Mojave Desert Preserve

I am writing this from Needles, CA. We are in the best RV park we could find that wasn't attached to a golf course. Consequently, we're out in the middle of a dirt lot, with a drainage ditch behind us, plus lots of steel junk laying around. It was cheap, had free wifi, and was on our way to the next place we are going to be, where ever that is. Let you know tomorrow. (plus, the folks were the friendliest of the bunch Vicky talked to on the phone, so that counts for something....or should).

As I am writing this, I am looking out our back window at Route 66. I can see cars whizzing down the "mother road," where Ma and Pa Joad drove some 75 or so years ago. A few minutes ago I went to take a shower. On my way I could hear the music that they play at 3:00 every afternoon for happy hour. It was Neil Diamond, and I thought about my daughter-in-law Jessica who likes Neil Diamond, and about how much Vicky and I enjoy dancing the waltz to this particular tune. Isn't that funny--out here in what a lot of people would consider to be nowheresville we hear nice music and people are friendly, including the guy "next door" who chats with whoever happens to walk by (say's he's stuck here).

God it must be hot during the summer though.

It's my birthday. I'm 64. That seems a lot more years older than one year older than 63. Did that make sense? Some numbers just feel larger than others. 64 feels a lot larger, older, than 63. Vicky is on the other "side" of the camper making a dip for me to munch on. Tonight she will be making spaghetti for dinner, cooking a spaghetti squash in the oven. We'd better wait until the sun goes down to do this, because it's kind of toasty around here right now.

We've been gone for 3 weeks now, living out of our camper, rarely more than 3 feet away from each other. This would not be possible unless the other person's presence put you at ease.

It's interesting how we have developed our new routines--some not that different from the routines we had in our home. Our mornings and evenings look about the same. One thing that's different is that we live by the sun now, so when it's 6:00 p.m., it's bedtime. It's dark, we're not going out, and usually we're tired from the exertions of the day. We also always watch the sunrises, which have been spectacular many mornings.

When it is time to drive off from a place, we have been as regular as clockwork--we have left every place within 5 minutes of 9:20 a.m. Never intentionally--it's just that the time from when we usually awaken to when we can get all packed up and ready to drive is about the same every time. That was the time we left where we were staying at 29Palms. And after a stop at the grocery store for more provisions (including, when my back was turned, four more cans of refried beans), we were off!

We have just spent four glorious days in the Mojave National Preserve. It's not a National Park, but sort of a National Park wannabe. There is still private land inside it, for example. But there are park rangers, and ranger stations. However, due to budget cuts, the ranger station is closed two days a week, and one of the star attractions of the preserve is closed (the caverns).

The drive from 29Palms was about 125 miles. This is not a pretty part of the country. For many miles we passed tiny, abandoned homes seemingly out in the middle of the desert. Only occasionally would one look occupied, although we never saw any people around even those. What could they be? Most looked like they were built on the same floor plan.





It took us longer to get to the Mojave Preserve than we had anticipated--largely because the roads were not very good and involved a lot of climbing. Our old rig is wonderful, especially given what we paid for it, but not on mountain passes where it labors mightily to get to the top. Add a very strong wind to that, and you can imagine us crawling along at about 35 mph. Since today is my birthday and all, I don't think it's inappropriate to casually mention that a new diesel 4X4 F250 four door with an 8 foot bed would make whoever gave it to me my favorite relative. I hope that didn't sound tacky. I'm sure I'd appreciate other gifts just as well.

We found another great spot, quiet, with great views out our windows and of the morning sunrise. As it was in Joshua Tree National Forest, the campground was virtually empty. When do people come here? In the summer? Why?




The only problem with our site was that it was not quite level, but.................hey, wait a minute? Did we just cut up a board to use to level our camper in case this happened?

That's right! We did. So after taking careful measurements of what needed to be altered:


We jacked up the front end:


And it was perfect:


So this worked great. (speaking of things that are working great, I managed to fix the two cigarette-lighter thingys in the pickup so we can charge our phones and iPad on the road, and the gizmo I rigged up to charge our stuff from our camper batteries worked perfectly also. Vicky's back to thinking I'm cool again).

We hiked and biked for three days. The hikes were stunning, and the bike rides were HARD. (so hard, in fact, that I think I have pushed my foot a bit too much, so we are backing off on doing things for awhile--darn).

Our first bike ride was 16 miles. (note that I didn't way "only" 16 miles). Just outside our campsite the park road became dirt road. We thought we'd take it as far as we could, as our bikes should be able to handle dirt and gravel.

However, what we hadn't counted on was the sand. And wind. And grade. After fighting these conditions for 6 miles, we stopped and had a nice lunch. And then tried to make it back down--which was not easy because we couldn't go fast because we'd lose our balance. It's a bummer when you work that hard to get to the top of a hill and then have to apply the brakes the entire way back down. We descended at about 8 mph.






Cattle crossings. We were VERY careful going over these.




We decided that for our next bike ride we'd go the other way, where it was paved (sort of). From the maps, it appeared that our campground was about 20 miles from the park entrance. A 40 mile ride seemed about right, especially on a hard surface, if we waited for a day without wind.

Wow! It was fun. Took us an hour and 25 minutes to cover the 20 miles to the park entrance. We felt good! I thought several times about how much fun it was to ride in the desert where it was flat and where one rarely encountered cars (a couple of dozen for the entire 40 miles, and plenty of visibility).

It took us 3+ hours to get back. What we realized is that when we thought the desert was "relatively flat," the operative word was "relatively." Actually, (and we found this out exactly from using an Ipad "app" on our drive out of the park the next day) from the campground to the park entrance we had descended 2250 feet. So of course we felt like we were flying.

We felt anything like we were flying for the ride back to the campground. The problems with the road surface also contributed to our slow ascent (plus our lack of conditioning of course, we'll be honest about this) because the road was in poor shape--very rocky asphalt so you couldn't roll very well and after awhile your arms felt like you had been drilling with a power hammer).

The mound you see several miles ahead of Vicky on the left is Barber Peak, the one we hiked around (described later). The tiny pyramid above her head is where we got to on our first day's bike ride.


Here we are at the sign at the entrance, 20 miles from Hole In The Wall, where we stayed. My, don't we look confident.

But we did it. And now we'll pay for it for awhile.

As I mentioned previously, we took two hikes. One of them was on what was called the "Rings Trail," so named because in order to return you had to climb on a ladder made of rings. Vicky scampered up like a little gymnast. "Scamper," however, is not a word that would describe how I made it up. The entire trail was only a mile or so long, but it was really unique.





The next day we did a 6 1/2 mile Barber Peak Loop trail, which essentially went around the beautiful peak that was outside our back window. It was quite a stunning 6.5 mile hike:










At the beginning of the hike, we could look down and find our camper. See it? It's the one closest to the bottom of the photo:


The other cool thing about this hike was the petroglyphs, left by the Chemehueve Indians, a very small tribe that lived in this area for about 300 years.





The area with the petroglyphs was dotted with several small caves (of the size for 1-3 people). Perhaps this was a place they stayed upon occasion, so drew decorations. Maybe it was to mark ownership of the caves. It's too bad we don't know what they mean, what the significance of the drawings (if any) were.




This is another place we will return. It was so quiet and peaceful. With our camper, we are so comfortable--we have heat, light, protection from the wind, and our icebox. At night, the stars illuminate the outdoors in a way that they don't seem to in other places.

On my way back from the bathroom a few minutes ago I heard that they are still having happy hour--two hours so far. Must be a happy campground. I also heard someone singing You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me Lucille. It sounded like live music. Vicky said it was Karaoke. Somebody here has a good voice.

Also on the way back, I just had to take a photo of our camper, out in the middle of nowhere, with our clothes drying on it. I remembered an interchange I had with a woman in an RV park in Mesa. She said that all RVs in their campgrounds had to be less than 10 years old. I think they'd want us anyway, don't you?


We celebrated my birthday. Vicky's spaghetti was delicious, and the German Chocolate Cake that she spent so much time making was scrumptious. What fun.



I got lots of cool stuff, including a hat that Vicky had ALL of the 8 grandchildren help with (or for the babies, at least touch).



And a great biking jacket.


And new hiking clothes:



I really cleaned up!

What a wonderful birthday. 64 doesn't seem so bad tonight, for some reason.

We've decided that tomorrow we are going to Havasu National Wildlife Preserve. We both just have to see London Bridge since we're so close. Neither of us knows why.

Back to 29 Palms to restock and regroup

We returned to our RV campground of a few days ago, and of dancing, to spend one night making needed repairs and upgrades, recharging all batteries, emptying the dump tank, and taking on more water. The plan is to leave tomorrow morning for the Mojave National Reserve.

We're popular!! Us!

We're the "dancers." Everywhere we go now, people talk to us, asking us about our return. And we haven't showered for four days! I was never popular. I don't know how to deal with it. I think I'll be mean about it--where was it when it mattered?

We only had a 30 mile trip from Joshua Tree National Park to our campground. We reconnected with civilization on the way--first a stop at Walmart, then Home Depot, then a grocery store. Talk about a disconnect from the previous four days.

But we found there were some supplies that could help, like a different cutting board and a colander. I had repaired two things on the pickup before we left Whidbey Island--the 12 volt charger and the windshield washer motor--and neither were working now so I bought fuses because I found a fuse that was blown. It didn't help. Vicky had been so proud of me that I could fix things. I wonder what she's thinking now. She's awfully quiet about it.

I also realized that we hardly used the capacity of our two 12 volt car batteries that were in the camper, so perhaps I could rig up a way of using them to recharge our electronic equipment. So I bought what I needed to try that.

Finally, we realized that being a little bit of off-kilter in the camper makes a big difference in comfort. We thought it would be nice to not have a puddle at one end of the sink, and I found that when I got up in the middle of the night to take a walk outside it was disorienting to not have the floor level. So we bought a 2 X 10 to cut up to use to put under the tires for our future camping expeditions.

Plus we needed food.

We found a great grocery store, Stater Brothers, which we call Statler Brothers, that sells food cheaper than anywhere in the PNW. Today we bought 18 cans of refried beans, at $1.25 each. I didn't know we had bought that many, so I had to ask Vicky, who kept dumping them into our cart. Oh well--we go through about four each week. Other than that, we bought only what we needed for a nice meal tonight, spaghetti using spaghetti squash instead of pasta. Vicky worked all afternoon on it, and it was awesome. There is enough for tomorrow's meal--yeah!






We are eating well, which is one of our goals. I had put on a few pounds from the surgery and the holidays, but even with eating to my heart's content, I'm gradually melting those off because of our diet. We haven't eaten out once. That's a big deal to someone who loves Egg McMuffins.

We (Vicky) did laundry, and we (I) filled up our propane tank. I was quite curious about how much propane we burned in our four days, especially since one afternoon and evening the heater was running full time because it was cold and rainy. We used 3 gallons, about $9 worth. Getting the propane into our new tanks was easy-peasy. I was pleased about that, and about how little we used considering we used it for lights, heat, and cooking. Pretty cheap in a small camper.

When we are driving we are spending a lot of money--about $100 per day on gas, and another $40 for an RV park. However, now we are into a different mode because we don't drive very far, and spend several days in national parks. Those park fees are $7.50 per day, because we are eligible for a "Golden Eagle" (aka old folks) pass. (Hey! We paid taxes all of those years, and we aren't part of the 1%--although like everyone else we wish we were even if we do dump on them all of the time).

This means that park fees and propane runs to about $10 per day.

I mentioned that we bought wood at Home Depot so we could make the camper level when we parked. Well, it required a bit of work. Fortunately I had packed my saws-all, so now we are ready for uneven ground.





I also bought what I thought we needed to be able to charge batteries in our phones, ipod, ipad, and cameras. I think I need something from Apple to be able to charge the MacBook, though. I spent part of the afternoon rigging it up, and guess what? It worked! (of course so did the motor for the windshield wiper fluid at first, so stay tuned).

As mentioned, we ran into so many people who recognized us from last Saturday's dance that we considered revising our schedule so we could be here this Saturday for the Rock and Roll Dance. After examining our calendar, though, we realized that we want to be in the Mesa area in about two weeks, and we couldn't plan a good schedule to do that if we stayed around here until Saturday. But we'll be back a week from Saturday for that dance though.

Thus, despite our popularity, we must disappoint the entire campground, plus most of the town of 29 Palms I imagine, and miss this Saturday's dance.

I hate doing that to this town because, guess what? My father told us he was stationed here during WWII when he was in flight training! Reading that from him was deeply meaningful--thinking about him being here as a young man ready to go to war, some 70 years ago, driving on the same streets we are driving on. And here we are now, enjoying all of this, only because of people like him who were willing to do that when it needed to be done.

Tomorrow we are off to the Mojave National Preserve. We will be able to hike, and possibly bike. Our camper is ready. And so are we. We are excited about the next phase of our adventure.

We will be back to Joshua Tree National Park, though. Probably on this road trip, but certainly on others. We have fallen in love with it.