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.
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