road trips – Page 5 – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

To Texas, no Mo, and no MoHo either.

Why in the world would an RV loving traveler drive to Texas without her motorhome? Kids! Always blame it on the kids. My daughter decided it was time to move to Texas and we decided together that it might be nice for me to help her drive the UHaul. Gives us lots of mother-daughter time, right?

Quality time in a loud bumpy truck pulling a car on a trailer, covering up to 800 miles per day. Blog stories about our regular RV travels are leisurely rambles from place to place with all the wonderful delights of carrying along your food and kitchen, your bedroom, not the least of all, your bathroom.

I kept thinking I didn’t need to really blog about this at all, since it isn’t really part of the MoHo Travels, but it is a record of what in the heck has been happening in my life, so here it is. Not leisurely, not filled with campground reviews and hikes and beautiful sights. Just the road, the unfurling yellow lines, the sunrise as we keep moving east, the glare of headlights as we continue driving into the night.

We drove down I-5, so familiar from the many trips Mo and I have taken on that route, with many sections repaired and much better than they have been in the past. We crossed the pass over 58, surrounded by snow but without any falling on us. We passed Desert Hot Springs buffeted by the desert winds, spending a night in a motel in Indio. Crossing Arizona and New Mexico, Deb got her first view of Mexico across the “mighty” Rio Grande overlooking El Paso toward Juarez, at 60 mph. I told her long stories of the history of the Rio Grande River and how it has been used and reused and dammed and diverted until the trickle that makes it to the gulf no longer feeds that sea with richness and the shrimp are dying.

We drove many miles within sight of the border, going through some border checks, and after 800 miles that day we slept again at a motel in Van Horn, Texas and rose before sunrise for the last leg into San Antonio. Deb was enthralled by the Texas Big Bend Country, the mesas and long vistas, her first view of this kind of landscape. I called Mo after many hours of no cell service and her first words were, “Have you been hit by a tornado?” I guess two tornados touched down in Dallas as we were approaching San Antonio, but that was north of here and they are now moving northeast so we are fine.

We covered 2030 miles together in 3 days of driving, with gasoline running 4.15 in most of California and 3.79 here in Texas. The UHaul got less miles per gallon than the MoHo and we spent just over $1000. bucks on gasoline, didn’t eat a lot, and paid 63 to 99 for the hotel rooms for the 5 or 6 hours of sleep we allowed ourselves. I had my cell phone, but I can’t believe how many hundreds of miles on a large interstate don’t support any bars at all, much less any kind of internet. I read a few facebook posts from bloggers here and there, but don’t have a clue what is going in the blog world except for a few really important things.

East on I 10 through Texas Nan is hanging in there while her husband fights to breathe. Pray for her. Al and Kelly are almost home, and my heart broke along with everyone else when I read that little Cora Motormouse was gone. I know Rick and Paulette are home in Canada, Erin and Mui went camping among the bluebells, Laurie and Odel are making tracks to central California, Karen and Al got their kayaks in some really gorgeous water, and Donna and Russ are having some doggie troubles. I’ll catch up eventually with the rest. For now, my daughter and her Texas honey are unpacking a big truck into a small home and I am sitting in another motel with air conditioning to adjust to the high temperatures and humidity. I plan to sleep a lot between now and the time I fly back home to Oregon and my simple life.

Trips like this one really make me see how lucky I am to have the chance to travel in a motorhome. Although the hard push of a fast road trip actually has it’s pleasures as well. White line fever he called it, wasn’t that Merle Haggard? There is something extremely satisfying about covering a lot of miles in a short time with a hard push. It was fun. I am beat to death and tired as heck, but it was a blast. I am really going to miss having my daughter as close as Portland, but I guess this will just be all the more reason for Mo and I to go spend some winter times in Texas with the MoHo.

It’s all good

Really, it is. But sometimes it is also funny. When we arrived in Brookings yesterday, we both had taste buds set on the perfect fish and chips at the funky little restaurant we found last fall. Of course, being a small town, and a funky little restaurant, you never know when they will actually be open. I had the bright idea, “Let’s run down to the harbor before we get the rig out of storage and make sure the Chetco Café is open today!” Smart idea. Mo went inside and got the hi ho from the help that they were open until 7 tonight.

Yesterday afternoon, in all that gorgeous sunshine, we ambled around town, checking on some of the different properties we have been eyeing, and then ambled right back down to the harbor for a mouth watering supper. Except…as we pulled up, at a few minutes before 5PM, the last car pulled out and a big CLOSED sign was on the door. Foiled again.

We then ambled nearby to another place touting fish and chips and thought we might give it a try. People inside laughing and eating, locked doors?! Oh. It is 5:01 on a Sunday in Brookings Harbor. We seem to repeat this story often when we come to Brookings in one form or another, but we didn’t give up and ended up at a place called the “onion grill” with a sign that said, Steaks, Seafood, and Chinese Food. Hmmm. Once inside we had our choice of an American or Chinese menu. Well, what can it say. It IS a small town. The fish and chips were adequate, the service was fine, the ambience was filled with many retired folks slipping in from afternoon services and they all seemed to know the very cheery and friendly Chinese lady running the shop.

I knew this day would probably be rainy, so wasn’t the least bit surprised to see clouds when I woke this morning. Time to drive south. A quick check of the weather confirmed what I already knew. Rain and more rain for every destination south. Ah well. We are cozy and we are on the road and we will have fun, rain or shine. The Weatherunderground cheered me up considerably when I saw that in that moment it was exactly 14 degrees in Klamath Falls. Good to be where the chill is in the 40’s not the teens. Did someone say it is March?

We had a perfect plan. I would drive the Tracker to the quilt shop while Mo took the MoHo on down the road somewhere for us to meet after my shopping spree and hook up. Perfect. Forty five minutes later I left the shop with a large bag of goodies and went off to find Mo and the MoHo. Pulled in behind her to hook up and….hmmmm….no hitch? Seems as though Mo had left the hitch back at the perfect camp site, pretty as you please, thinking that maybe we might want to get into the back garage of the rig before morning. (Our hitch gets in the way of our drop down spare tire so we usually take it out when we are camped and want our campfire chairs)

So back we went again, one more time backtracking through town to Harris Beach. The park was quiet, nearly empty, and our hitch was sitting right where we left it the hour before. Any other time we would have hooked up right away, but not this time. Those hitch stingers aren’t cheap, so we were glad it was still there.

On a good note, the last time we put the rig in storage we made sure the tank was full. Rumors were already flying a month ago about rising gas prices and we did OK on that one. Filled her up at 3.73 per gallon and today the price at Freddie’s is 3.99. Of course, tomorrow when we fill up in California the cheapest price I have found so far on Gas Buddy is 4.49. I am wondering just how much this will dampen the travel plans of many of us out there. As happened before, it seemed that most RV’rs kept on driving, but ate out less and camped cheaper when possible. Giving up our freedom still isn’t an option. What would the price of gas have to be for you to stop driving? I still can’t answer that question for myself yet, hope I don’t have to.

It was a very gray and I hate to admit it, a rather boring day. Hence the rather boring photos. We drove south again on 101, along the ocean for a time, winding around the curvy, rough, landslide prone roads. We drove through the deep darkness of the redwoods on a cloudy, gray, cold day. Neither of us cared much for getting out of the rig and we just kept driving. We talked about all the sights we have seen on this road. We passed Big Lagoon, and Stone Lagoon, and some kayak launches. No kayaks on this trip and we were glad we didn’t have them since it is so cold and wet.

We passed our turn to the Lost Coast from the trip last year, we passed the turn to Loleta Cheese Company where we usually buy fabulous cheese, we drove on by the Eel River and the turn to Ferndale where we like to take photos of the Victorian buildings. All places we have enjoyed so much in the past, several times.

We thought that maybe we have driven this road too many times, and lamented that we have to drive too far now to get to anywhere we haven’t driven before. Then I remembered last year and how the only way we could get anywhere was to travel down I-5. Ugh. This is WAY more entertaining than driving down I-5. I knitted for awhile, I played with my pile of colorful fabrics, and in just a short 185 miles we turned into the Richardson Grove RV Park.

We learned the hard way last time that we need to stop this far north of the Bay Area to avoid getting trapped into a very expensive night in a not so comfortable park. Here the Passport America gets us a good nights rest for 16.50, full hookups, no cable. Mo found to her dismay that the electric cable to the Tracker had come undone and was all mangled. Who knows how long we drove without lights. We piled into the car for the 7 mile trip back to Garberville with hopes of finding some place to buy the part. Now I would imagine that at times, Garberville could be kind of cute, but cute doesn’t exactly equate to a part for a Toad. Lucky for us, however, Napa auto parts was in town, was still open, and had the part. Back to camp in the rain, winding through the truly gorgeous Richardson Grove, I wished for more light and a camera, and no rain, so we could maybe stop and wander. I am from Oregon, I should know how to hike in the rain and love it, right? Not.

Once back home, I put the bbq out on the wet picnic table and let the raindrops sizzle on the top as it got hot. I have to say that dinner was amazing. I bbq’d the chicken breasts with olive oil and garlic, and topped them off with a drizzle of the habanero pineapple jam, cut up some leaf lettuce and a tomato and topped that off with the award winning Rogue Blue Cheese and some 18 year old pomegranate balsamic vinegar, split half a baked potato from the microwave with Mo and settled down with our cute plastic wine glasses from the festival and we had ourselves a feast.

Tomorrow we will leave early in the rain, navigate the Bay Area and finally arrive somewhere new tomorrow evening. I think I saw a lone group of poppies today, all closed up in the rain, but they gave me hope for the drive south. The grass is getting greener, and I see hints of bursting spring leaves on the lower shrubs and on a few of the willows along the creeks. There are daffodils here and there along the road. When I think it may have been a bit of a boring day, I just have to go look at the photos of the snow at home.

Raining on the Oregon Coast–Really!?

It is exactly what we expected when we planned a trip north from Brookings for this week in mid February. Why north when the possibilities for good weather were probably much better if we went south? The MoHo is in Brookings, and for the last few trips our route has been south, heading for the California beaches, the California deserts, warm days, sunny skies. But that is the key word, California, and we decided it might be nice to skip the traffic and people and explore our own magnificent coastline farther north than we have been together in the MoHo.

The plan was for a leisurely amble north toward Astoria, fully expecting rain and storms. There are huge groups of people who migrate to this coast specifically at this time of year to storm watch, and it is also time for the migrating gray whales to be moving north. Imagine our surprise on Saturday afternoon when we arrived in Brookings to sunny skies and temperatures as high as 60 degrees! There wasn’t a bit of fog except for a low bank on the horizon far west of the shoreline, and the bluebird skies were wonderful.

When we left Rocky Point, the sun was shining on the freshly fallen skiff of snow and over the pass we passed through some serious winter conditions with a bit of whiteout here and there. In Medford it was cloudy and raining, in Grants Pass the hail and sleet were pounding hard on the roof and then we passed through intermittent rain and squalls and sunshine all the way to Hiouchi, where we habitually check to see if our “spot” is empty. Usually it is taken, and we smiled remembering camping there along the little creek. It is a great little campground just inland from Crescent City.

With the MoHo stored in Brookings just a few minutes from Harris Beach, we have no need to stay anywhere else. Harris Beach has become our first and last night destination of choice. This time when we opened up the storage shed, all was perfect, no bad smells, no vandals cutting holes in the walls to ransack our rig, no mice shredding anything at all. Even though we assume the MoHo is safe, we have learned the hard way that when she is away from us for a few weeks at a time, who knows what surprises might await us when we open that door.

We drove immediately to the park where we scored another front row site with electric, water, and cable. Other sites in this row were completely full since most of them have a tremendous view of the ocean. Our view was not quite as dramatic, but we still could see the wide open sea from our back window. In spite of the sun, the wind was chilly and even though we picked up some local firewood bundles, the wet grass and cold breezes kept us cozy and warm inside.

We set up the rig, and then ran back to town to buy enough groceries at Freddy’s to be sure that we would qualify for our ten cent off fuel cost the next morning when we planned to fill the empty MoHo. Just down the street from Freddy’s (Fred Meyer Stores for those who aren’t Northwesterners), is the delightful little quilt shop I found our last time in Brookings. I thought it might be nice to check in there that afternoon since the next day was Sunday and of course quilt shops probably wouldn’t be open. Big surprise!

I had somehow managed to hit the first quilt shop in a list of 14 in the last weekend of the ongoing Quilt Run 101, stretching from Brookings all the way to Astoria. I had Sunday and Monday to get my passport card stamped at each of the 14 shops to qualify for a fancy Janome quilting machine or one of many gift certificates. Whoopie! We had already decided that we would move fairly quickly through the southern and mid coast where we have traveled before and slow down to explore the north coast, so the two day run wasn’t really much different than our original plan.

We woke on Sunday morning once again to brilliant sunshine and no fog. Winds coming from the north were cold, but I guess that is what keeps the fog away this time of year. Before we got back on the road, we enjoyed walking in the morning sunlight down toward the beach and were aghast at the level of the high tide. The entire beach was almost completely inundated, something we haven’t seen before. Texting back and forth with my daughter, I mentioned it and she immediately sent the following text message to me:

“When the Moon, earth, and Sun are positioned in a straight line at new or full Moon, the tide producing forces of the Sun and Moon are added together giving extra low tides called “spring tides”. These are the best tides for beach combing, clamming or visiting tidepools. During the Moon’s first and last quarters, the Sun and Moon act at right angles to each other, and the result is a much reduced tidal range called a “neap tide”. Mom, you are seeing mixed tides and the highest high tide is in the morning in the spring”

So did she touch type that whole thing into her phone or copy it over from somewhere else?!!

I can’t remember when we have driven this part of the coast in sunshine, and it felt like we were in a completely new world. The quilt shop run was great fun, especially for Mo doing the driving, since almost all the shops were right on the main highway and parking on this lovely Sunday was easy, many times we pulled the MoHo and Toad right up to the front of the shop.

As a brand new quilter, I had so much fun seeing all the different styles of quilting and the different focus of each shop reflecting the owner’s artistic bent. We made it all the way to Newport on that first day, visiting 8 of the 14 shops, and Mo had a nice day while I shopped, walking Abby in the sunshine in all the little towns. In Florence, Mo was walking down the street and met a little girl who loved Abby and said, “Do you want me to go home and get my dog?” Mo said no, but within minutes the little girl was back with her dog, a sweet little beagle, who loved Abby as well. Too bad Mo doesn’t carry the camera!

South Beach State Park, just south of Newport, is familiar to us, a place where the beach is some distance from the campground, but roomy and we knew there wouldn’t be a problem getting a site. By the time we reached Newport, the sunny skies were just a memory and the normal gray clouds of the coast settled in around us. Again, in spite of the lovely campsite with a great fire pit, our wood went unused. The soup I had thawed went unused as well, since we thought it would be fun to go down to old town Newport for some obligatory coastal fish and chips. It was surprisingly busy in spite of the rain, but we found a table at the Rogue (used to be brewery but they moved the brewing part across the river) and had halibut fish and chips for 13.95 market price. It was a great little place, with fun people watching and a cozy vibe. I topped off the perfect halibut with a Dead Guy Ale. Gotta love those crafted brew names.

We left on Monday morning with only 135 miles and six shops to visit between Newport and Astoria. As we drove north through the rain, the landscape looked much more familiar, with mist and fog shrouding the green mountains around us. Sometimes the ocean was visible through the fog, and other times we couldn’t see much. I filled up the day with color, however, and Mo enjoyed hanging in the MoHo reading while I shopped. A couple of times I was asked if I had a husband waiting in the car. Nope! There were a few guys shopping with their wives, but others just rolled their eyes at the thought of a patient person waiting while they shopped for fabric. I couldn’t help thinking of Rick and Paulette and all her shopping trips.

We gassed up the rig at Costco near Warrenton and unhooked the tracker for the ten mile run to Astoria, where I visited the last two shops and turned in my completed card with just minutes to spare. We will slow down and visit Astoria again in the next few days, since I was worn out with shopping and was definitely ready to settle in for the night.

The rain intensified as we backtracked to pick up the MoHo and drive to Fort Stevens State Park it was raining hard. Paul and Nina had recommended loop N for nice open sites, but when we arrived, the only loops open in the huge campground were H and I. H had two rigs and I had two rigs, so we picked a spot on the I loop right next to the showers, something we often avoid, but it didn’t matter since no one was there. Worked out perfect for me and I made use of the shower at 3AM just steps from the door, but you already know that part of the story.

The next day we planned to explore Fort Stevens, and decide whether we want to stay here or move a short distance south to the Camp Rilea Family Camp. Tune in to find out!

Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet

Seems as though time just slides by beautifully when winter slips in. This was a work week for me, and the one day I had to drive to town to the “real” office was the day before the huge northwestern snow storm blew in. Lucky me! The rest of the week I worked at home, snug as can be in my little office with the wood stove cranked up high and the cat snuggled in next to me in his bed. Mo plowed a few times, I shoveled and ran the snow blower, and we hauled half a cord of wood to the porch, but the storm didn’t cause us a bit of trouble.

I am working on a rocky soil problem, and my head is filled with stones, cobbles, boulders, and gravels of all sizes. Each of these has a specific size and description of course, and eventually I will get it all sorted out and plugged into all those nice little NASIS fields and someday someone will request some interpretations for the Knot Tableland and out will pop a nifty little report, generated specifically for their area of interest from the data we gather, refine, and populate.

As I sit in the office fiddling with numbers, my mind wanders back to 2004 and 2005 when I was mapping out on the Knot Tableland, and dug a ton of holes in those stones, cobbles, and gravels and described those soils. It was hot and dry, and most of the time I was alone. That is the way we work in soil survey more often than not.

So this week, my mind has been split between recalling those memories as I look at my old descriptions, and talking on the phone with the project leader in Klamath till my ear was sore. ( I gotta get another ear piece!) We resolved the issues, and on this Saturday night, two more soils are written, cleaned up, and put to bed in NASIS.

Then, right in the midst of the worst of the windy snow, I got a call from my daughter Deanna saying that she and her husband were coming down the five and did we want to meet them for a short visit before they chained up to go over the Siskiyous. Wow! Deanna and Keith have their own truck and haul jet engines all over the country, but they haven’t been down this way in at least two years. I don’t get to see my daughter very often, so Mo agreed to drive, whiteouts or not, and we headed over the pass to Medford.

We had a great visit at Shari’s, next to the big Pilot truck stop where they could park the rig. I even remembered to bring the sweater I am working on for Deanna to check the fit. It was perfect and she likes the colors. I still can hardly believe this little girl of mine drives that great big truck.

Somehow, in the midst of everything else, remembering the last days of our trip home from the desert up the California coast just slid right by with an occasional thought, “Oh yeah, that!”. So here is the promised “rest of the story”.

When we left Vandenberg, there was a bit of fog hanging around making the hills look mysterious and mystical. The route led through Pismo Beach, a beautiful place to spend some time, but since it was only 9:30 in the morning when we arrived and still quite foggy and chilly, we decided to continue on to San Luis Obispo. First I had to check out the local quilt shop, and with early morning traffic in the small town almost non-existent, we had no trouble parking the MoHo right in front of the store. I browsed through the windows, but decided that waiting another 90 minutes for them to open was silly and we continued on toward breakfast.

Our route home from Vandenberg AFB could have been simply a run up the 101, but why do simple when challenging is an option. We instead decided that we were up for the winding beauty of California’s scenic coast highway 1. Listed in many places as one of the most beautiful drives in the world. Why in the world would we miss the chance to crawl along the steep cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean in a motorhome towing a car.

One of my favorite restaurants along this part of the coast the the Apple Farm in San Luis. We were seated in the beautiful glassed in gazebo with brilliant sun shining in the windows framing the lovely hills surrounding us. As usual, breakfast was scrumptious, with home fries and “California Scramble” which included lots of spinach, artichokes, olives and other California stuff. I really appreciate my California upbringing and being exposed to things like artichokes, avocados, and olives as everyday food. I grew up eating lots of fresh stuff from the lush gardens and orchards where we lived that are now just pavement.

We continued north to Morro Bay and our last chance to hightail it back over to the simpler route along 101. The sun was out, the skies were clear, and when we saw the sign saying it was only another 135 miles to Monterey we decided to go for it. It was a great drive. Winding and a bit challenging at times, but nothing too difficult. The only thing about this road that is bothersome is the lack of places to pull over and actually spend time. I was in the passenger seat, and the skies were a just a little bit murky from the morning fog, so my photos aren’t that great. Of course, with the proliferation of digital photography and google search, there are at least a bazillion photos of every single stretch of this beautifully amazing stretch of road. I even have some from other trips we have taken, so I wasn’t too concerned about missing out. In fact, it was nice just being able to do the white knuckle thing now and then without worrying about photography.

Our evening destination was the Military Family Camp at Monterey Pines RV Park and Golf Course. This camp is on the grounds of the Monterey Naval Postgraduate School. We called ahead for a reservation, because even at $30 a night, that was cheap for anything else around that part of California. It was good that we did, because the camp was nearly full. Our rig is technically 26 feet long, and that is what I answer when asked when making a reservation. We were given a nice pull through site on the phone, but when we arrived we were told she had moved us to space 22. I think it was the shortest, tightest space in the park, and a big 40 footer was in our originally assigned space. After crawling around slippery ice plant to try to hook up, and struggling to get level, we decided that in the future we should say we are 30 feet long so we won’t get relegated to the worst sites in the camp!

The campground is adjacent to a beautiful golf course, but the camp itself is really crowded and tight, and is backed up directly to the airport and hangars. Loud noise for much of the night, and the occasional bomb going off now and then made things interesting. We settled in, and decided to try to find a grocery store. Safeway was only 1.5 miles away, but my gosh, the traffic was horrendous! One of those things I forget about California until I get back there. We were glad for a nights rest and hookups, but might not try to come back to this one unless absolutely necessary. There aren’t any Passport America parks anywhere in the vicinity, though, so it was good for a night.

The next day we decided to do another 250 mile run and spent some time searching around Streets and Trips, CampWhere, and AllStays for a place to spend the night. We considered trying to get as far as Trinidad and the free casino, but then found a beautiful little park right on the 101 just north of Willits. Creekside Cabins and RV Resort looked really great on the internet. I tried calling to verify the Passport America Park status, but no one answered so I left a message. After driving through the Bay Area, we were ready for a nice night in a quiet place.

Winding down into a damp, dark canyon, we felt a bit of consternation, but thought maybe the park would be OK. The turn in came up suddenly and we pulled into the driveway only to discover a huge iron gate, tightly closed. It was dark and spooky there, even in the afternoon, but I got out and rang the bell. No answer. We were in a pickle because the rig was cocked at a weird angle and there was no way we would get the car unhooked and we couldn’t back up or turn around. I finally walked into the park and realized that this place might not be the best place to be. There were really old rigs with blue tarps, big dogs with spike collars, strange looking people, and a LOT of junk.

I finally flagged down a somewhat “high” dude and asked him if he could open the gate to let us come in and turn around. He was hemming and hawing but then the camp host appeared, another strange looking woman with wild hair and a gazillion tats and piercings, and said we could come in and look around. One of the reasons we wanted the park was to see some TV that night, Mo was looking forward to one of the debates, and when this woman said, “Yeah we have maybe 6 channels”, we decided boondocking was a far better choice and we managed to get turned around and outta there! Whew!

It was getting late and dark but we got back on the highway thinking we could find a casino, or a pull out or something. I had no cell phone signal, but unbelievably there was still a Verizon signal on the MiFi and I found a park about 40 miles farther up the road. We pulled into Richardson Grove RV Park a little bit later, settling in just before dark and hard rain started falling. We thought we had it handled when we left Monterey. I used all the tools available, found a Passport America Park, used the MiFi and GPS to find it, and still ran into the unknown factor. We still laugh about just how much different that Creekside park looked in person than it looked on the nice internet web site. By the way, it was no longer a Passport America Park, either, and the fees would have been 40 bucks for one night if we had decided to stay.

We surely were glad to return home the next day to our beautiful, safe, cheap, gorgeous space A12 at Harris Beach State Park in Brookings. Ahh, home, or almost home. It was so good that we settled in for two nights and three days before packing up the Tracker, putting the MoHo to bed in the storage building, and traveling home to Rocky Point.

Bungalow Heaven and taking the coast route home

As I sit here at my desk in Rocky Point, it is hard to believe that less than a week ago I was ambling along the coast highway in brilliant sunshine. The sun is brilliant out my window today, but it is reflecting brightly off the first significant snowfall we have had since October. I say significant, but I think it is hardly more than an inch or two out there, nothing to worry about, but also nothing to help with the local scanty snowpack.

Our time in Desert Hot Springs was perfectly incredible, with sunny skies and warm temperatures the entire time we were there. Our trip home up the coast was equally as brilliant, with a bit of morning fog here and there but not a drop of rain and not even the typical coastal overcast to mar the warm days. We only needed a jacket now and then to ward off the slight chill of ocean air and breezes.

We left the desert on a sunny morning, late enough to miss the worst of the LA traffic and yet early enough to spend a couple of hours on a sweet little side trip without compromising our planned nightfall at Vandenberg Air Force Base. I was born just north of Pasadena and raised in the adjacent mountain town of Sierra Madre. LA smog and traffic, and the crush of people drove me out as a young person, but there are some sweet memories of the area as well. One of those memories include the solid coziness of the modest bungalow homes on the shady oak lined streets.

I always dreamed of having one of these Craftsman bungalows, with trapezoid pillars, wide porches and big oak doors. I remember the sunlight playing on my gramma’s hardwood floors and the smell of baking cookies. Something about a Craftsman bungalow really takes me back to a life with different values than what we have today. No McMansion for me, please, just a perfect little bungalow. Ah well, so far that dream is one I have had to set aside, but I still love to cruise old towns looking for the perfect dream Craftsman.

Bungalow Heaven was a place on my want to visit list for a long time, and on this bright sunny California morning we parked the rig at a shopping center and took the time to drive to the approximately 12 square block area in Pasadena that has been set aside as a “Landmark District” I wasn’t disappointed, although I had forgotten how dark some of these houses can be with their overhanging roofs and wide covered porches. I guess sunlight isn’t in short supply in Southern California and the shade of the huge old live oaks and dark porches are a welcome relief.

The rest of the day was uneventful, with amazingly light traffic on the freeways, from the 210, to the Pasadena Freeway, to the Ventura Freeway, across the Golden State, and all the way to the 101. Piece of cake!! We thought about staying at one of the California State Parks along the beach, but they are expensive ($35 per night with no hookups) and crowded. Instead we just kept driving north to Vandenberg Air Force Base and the Military Family Camp we knew was waiting.

By the time we got there, most spots with electric were full, and it was a bit confusing to figure out where to go since the camp host was nowhere to be found. We opted instead for the $8. per night overflow camping where we could be away from the main part of camp and sleep peacefully. It was a bit like boondocking but with the extra safety factor of being on the base.

“On Base” however, had it’s own story! We read on the website that we should be prepared for a rig inspection and that we needed to go to the Lompoc gate rather than the main gate since they wouldn’t do inspections at the main gate. We arrived at the gate around 4, and after a bit of waving and gesturing, we followed the instructions of the officer and moved through the inspection area. I guess we didn’t need an inspection after all. Ambling slowly through the base, we were trying to find the campground when the dreaded blue lights started flashing behind us. Mo couldn’t figure out what she had done, since she is especially careful on any kind of military base, but sure enough he pulled us over.

We were informed that we had driven through the inspection station against the orders of the officer in charge and were to be escorted back to do it properly. The officer and his cohort led us through the base, to a proper turn around and then all the way back to the Lompoc gate. That was a bit embarrassing! It seems that a wave through didn’t mean what we thought it did! The inspection itself was strange. Several security folks told us to undo all the rig compartments (on the outside) and then they ran mirrors all under the bottom of the rig. They told Mo she had to stand in the holding room, and that I had to get out of the rig. When I told them not to lose the cat, they relented and said, “Oh fine, you can stay in there”. Funny part of the whole thing is that they never once looked INSIDE the rig at all!

We passed the inspection and drove once more through the base to find the Family Camp. It turned out to be a decent place to spend one night, but I don’t think I would want to stay here for any length of time. The only good part is that it is conveniently located to the coast, just 41 miles to Pismo Beach, and about the same to Solvang. It is cheap in a part of the state where there isn’t much available, even with our Passport America pass.

After reviewing Streets and Trips and doing some internet surfing (I LOVE the MiFi) we settled in to a nice supper and an early evening of reading and sleeping as the fog rolled in and muted the waxing moon. Instead of traveling fast, we decided to go just another 200 miles the next day to another family camp in Monterey.

Next: Monterey Pines RV and Golf and don’t depend on what you see on the internet!

Miles driven: 267