hookups. I am sure I must have known this when I made the reservation, but somehow I forgot, and as we looked around our space and realized we were drycamping, it was a silly moment. We had enough propane but our water tank was only 1/3 full, so Mo patiently carried gallon jugs of water and filled the tank with a funnel, while I put put away the DVD’s we brought for some light evening entertainment. No generator after 10 pm was the rule, and neither one of us is up to that kind of late hour for a movie! The other thing I hadn’t remembered is that Sunset Beach isn’t a dog friendly beach. We did read about the other state park just north allowing dogs and stopped to verify that with the park ranger when we decided to go for an early evening beach walk with Abby. He was great, and told us that we could take her down the stairs to the beach that say “no dogs” if when we got to the actual beach we only walked north and not south where the snowy plover is nesting. That made our beach time a little bit easier, we only had to drive a 1/4 mile or so to get to the stairs. There was another set of stairs near our campsite, but they were high and steep, and the distance down to the beach on the ocean side was a bit daunting. Ever climb sand dunes??
Whew! Another trail to an observation platform overlooking the ocean was closed for restoration of the fragile dune vegetation. We were grateful for the one beach where Abby could go, however, and managed long beach walks every day at one time or another.
The other surprise was the number of people in the campground, especially the number of children. I have never seen so many tents in my life in one place, and only after the weekend drew to a close did we discover that there was some kind of gathering going on, and when Sunday night rolled around everything got quiet and peaceful again, actually what we had originally expected. I still don’t know if that campground is always that full, but it was definitely full to bursting on Friday and Saturday. I was glad we had planned to be away during the day! We cooked steaks on the bbq for our first evening supper and it was great. Mo brought plenty of wood from Klamath so we had great fires morning and evening every day. The campfire pit was a big metal barrel, and at first we thought it wouldn’t be as good because we couldn’t see the fire, but later discovered how much heat that barrel puts out. With the previously mentioned cold and wind, that heat was very welcome! After walking around when the campground thinned out, we discovered a perfect campsite in the southernmost section, site number 25, on a hill with a view of the ocean. I would imagine that site would have to be reserved far in advance, because I think it is the only one with that view.
Reading the tide tables indicated that high tide would peak at 8:30 am. This meant that for our trip up the slough, we would have to be on the water 2 hours prior to that, and then we could come down with the outgoing tide. Of course, on the coast, at the 530am wake up time, it is cold and damp and foggy. Not exactly the best weather to get out in a boat, but of course fishermen do it all the time. We drank warmed up coffee and headed for our put in site at the wharf in Moss Landing. It was really quiet there, with just a couple other people around, and no kayaks on the water at all. The put-in there was easy, though, with smooth level sand just a few feet from the road where we unloaded the kayaks. Into the water, and around past the dock and under the bridge and the adventure began. The animals were amazing. The dock was covered with sea lions, the harbor was filled with harbor seals, swimming all around us, and sea otters were everywhere, watching us with curiosity before they would roll over in the water and continue their feasting on whatever they were eating. I took this all for granted on this first trip out. I had read about Elkhorn Slough and the animals there, and expected to see otters and seals and lots of birdlife, so didn’t think this was at all unusual. All the way up the slough the otters were surrounding us, and there were water birds of all kinds. The brown pelicans we expected, but were especially delighted to see three of our old white pelican friends coming down the water. There were snowy egrets and great egrets, white herons and blue herons, many kinds of ducks and lots of cormorants. It was an amazing paddle. We went about 4.5 miles to Kirby Park, which we found out later is the only place boaters are allowed to get out anyway. Decided to save the rest of the slough for Sunday morning, and after a little rest on the beach, we headed back down. The tide was going out and it was a really easy paddle, with little wind. Still cloudy and foggy, but a bit of sun broke through eventually. The most surprising thing, however, was the much lower number of mammals on and in the water. Most of the seals were gone and we didn’t see any otters at all. We realized then that we had been especially lucky with all the viewings, and also were glad that the tide forced us to go so early. As we arrived back at the put-in, it seemed that the kayaker gates flooded open. There were large groups from the Montery Bay Kayak Co putting in, a dozen at a time, and the harbor was covered with lots of brightly colored boats and people learning how to paddle. Boy, we got out just in time!
We spent the rest of the day enjoying our camp site, going for some walks, and exploring some of the roads around Watsonville, and visiting the Elkhorn Slough Headquarters. We even drove up to Santa Cruz to find gas that wasn’t 4.39 a gallon and were rewarded with 4.29 pg. Hmmm. How many miles was that??? We filled up the baby car so that if we needed to run the generator on the MoHo we could siphon some gas! ha!! might have been a good idea to remember we were dry-camping and have the gas tank full! Sunday morning we were both tired, and said, let’s wait till the afternoon tide, but then around 7 there was a break in the sky, and we decided to go for it. We drove the back road to Kirby Park, and this time continued up the slough to it’s end at the railroad bridge. We saw more pelicans, egrets, herons, and cormorants, but only one lonely harbor seal and no otters on this day. Another reason to be grateful for Saturday’s amazing experience.
We had originally planned to go home and make a big breakfast, but decided instead to explore Moss Landing. Both of us were fairly hungry by this time so we thought, OK, change of plans, let’s find food! Phil’s Fish Market was the perfect choice, where we had wine and fish and chips and went for another lovely walk on the beach, this one much cleaner actually, with surfers and very few people still because of the cold strong winds.
Home to a tremendously relaxing afternoon, even a real nap! Something I actually didn’t think I could do and instead I slept for a couple of hours. Amazing. We cooked our bacon and eggs and hash brown breakfast for a great dinner and then went for a walk up the dunes to watch the sunset. Another great night sleeping in the cool ocean air, a slow easy morning wake up, and we left for home around 10. Perfect timing to get back to the warm sunny Mother Lode hills by early afternoon. I’m not sure we will ever return to this place, since our list of to-do’s is pretty long, but it was a great experience.

Big Sur and another leveling story

Big Sur is a name that brings all sorts of things to mind, most notably the winding road famous for it’s magnificent views of the Pacific and the wild and scary and nearly vertical drop-offs from that winding narrow road to foamy seas below. http://www.byways.org/explore/byways/2301/

Another word association: Big Sur – Hippies – the 60’s. I had a friend who spent a few months doing the hippie thing in a van on a beach at Big Sur many years ago. I was too involved having children to take time out to be a hippie, but there is a vagabond in me that loved to imagine what it might have been like. In the late 60’s, Mo visited the same beach in Kauai that we hiked to last month, and said it smelled awful from all the waste and dirt of the hippies who were squatting there. No pun intended. So maybe the imaginary vision of hippiedom from afar isn’t quite the same as the reality was. But hippies were the ones who had a part in making Big Sur famous back then, and I remember hearing about it. The remnants are there as well, with young people wearing dreadlocks and tie-dye, still caring about things like sustainable living and healthy eating. Good things to care about. Esalen is there as well, another holdover from a different time, still operating and providing a place for meditation training among other self improvement kinds of things. http://www.esalen.org/

What I hadn’t quite understood about Big Sur, however, is how inaccessible it actually is beyond the highway. There are few beaches that you can get to, and the one that is somewhat accessible is often cold and wild and incredibly windy, at least both times that I have been there. The waterfall is wondrous, a thin silvery ribbon dropping over a cliff to the rocky beach below, but again, inaccessible. Signs saying “no beach access” are all around that lovely falls. The trail to Julia Pfeiffer’s old gardens is wonderful, part of the state park system, and leads to great views of the ocean and falls, but not a long trail at all, and it doesn’t use up much of a day. While perusing a local book store, I found a book called, “Day Hikes Around Big Sur“, and it made me wish that I had the time to stay there a bit longer and really explore. So many people talk about the magic of this place, and yet without taking time to immerse there, the magic is impenetrable, lovely, but somehow “out there”.
The views are magnificent, no doubt some of the most incredible vistas in this country. The air was brilliant and fresh and chilly while we were there this weekend, but the skies were clear with no sign of the predicted clouds. Perfect sleeping weather, but not so cold that the furnace had to be on the whole time. We took the chill off with our little electric heater and it was just enough. But our travels were about camping with our friends, appreciating the delights of campfires and games and laughter, and there was plenty of that for all of us.
The Big Sur Campground and RV Park http://bigsurcamp.com/index.html was one of just a few choices in the area that had both RV sites and camping cabins for Maryruth and Gerald. We chose a cabin directly on the Big Sur River for them, and the closest site for our MoHo for us. It was a bit disconcerting when we arrived to see just how close everything was in the park, with very little space for our rig, especially with the slide-out. We had mentioned the slide-out, but the young boys who seemed to be running the show at this park were somewhat oblivious. I made reservations several weeks in advance and it took them three tries to get a confirmation letter to me that had the right campsite numbers and prepaid fees. They have computer access, but didn’t even use email to confirm reservations, and when we got there, they were still having trouble getting the numbers right.
The sites had water and electric, and big trees in between the rigs and the firepits. Mo and I managed to get backed in just close enough that we could open the steps and the side door without hitting the tree and still had enough room on the opposite side for our slide. We were fairly proud of ourselves, until we attempted to level. Nothing. Nada. No lights, no sound, no leveling. Since our last weekend we had so carefully stopped and practiced up and down more than a few times, this was a real disappointment. Neither one of us could figure it out. When Gerald arrived a bit later, he got into the guts of the rig, and actually found some loose connections that were certainly not a good thing, but none of them seemed to have any effect on the levelers. So, just like the old days, we found a couple of pieces of wood and carefully drove up onto them, trying to avoid the tree and the steps and just gave up on the levelers.
Supper was roasted in the new bbq I bought for our travels, just enough room for a nice meal for four, with an automatic lighting switch and a hood with a temperature gauge. I tried planked salmon for the first time and it was wonderful! Baked potatoes with all the trimmings, pineapple cole slaw, and fire pit warmed garlic sourdough bread made it all perfect. We all played cards into the evening, and with the very chilly winds were glad for the protection of the MoHo. The rig was big enough for all of us to sit comfortably with a real table, something we had missed in our 21 foot MoHo.
Sometime in the middle of the night, Mo woke up with an “ah ha”. “I’ll bet it has something to do with the steps!!!” Sure enough, first thing in the morning we pulled in the electric steps (which we had carefully taken off automatic so they wouldn’t keep going in and out when we closed the door) and yes! red light on!! levelers working!!! So, in addition to the brake on, key to accessory, your steps have to be IN for the levelers to go down. Needless to say, we were both quite tickled to figure out this one last little glitch in such a simple way. The rest of the trip everything worked to perfection. Maybe we actually have it all figured out, at least for the time being.

Sunday we woke to clear sunny skies again, and a bit of a chill to the air, but nothing that wasn’t easy to shake off with a light jacket. Mo cooked her classic campfire bacon and hash browns, and we kept it all warm on the little bbq and really loved that old fashioned hot breakfast. Spent the day exploring the roads, beaches, and waterfall, and found a magnificent restaurant for our celebratory dinner.

http://www.nepenthebigsur.com/

Nepenthe is just about 10 miles south of the RV park, with a restaurant that overlooks the ocean in both directions, high above the cliffs. The ambiance was wonderful, and even though it was a really nice place, we all felt perfectly comfortable in jeans, and a good thing because it was much too chilly for the light skirt that I brought to wear to dinner. Of course, the Big Sur prices were a bit shocking, but it was the view we were after, so everyone decided it was worth it. The food was excellent, and we had a wonderful celebration, at least it felt like a celebration, even though there wasn’t any particular event to celebrate except the loveliness of the area and the enjoyment of friendships. That’s enough, I guess.

I’m not sure when we will go back to Big Sur. It was expensive in every way. Our camp site was 43 per night, with the 5. charge for the dog, and the tiny canvas cabin for Maryruth and Gerald was 75 per night, even in the off season. It certainly isn’t a place for retired rv’rs to hang out for any length of time. A big surprise was that a very large number of campers were in rented RV’s, lots from El Monte RV, and most of them we talked to were from the Bay Area.

Seems like an expensive way to spend a weekend to me, especially with gasoline getting very close to 4. a gallon here in California. Most everyone was very friendly, and I think that’s an especially good thing considering just how close together everyone was in this tight little park. A very good thing about the park was the lack of night lights. It was dark and starry and wonderful. The bathrooms were heated and nice as well, and I even opted for a shower there instead of waiting for water to heat in our rig.

There are a lot of places in this country to explore, so it might be the last time for Big Sur for us, for awhile at least.

Sacramento Delta

We headed for the Sacramento Delta area last weekend, not so much because it was a chosen destination, but because there was an RV park there listed on our Coast to Coast resorts membership. Mo decided that we really didn’t want to keep this particular membership going and we had some points to use up. That is the main reason for not keeping it actually, the reservation requirements and the point system. We are a bit more spontaneous than the membership supports, and would have a hard time keeping track of points and places and such. Not too many Coast to Coast parks in my part of the world here in California, either, so this one was the closest, a place to try for a short one- nighter on a weekend.
The best part of all of it however, was a chance to pull the MoHo out of her parking area, and get it all cleaned up and pretty again. She hasn’t had any movement since we got back from our 24 hour run to Klamath when it was below zero. Next weekend we are planning a trip to Big Sur with friends, and didn’t want to be embarrassed by what we may have forgotten about all our bells and whistles. Besides, she needed a good washing, anyway. Any reason for a trip will do.
The Delta Shores Resort is on the Mokelumne River, about 6 miles south of Isleton, CA. In spite of the fact that both of us have been in California off and on for more years than we can count, neither one of us had actually been to Isleton. The weather was perfect, with high 70’s to lo 80’s and clear sunny skies. Just about 90 miles from my home in Jamestown, so the trip didn’t take long. After winding around over bridges and low lying fields and following the narrow dike roads along the Sacramento River, we came to Isleton, river town.
http://www.crawdadfestival.org/ The town was established by Chinese shortly after the gold rush, when the immigrants didn’t get rich on gold and decided to remain to build the dikes and levees that turned this area from wet marshland and tules into productive farmland. Isleton itself was settled in 1875 when the wharf was built and the people had access to the outside world. It burned twice, and was finally rebuilt in 1926, with tin covering the wooden buildings to supposedly protect them from fire. The Chinese influence in the town is a big part of it’s history, and then later the Japanese came to work the extensive farming industry that grew there as well.
It took us about an hour to walk the town, check out the buildings, and try to hear each other over the roar of the Harleys that dominated everything. Music poured out of the little bars and cafes lining the street, and bikes were lined up all along the road. Those delta dike roads seem to be as popular with bikers as some of the winding mountain roads near where I am living now.
As we left town, what I noticed most was the friendly feeling in the neighborhoods of small cottages. Lots of front porches and lots of people sitting on those porches on a Saturday mid afternoon in the sun. Friendly camaraderie was the order of the day. A few miles across the very flat farmland led to the rivers and dikes and to our park. http://www.deltashores.com/resorts-delta.php
Now what. Hmmm. We didn’t bring the car this time, because the whole purpose of the trip was to try out everything and be sure it all worked. The park itself was big and shady with nice large sites on grass. That was the catcher, that lovely green soft grass. After reading a few reviews about this place, we knew that it may be a problem, but things didn’t seem that soft, the ground was dry, and so we started our first project, leveling. On the trip home from Texas after Mo bought the Isata Touring Sedan (Dynamax), http://www.mcmahonrv.com/dynamax-isata.htm we leveled a few times, but never really looked at the instructions. This time we thought it might be nice to try reading them, and so we followed them until the left rear leveler decided that it would be fun to bury itself into that soft grass. After a frustrating hour, with Mo digging the thing out in about 6 inches of clearance, we finally managed to get all four levelers back up and moved the MoHo to what seemed to be a place that was a bit drier. So much for the first hour of the afternoon.
What the heck. We came here to be sure everything worked, and by the time the weekend was over, most everything actually did. Almost everything that is, except the automatic electric steps. They worked fine all weekend until just before we left on Sunday. Then, no matter what we did, they wouldn’t open. It’s a big jump up without that step, and after all the other little things that we had to figure out, this one was just one too many for Mo, who just decided to wait until we got home to try and figure it out. After some reading and a phone call, the troubleshooting guide was right, check for fuses, and then check for loose wires. In this case it was just a loose wire under the chassis. The steps actually run on the chassis battery not the house battery, so the fuses are related to the chassis rather than the coach. So far, many of our little glitches have been associated with these kinds of relationships and knowing just what needs checking for each component. All’s well that ends well, however, and the steps are working fine.
We laughed a lot, though, while trying to figure out the television and the fancy surround system, with 2 remotes and a gazillion buttons. No cable at this park, and the famous quote of the day was our host saying jauntily, oh you don’t need cable, your satellite will work just fine here. Hmmm again. We don’t have a satellite. And of course, there was the blank look at the microwave while trying to figure out how to heat up a cup of coffee. We hauled wood on the back of the MoHo as well, but we are learning that most of these RV parks don’t have options for campfires. Another reason to dry camp in Forest Service or BLM campgrounds. I guess we still are operating under the concept that we are “going camping”. Well, camping with a very very comfortable bed, at least.
There were a lot of big rigs in the park, one of them next to us. The sites are all back-in sites, so when you are set up, you could be looking right into your neighbor’s sitting area, and our neighbors were having a delightful time watching us do our setup thing. We gave them the very best laugh of the day, however, when I decided it was time to try out the new chili pepper string lights on our awning. Lucky for us, the awning worked just fine, we hadn’t opened it since Mo got the rig since most of the trip home was so windy. After watching me do the lighting thing, they asked how long we were staying. I thought they would burst when I said, “One night”. I explained, it’s a practice trip and we are making sure everything works!

It isn’t really a place to be without transportation, though. For people like us who like to hike and kayak and bike and such there really wasn’t much around there to do. The main recreation on the delta is related to boating, and mostly big boating and fishing, and I wouldn’t have wanted to fight all the noisy big boats on the river for kayak space. We did walk up to the water and enjoy the evening light and watched the ducks and birds and fishermen. The park has a nice marina associated with it, but it’s a few miles to anything that is of any interest unless you have a boat there.

I think the best part of the whole weekend was the smell of newly cut hay. New cut hay is something that I associate with first cutting hay in the 30 years or so that I lived in North Idaho, and it’s usually around the 4th of July. Here it’s only April, and I couldn’t even be sure that this was the first cutting.

The soils all around us were organic deep delta soils that had a water table just below the surface, and produced some really lovely alfalfa. I slept to that wonderful fragrance all night and woke to the dewy, slightly foggy morning with that freshness full in my senses. Of course, we made sure the Fantastic Fan did it’s in and out thing and that the air conditioner worked, and the heater worked, and checked out all the little things that we hadn’t had the chance to check on the way home from Texas. It’s amazing to me that these rigs are such tight closed systems, in a small space, that have all the complexity of a home, maybe more. It’s important to be sure that everything works before the warranty runs out at least!
Instead of just going home at mid-day, we traveled a different route, up HWY 88 to Jackson where gas was only 3.69 a gallon instead of 3.73. geez. Then to town where there is a great parking area on the right side of HWY 49 where we had all the space we needed to park and walk downtown to the ice cream shop and the best kitchen shop in all the Mother Lode. http://www.biggestlittlekitchenstore.com/aboutus.shtml
I drove home the rest of the way down HWY 49, famous for it’s hills and curves, and the MoHo did just fine, as did I. It gave us another chance to try her out in different kinds of situations on hilly narrow roads.
All in all a good weekend, short and fast, and now we are ready to really head down HWY 1 to Big Sur for a real camping trip where we will have a campfire and cook outdoors!

Thursday January 3 Home

We are driving west for the last time on this adventure, going down the curvy freeway over HWY58 Tehachapi Pass heading into black scary looking clouds over Bakersfield and fighting big trucks that smell like nasty diesel smoke as they gear down for the grade. We left Mojave at 6am knowing that we need to get to Jamestown before the big storm really hits hard. The weather service has changed the high wind watch to a high wind warning for northern and central California with winds up to 65 miles an hour in the valleys. Valleys? One storm after another is predicted with the really big ones to hit tomorrow. Let’s hope that they are right and that one more time we are just out of reach of the worst of it and safely home and parked. Sonora has rain and wind predicted for the next week. A great time to lay low.

After a good night’s sleep we woke around 5 and decided that we could leave in the dark, a good plan since as I said, we are trying to beat the big scary storm that is on the way. I may need to just give up on typing now as well, since this pavement is too bumpy to manage a full line without having to backspace and make a ton of corrections.

Ahh, back on HWY 99 going north now, passing through Bakersfield, and the road is so rough I can barely type, the air smells like oil and there a lots of trucks. California. Maryruth doesn’t like it when I say these things, but I just can barely tolerate being anywhere here anymore. Especially now, after traveling more than 6,000 miles, the contrast between most of California and the rest of the country is intense. Most of the population density in other places seems to be concentrated, and as you leave the cities you can escape the pressure. Here it is just everywhere, and the infrastructure is aging and there is more trash than anyplace else on the trip. It just feels so old and dirty . As dirty and worn down as New Orleans felt, I still didn’t see the kind of trash along the highways that I see here in California. I really don’t understand this part, all the other states seem to manage to do a great job of cleaning up highway trash except this one. What is that all about? Driving along the highway here the smells are overpowering as well, cows, onions, diesel, and oil fields. Yum.

Once more, reflection is left till the end and goes wanting. It’s the last day and we are going home. Maybe some reflections on the trip overall will come on a quiet evening at home when it’s all done. But more than anything, I have to be thankful for how safe and blessed we have been throughout this entire trip, as though angels were following us and leading us and making the way. It can’t just be coincidence for 6000 miles, I don’t believe, I do believe we have guardians watching over us keeping us safe, and even keeping me from having to do the painful loss thing that I thought I was going to have to do with Teddy. Thank you is too small a phrase for what I feel about this. But. Thank you.

Wednesday Jan 2 Joshua Tree to Mojave

Wednesday morning we got up and had a good breakfast, enjoying the desert light a bit and didn’t get packed up and driving until 10 or so, thinking we had an easy day. 300 miles should be an easy day if we don’t try to do anything extra, but on this day we planned to see Joshua Tree National Park. Even though it was overcast in the morning, but the time we got on I-10 the skies were clear and bright. The turn into Joshua Tree wasn’t far from the California State Line and we went into the park, ambled the narrow roads and checked out the visitor center. This park doesn’t allow dogs on any of the trails, so we couldn’t go walking with Abby anywhere, but we did drive around a couple of the campgrounds, including the Belle campground which was small but seemed like the least crowded and the best place for us. The Jumbo Rocks campground was almost full and much busier, and we managed to get back on a cul-de-sac where turning the rig around was a bit dicey, especially since it was an uneven dirt road where we would have a much difficulty trying to unhook the Geo. After a bit off jockeying we got around the turn and breathed that sigh of relief that also said we were glad none of the tent campers there were around to watch us!


We looked at a few more campgrounds, and then stopped at a simple wide place in the road all on our own to park and have lunch and take Abby for a little walk just out into the rocks. Perfect. No people, nice view, perfect amenities, while I made a light lunch for us and we relaxed a bit looking at the soft rounded granite shapes of the landscape. Joshua Tree would be a nice place to camp and relax a bit, and maybe have some time to actually build a fire and bring out the cards. I think we played dominoes once on this trip, and am not sure if we ever managed a single card game. Geez.

Leaving Joshua Tree we traveled along the desert through Johnston Valley, which is still BLM land and designated OHV area. The good part about this is that we didn’t see any OHV’s, just a very long vista of wide open undeveloped desert. Something to think about when I complain about those OHVer’s taking over the country. Not a house or a pole in sight. It was truly beautiful. On west to HWY 18 and Bear Valley Road where we took a side trip south on Central and east on Roundup Way to find Mo’s old rental house in Apple Valley when she was teaching there so long ago. The little block house was actually still there, although surrounded by some mcmansions, but they all shared the same once magnificent view of the desert to the north, marred now by development as far as your eye could see. It was especially bad to the west toward Victorville and Hesperia, and as we headed west again on Bear Valley Road I felt as though we had dropped into some kind of hell. All I could think of is how grateful I was that I never applied for the soils job in Victorville and felt sorry for Paul who went to that job from rural Colorado.


We finally made it to our CampClub USA campground, Sierra Vista RV Park, in Mojave, just before they closed at 6 and found our place to settle in. One more time one of the fancy bells and whistles for the MoHo gave us some trouble. While we were driving through Joshua Tree, the warning light for the leveling jacks came on, and we stopped, turned off the engine, and it went off. But then last night when we tried to level the rig, nothing happened, no lights, no power to the touch panel, nothing. In spite of all the manuals we have in the huge box, there wasn’t a speck of info on the levelers, so we went searching the internet. Only problem, is that in Mojave, even though I had 4 and 5 bars on the phone card, the connections was still s l o w w w . as in very nearly not moving at all. In spite of that, we found the HWH Hydraulic Levelers web site and found the owner’s manuals, the operation manuals, and even a powerpoint demonstration on how to level the rig. Sure do wish I had that in the beginning! But all to no avail, except to reassure us that sooner or later we will get some good help from either Rueben at Stahman’s or from HWH directly and eventually the levelers will work again. Lucky for us it was the last night and our site was unbelievably perfectly level. Something that doesn’t often happen even in the most expensive parks. And our little place only cost 13 bucks last night! It was after 9 when we finally gave up on figuring out the problem and went to bed. About then Mo discovered some glitches in the Fantastic Fan in the bathroom, but thank goodness she agreed that we didn’t want to spend one more minute trying to figure something out.