desert – Page 6 – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

Traveling south to Desert Hot Springs

Rain in the desert is often lovely, except when I have dreamed of blue skies and warm sun and planned a major MoHo run south to find it. We have had snow and dark skies in Klamath for several weeks now, and my week in Florida was challenged by 20 degree weather. A long trek to the Coachella Valley should be the remedy. I think the weather forecasts show a bit of a break next Thursday. Last night, however, the skies were beautiful, with soft shades of pink and rose among the gray, cream, and yellow lit clouds.

A quick run south, leaving behind the cold and snow of Rocky Point, is only possible because we decided to store the MoHo in Redding this winter. Enclosed, insulated storage isn’t cheap, and we tried for the smallest unit possible. We also decided to forego winterizing thinking that the temperatures in Redding rarely drop below freezing. The water tanks were all empty and the lines emptied out, but we didn’t do anything else before parking in mid November. It was with a bit of trepidation that we opened up the big sliding door. Everything turned out just fine, with the trickle charger keeping the battery charged up and the house batteries were still even on 12.6. We brought along a couple of gallons of water to fill the tank and everything worked just fine. Although next time when we pull into the storage spot we will have some pink stuff in the drains, at least.

See that gorgeous sun in the photo above? The trip over Mt Shasta on I-5 to Redding was gorgeous once we left the icy freezing fog behind in the Klamath Basin and Highway 97. Little did we know that was the last time we would see brilliant sunshine for a long time. I am still waiting. By the time we got to our stop over point in Lodi, the rain was coming down hard. We hoped to get to the desert with only one overnight stop, requiring 400 mile driving days. By the time we reached the Flag City RV Resort in Lodi we were worn out. We shared the driving duties, but it still is a very long haul. Flag City is really nothing more than a reasonably comfortable stopover, with perfectly level cement pull through sites, and full hookups including fast Wi-Fi and cable. I have no idea what else the park offers because we didn’t care in the least. The MoHo was stopped, and everything we needed was right inside our cozy home.

On Friday we thought our trip to the desert would be about 8 hours of driving so thought leaving at 9 would be just fine for a 5 pm arrival. We didn’t factor in the hard, driving rain, or the plan to take HWY 58 through Tehachapi rather than brave LA traffic. As dark fell on the desert we still had 90 minutes to go before reaching our camp. We took 247 south from Barstow rather than drive through Victorville and all the traffic there as well. It’s a narrow road with lots off ups and downs, but oh soooo beautiful. It looked like a lot of BLM land, open and free, and in the coming desert twilight it was all I could do to keep from begging Mo to just head out into the desert and boondock.

When we finally arrived at the Desert Pools RV Park, I remembered again why we try to never, never, never land after dark. Everything was strange, the night person didn’t have our reservation, and offered to let us stay for one night only “off the road”. Somehow I had messed up the reservation (they don’t take them) and instead I opted for the “just come in and talk to the hosts and you can stay for two days”. Dumb. Of course, the fact that the park had recently disconnected their cable service wasn’t exactly a good thing either. After a long day on the road we at least wanted Wi-Fi and TV. Otherwise I would be back boondocking in that gorgeous desert! Mo is a little bit easier about these kinds of things than I am, and I wasn’t much fun to be around that night I am sure.

In the light off day, the park was every bit as ugly as it appeared the night before. The pool was small and brown as were the three spas. We took the dog for a walk and everyone was just so dang friendly! The night host came up to us and urged us to stay, saying the park was “so much fun with a lot going on”. I guess we aren’t very social, because that actually sounded just awful to me. Although the hot cinnamon rolls in the dining room were pretty good.

Our original plan was to spend six days at the Catalina RV Park and Spa, so we called them hoping for a chance to come in a day early. Success! With great relief, we packed up and didn’t even bother to hook up to drive the half mile back to the Catalina. Through the gate and immediately we could see the difference. Even though this is a very large park, with spaces fairly close together, there are trees and shrubs between sites, and while our site is on packed sandy dirt, it isn’t so bad that we couldn’t level the rig without blocks. The cloudy, threatening skies were breaking here and there with a bit of lightness, so that helped my mood a lot as well. Thank goodness! Our plan now is to spend the day adjusting to the local area, do some driving around, and just try to catch up a bit. Wi-Fi is still an issue, but hopefully I can find a spot somewhere around to actually get on the internet.

October 1 Boondocking on 447

Yesterday, as we left Ely, we both thought that our last night out would be a great time to actually boondock. Looking at the map, there were many miles of open range, what looked to be a lot of BLM land, and we imagined that finding a wide place to pull out would be simple.

What we didn’t count on was the temperatures in late afternoon along our route. Nevada is hot. Most of the time, Nevada is hot. I know this, but after all, it IS the last day of September. After turning north on 447 from the Sparks area we started looking for a boondock site. What wasn’t at first noticeable on the map that I was using was that many miles of the route were included in the Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation, not a place to try to camp without specific permission.

The other problem was the temperature. It was five o’clock in the evening and the gauge read 100 degrees. Stopping for just a few minutes to take a break and let the dog walk around a bit gave us a pretty good indication that we couldn’t really settle in until the sun went down, or we found a shady side of the hill. We continued past Gerlock, and after several miles found a wide place in the road that would suffice, but I had a vague memory of a small lake and camping spot where Mo and I had stopped on a day trip in 2003. There was nothing on my map, but the phone, when it worked sporadically, showed some green areas a bit distant, so we kept going.

The best moment of the day was rounding a steep curve and dropping down to the small reservoir, then realizing that the closed gate wasn’t locked. The signs indicated private property but allowed recreational use if the rules were followed. After some maneuvering, we settled the MoHo into a wide spot on a bumpy road, managed to get level, and opened up the fans and doors to the cooling evening breezes.

We camped with the slide closed, but still had plenty of room to cook a good supper and relax with a movie. I have to thank Laurie Brown once more for helping us to finally understand our inverter! We have traveled in the MoHo for two years without understanding that the tv and dvd would work if the inverter was on.

The night was starlit and perfectly still, and even though we were fairly close to the road, the closed gate and complete absence of traffic made it feel perfectly safe. I watched the sun rise this morning over the basalt hills and felt incredibly grateful for this perfect last night. Our trip home today through Alturas is on familiar roads and landscapes. Mt Shasta will rise up in the distance to mark the passage and tell us we are close to home.

I will call my daughter, we will stop at Fred Meyer for gas and groceries for home, we will dump the tanks at our local city park on the way out to Rocky Point. This trip of 7,714 miles will end, and it will be time to start thinking about the next one.

There are a few more photos for this last day of travel linked here>

HOME, BOTH OF THEM

September 30 The Loneliest Road in America

In July of 1986, Life Magazine described Nevada’s Highway 50 from Ely to Fernley as the “Loneliest Road in America”. Life said that there were no attractions or points of interest along the 287 mile stretch of road and recommended that drivers have “survival skills” to travel the route.

Things have changed a bit, but not much. The biggest change is in the vehicles we drive along these roads rather than the roads themselves. I remember desert driving and the days of vapor lock, overheated engines, flat tires, and no air conditioning. Cars seem to be made better these days, and we cruise along at 70 miles per hour without a thought about our survival. There really is quite a lot to see in Ely, and we plan to return, especially to visit the Great Basin National Park on the eastern edge of Nevada. We also want to come back to check out Ely’s treasure: The Nevada Northern Railway Museum, touted by the Smithsonian as the most complete authentic railroad complex in the country.

That is what we are doing today, cruising along, covering the distance on US 50 instead of I-80, enjoying the eyeball stretching vistas of the high Nevada desert. There are a couple of towns between Ely and Fernley where we will turn north toward the Black Rock Desert. Eureka and Austin are both historic mining towns from the heyday of Nevada history in the late 19th century. We will stop and take photos, enjoy the stories, and the time travel provided at these outposts before moving on down the road. At Gerlach, we will pass the sandy roads leading to the Black Rock Desert where the wild ones have their Burning Man festival every year.

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, we saw a large group of road bikers pedaling up the long grades, supported by a couple of vans in pursuit. At the same time, we saw a lonely man walking in the opposite direction up another grade with some sort of walk.com sign on his back. Then nothing again but low sage and rabbitbrush and the distant hills. The air again is smoky, not in the concentrated way that it was yesterday in Utah, but high hazy widespread smoke that extends as far west and north as we can see, even from the summits. We are traveling west again through basin and range, so the MoHo is climbing the ranges and dropping into the basins repeatedly shifting gears as we go up, then down, then up, then more down. Glad I am not on a bike!

This morning in our full hookup park, I took the time to cook a good breakfast and clean the house a bit. In the process of cleaning the toilet, adding extra water to help with the black water flush to come, I suddenly dropped the large cleaning washcloth right down into the holding tank. Ugh! I freaked out, but Mo patiently bent a hanger, fished around in there, and got the thing out of the tank before anything got terribly clogged up. Kind of amazing that we actually had one simple wire hangar in the closet among all the fancy lightweight things I have for our clothes. I got all teary and realized that the stress of dropping a washcloth into the sewage holding tank shouldn’t be THAT bad, and thought, gee, maybe I am sad about the trip coming to a close.

Today and tomorrow we will continue our trek across the deserts and over the Warners into the Klamath Basin, to the base of the Cascade Mountains. Home. I am sure it will take a bit of settling in to really appreciate being there and not here, traveling along some highway with ever changing views out the windows.

There are a some more photos for this day linked here>

September 29 To the basins and ranges of Nevada

I woke this morning to the amazing smell of aspen leaves that are sending out their last breath before they fall. Sweetened by high mountain air and spruce it was one of the better fragrances on the planet, maybe only surpassed by rain on dry dust in the desert. As we drove west, however, the skies were darkened by smoke from the huge fires in the mountains of central Utah.

Today was another travel day, as the rest of the trip will be until we are back in Rocky Point on Friday. Again we took back road, avoiding the major interstates and trying to manage a blue dotted road at every opportunity. Our route today took us through Cedar City and rather than the fast route north on I 15, we went farther west to the Scenic Highway 93.

The landscape of Nevada and several other states is the west is dominated by alternating basins and ranges formed by tectonic processes that trend generally northwest. When traveling directly west, as we did a few years ago when returning to California from Utah, the road was a continuous grade, either up or down, with just a bit of basin between the mountain ranges. These Nevada mountains aren’t small, either, and the grades can be dramatic.

Highway 93, however, follows a dominantly northern track through the state, and as a result the grades are few because the road usually follows the edge of the basins. We took time to stop and enjoy a surprise state park, Cathedral Gorge, and met some interesting travelers from England who have traveled 49 states in our country, and were showing the west to another couple from England. We took a side road to explore the historic mining hamlet of Pioche, sitting high on a fan above the wide open basin.

We reached Ely in early afternoon, partly due to the change to Pacific time, gaining an extra hour. We decided that electricity was on the list of desires for this night with the possibility of cable seductive enough to pay a ridiculous high price for the Ely KOA. Our pull- through site was too short to keep the baby car hooked up and still reach the utilities, but once I quite grumbling, and we settled inside with the air going, I felt better about it.

Before supper we took a little tour of the area, checking out the Ward Charcoal Ovens about 18 miles southwest of Ely on a long gravel road. It was worth the trip, and the ovens are some of the best preserved we have seen. The story of converting huge amounts off local wood to charcoal is interesting. It took 35 cords of wood to fill each huge oven, and then it was burned for 12 days to provide charcoal for the smelters in the nearby mining towns. Until the coming of the railroad and the availability of coke for smelting, the surrounding hills were nearly completely denuded of timber.

Once back home, I poached a chicken breast in spices and chilis, and made quesadillas for supper. Yum. I was happy for unlimited water for cooking and dishes, and the thought of a hot shower this evening is enticing. Boondocking and dry camping are great, but it’s fun to hook up and forget about conserving every little drop of water for a night here and there.

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

September 28 Highway 12

A LOT of photos for this day of traveling Highway 12 are linked here>

Today was a driving day. We weren’t sure where we would end up, and only knew that the route would follow Scenic Highway 12, one of the most dramatically beautiful drives in the west. I have traveled this route before, on other trips, but each time it is a new experience. Each time the aspens on Boulder Mountain are a different shade of green or yellow, the canyons varying shades of clarity, red or hazy. Today there was a lot of haze and smoke and I wondered if possibly there were forest fires going on somewhere. We haven’t watched TV or listened to a radio in many days now, so I really have no idea what is going on out there.

When we left Torrey this morning it was windy and chilly enough for long pants and sweatshirts. Gasoline cost a staggering 3.29 per gallon, with the advertised 3.09 per gallon only for 85 octane ethanol, not something we want to put in the MoHo. We never would have made it up all those grades!

The road is two lane, very rough along much of the way, with many steep grades and curves, including the hair-raising 14 percent downgrade off the hogback. We thought we might like to hike Calf Creek Falls, both the Upper Falls and the Lower Falls have trailheads not far south of Boulder. But it was hot, much too hot to leave the cat in the MoHo without air conditioning even if we could take the dog. The white hot heat made hiking seem much less attractive to us anyway, so we decided instead to make it a looking and driving day instead of a hiking day.

Bryce Canyon National Park is on this route as well, a few miles south of the highway ,and we decided against braving the crowds to be tourists at the overlooks. We both have hiked Bryce in the past, and most of the trails are steep and hot, even though gorgeous. Even outside the park, however, the colors of the hoodoos are every possible shade of orange sherbet, pink, cream, white, and red. It’s pretty to look at, but not inviting to hike because the rocks are soft red claystone, crumbly and shifting underfoot. My soul love is slickrock, and solid cliffs of Wingate, so I am content to enjoy the colors and the hoodoos and move on.

I spent part of the drive reading aloud to Mo about 90 different hikes in Canyon Country in the WOW hiking guidebook I bought back at the Capital Reef Inn. So many of the truly great hikes in this part of the plateau involve many miles of rough driving down the Hole in the Rock Road just north of Escalante. The road is the gateway for many famous slot canyons and the canyons of the Escalante River, but they will have to wait for another time for us. I read about backpacking the 38 miles through Pariah Canyon and wondered if I have a trip like that still in me. It’s all downhill, mostly on the canyon floor wading in the river, with slots so narrow you have to carry your pack in front of you to slide through. Maybe someday. It could be a lifetime trip like my Cataract Canyon raft trip turned out to be. Who knows. But today, driving highway 12, I added it to my bucket list.

After a short break and walk at Red Canyon, we turned south on Utah 89 toward Kanab, and then turned west on Highway 14 toward Cedar Breaks National Monument and Cedar City. At the top of the pass, again at 10,000 feet of so, is the lovely Navajo Lake where I camped a bazillion years ago when my kids were just little. It was a different time of year, with the green aspen I remember so clearly all now fiery yellow, gold, red, and peach. We stopped for the night at Duck Creek Campground in the Dixie National Forest since the Navajo Lakes camps were closed for the season. Tonight we had our last campfire in the mountains to accompany a card game before we watched the night sky darken.

I am amazed at how quickly the landscape shifts as we travel. It often isn’t a gradual change, suddenly we are in desert, then in spruce aspen high mountains, back to sage, red rocks to cream and buff clays, and back again. Tomorrow we will leave the mountains behind as we enter the Great Basin landscape of the west. Once over this last mountain, the basin and range will meet us on the way through Nevada and finally home to Klamath Falls where Basin and Range meets the Cascade Range.

A favorite book in my library is “Basin and Range’ by John McPhee. It’s the Sand Creek Almanac of the west, only better. If you ever read it, the wild spaces of Nevada will never bore you.