Five year totals for our road trips, etc.

New Year's Eve Dance, 2016:

We are now one month away from the end of the sixth road trip that we have taken since we got married the summer of 2011.  We left on our first road trip early in January of 2012.

Our totals for this five-year period of 2012 through 2016:

Driving miles:  46,000 miles

Number of states we camped in: 26 states

Number of places we have camped:   215 different places (several multiple times making 256 total).

Total number of hikes:  520 (including some when we are home for the summer)

Number of states we have hiked in:  22 

Total hiking miles:   2770   In other words, we have hiked from our home in Langley, WA, to Atlanta, GA,  to see Sean, Emily, Soren, and Sebastian (hope they have appreciated the effort)

Average length of hike:  5 1/3 miles.

Elevation gain of our hikes (i.e, how "high" we have hiked in total):  69 miles  This is the figure that is hardest for me to wrap my brain around:  We have hike 69 miles "UP?"  No way.

Number of states we have danced in:  9  (plus Canada)

Cycling miles:  9500+.  Although not really a part of most road trips, some miles were.  Most miles were accumulated while we are living at home in Washington, although we have cycled in seven additional states on road trips.

Nights in our camper:  835 in this five-year period (i.e, out of 1827 nights).

That means that in this five-year period, we have spent 45% of those nights in our camper, which is just a bit under 2 1/2 years' worth of nights.  Now wonder we refer to our camper as "home." Because we spend nights with family, etc., it is likely that we have spent as many nights in our camper in the past five years as we have spent in our home on Whidbey Island.

835 nights in the bed of a pickup, in five years. We never would have thought we would do this when we first set out early in 2012.  And every night was wonderful.

Number of times we have gotten on each others' nerves living in a space the size of an ordinary closet:  0

We really had no idea what we were doing when we set out early in 2012 on our first road trip.  A few months earlier I had asked Vicky if there were any things she had always wanted to do in her life that she hadn't done, and after a few days she said "take a road trip."  I immediately exclaimed:  "Me too!"  If you had asked either of us then what "road trip" actually meant we probably would have said something like:  "uh, drive on roads, stay someplace for the night, drive on more roads."    In other words, we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into.......which has made it all the more fun and adventurous to learn together.

At first we looked for RV parks to stay, not knowing any other way to find places than by doing internet searches.   We quickly gravitated to parks with campgrounds.  By road trip 3 we had discovered "dispersed' camping, which means finding your own spot on public lands. Once we discovered that type of camping we were hooked, and it is what we do virtually all of the time now unless we need supplies or want to meet up with family.

We have seen the country in a way neither of us ever dreamed we could have when we set out five years ago in our old 1996 pickup and even older 1970 Chinook camper.  We upgraded the pickup twice and the camper once.  We have been to places we never could have imagined, slept in some of the most remote parts of our country, experienced beauty that we will never forget, met people we would not have met, and got to touch some aspects of our country's history that few others have touched.

We have been moved at much of what we have experienced and chagrined at how much more is needed to preserve the raw areas of our country for future generations.

Mostly what we would say is that every day we have "felt."  The feelings could be excitement, discovery, adventure, serenity, exhaustion, exhilaration, confusion, success, failure, worry, whatever. 

But we have "felt," and that is what life is all about as a human being---feeling.  Every day that we wake up and take a hike we know we will feel something new and powerful that day. That is living.

There is a 10-15 year window for most people (if they plan well, don't have unexpected misfortune, have their health, etc.) when they are retired and can strike out and explore the unknown as we have done or in any of hundreds of other ways.  One has about 10-15 years before old age catches up to you and creates limitations.  We both are experiencing some of those limitations now, and hope we can eke a few more years of this life out of our bodies.

We both have the philosophy that retirement isn't just "not working."   Retirement is, instead, an opportunity to re-define oneself in such a way as to keep the brain active and doing what it evolved to do--which was to acquire new information and learn.  Vicky does not define herself as a retired police officer, law enforcement specialist, and probation counselor.  She isn't just a remnant of what she used to be.  Instead, Vicky is a "new" person--dancer, a hiker, a road-tripper, a cyclist, adventurer, etc. 

One of the purposes of our blog is to show our families and other people the vast opportunities there are in this country to explore it, to find beauty, and to find the peace that comes from hearing coyotes howling in the distance in places where the only lights are the moon and the stars.

If this life-style ends for us for some reason, sooner than we hoped, at least we had it.  And nothing can take that away from us.  Our brains are different and better for the experience.  And we did it together.

We have "felt."

In a few years, when our time comes, we are going to have our ashes mixed together and thrown to the wind somewhere in the Southwest Desert.

That way, for all eternity we will be taking road trips together. 

Panorama Loop Hike: Joshua Tree National Park. Third time's a charm.

This is the third time in the past five years we have taken this hike.  It is one of our favorites, even though the first two times the wind was blowing so hard that we thought we would be blown off the top.

Today, though, was perfect.  Perfect temperature and no wind.

Here is a photo from our first hike, early in 2012.  Look how bundled up Vicky is.

Then, early in 2013.  Still cold....and still very windy.

She's hard to see, but that is Vicky at the top of the hill:

Today was practically perfect.  Nice warm temperatures.  There was still snow on the trail which made it fun.

At the top:

Drinking my morning coffee while looking over hundreds of miles of beautiful scenery.  What could be better?

Hiking data:  Starting from the back country board near the entrance to Black Rock campground in Joshua Tree National Park, the hike was 1250 feet of elevation gain and 6.7 miles.  On a good trail.

700 Hiking miles in 2016

The most of any of our years together. 

And we crossed that threshold on a beautiful hike in Joshua Tree National Park, on the day that President Obama created more National Monuments.  The protection by National Monument status is essential to the lands that all 330 million Americans jointly own because these lands are being degraded. We would know, as we have seen thousands of miles of them.

 So, hoooray to us, and hoooray once again to President Obama.


 
 Vicky craftily sneaked in a small bottle of wine for us to open to celebrate:

 

Wishing you a "Cholla"ful Holiday!

from the Buckskin Mountains, Northeast of Bouse, AZ

We gotta get out of this place....if it's the last thing we eeeeever do!

Girl there's a better life, for me and you.

----lyrics courtesy of the Animals (a 60s rock group for those of you who aren't baby boomers)

We had planned to spend the Christmas season in the Bouse, AZ, area, in the Buckskin Mountains.  It was lovely and isolated and there were endless hiking opportunities.  Then we planned to go to Twenty-nine Palms, California and stay at the RV resort there for the New Year's Eve dance.

And the weather, as of a few days ago looked perfect!  Sunny weather, warm, and no rain.

That was Saturday's forecast.  By Monday it looked a LOT different.  Thank goodness our once/day signal came through and we could see how much the forecast had changed. 

So it looked like rain was coming in on Thursday.  That could be trouble, as we might not be able to move from our site for several days.

Then, things started to look a little funny to us.  It rained Tuesday night a bit and early Wednesday morning as we were preparing for our hike.  That was not predicted even in the most recent forecast. 

Something felt wrong to us.  That's the best I can describe it--it felt wrong.  So, instead of hiking, we packed up and left.  To where we hadn't decided, but we felt we should get to a place where the footing was more solid and where we could move if a bigger storm was coming in.

During the day on Wednesday, as we drove out of the mountains, the weather got progressively worse.  As we drove we encountered more and more rain.  What to do?

Our answer was to drive the 120 miles to Twenty-nine Palms, California, early and stay in the RV resort that we have frequently used during our road trips.  We thought it might be a good place to wait out the rain, and then we would decide what to do.

Good decision.  The rains became torrential.  It rained, hard, all night.  Glad we are not stuck in the desert.

So not only do we need to wait out the rain, but it will be at least a couple of days before any desert roads are dry enough to safely try.

Instead of spending Christmas in the Buckskin Mountains, as we had planned, we have decided to just hole up in our site at the RV resort and wait until after New Year's to move.  

Something told us to move.  We both realized that something was wrong.  The predicted beautiful weather was changing too rapidly.  We don't mind rain while in the desert--in fact it is often wonderful.  The rain brings out the smells of sage which can be overpoweringly sweet.  But this felt different.

Earlier in this road trip we had to wait out four days of rain in the Teddy Roosevelt National Park.   But where we are now is much better than that because we will drop the camper for a few days and use the pickup to drive into Joshua Tree National Park.  We decided today to spend the week doing this so we could be here for the New Year's Eve Dance.   Let the desert dry out for our next excursion to wherever we decide to go.

Neither of our names are Luke, but we both trusted our feelings.  When it decides to really rain in the desert it really rains.  Hard.  And otherwise benign washes can become death traps.  Roads can be slick which can cause the pickup to slide into rocks that tear the sidewalls.  The desert is not a place to be driving during a hard rain, or sometimes even for a few days afterwards.

Now we are safe.  We have hikes to look forward to that we love, in the only RV park we truly feel is like a home to us.

And we can take real showers, like I did this morning.  That's why you don't smell me as you are reading this.  Kind of nice, isn't it?

High on a mountain….we find another adventure

We found a road on one of our maps and decided to follow it today, and are we glad we did.

We soon found that the road was not even close to where it was supposed to be according to the map, so we followed the road not the map.

For the final mile of the road it rose steeply (as in STEEPLY) up a mountain.

(see me?)

(see Vicky?)

And then went down into a valley that clearly was an old mining area.  The road then rose on the other side of the valley, against the cliffs (can be seen in the photo as the white line running left to right in the upper middle of the photo).


The mine area showed the usual pits, rotting wood, and rusted tin cans:

 This was interesting.  Some of the old ties that supported the rail lines that the mining carts used:

As seen in an earlier photo, after the mining area, the road rose again, along the base of the cliffs, and went to who knows where.  We got to the end of it, but found nothing but another small hole that was either the start of a mine, or more likely, just one of the probably millions of holes that were dug in the Southwest to see if a mine in that spot would be profitable.

The view from the end of the road was spectacular.

We have no way of knowing how old this mining area is. After Patton established the Desert Training Centers several miners in the areas close to them were "encouraged" to leave.  If they didn't, the second level of "encouragement" was that the soldiers fired their tank cannons over their heads into the mountains.  That seemed to have worked.

But this area could be much older than that.  We would like to know, but there is no way to get that information.....making the mystery that much more interesting.

Someone's dream....in the middle of nowhere

 

Another hike, another amazing discovery.  And another in an endless series of questions about who lived in these places, and why.

How to describe these kinds of days?  We have an almost steady diet of hikes on old mountain roads---roads that have usually deteriorated so much that even the souped-up off-road vehicles can’t get on them.  (good!)

Today was one of those days.  We found and followed an old road.  We knew the road went "somewhere," because nobody goes to this much trouble for “nowhere.”  I mean, whose hobby is it to spend tons of money and spend endless hours building difficult roads to “nowhere?” 

A couple of miles along the trail we saw this.  It is impossible to know why it was constructed, but someone went to a lot of effort.  Was it like a snow fence in the Midwest, except to keep sand from covering the road in this spot?  Seems unlikely because that could happen all up and down the road, although perhaps the builders found that this spot was particularly prone to the road being covered.  Another mystery.  We’ll never know.

We crested a hill and saw this:


 

How old?  Hard to tell. 

Someone had lived here—it was a home, not a mining shack like we often see.  Someone went to the trouble to build it and put drywall in it, and then paint it pink.  Just to live here?  Probably not.  Was there a mine close by? (we couldn’t find one).  Was it a family?  Is that why there was pink paint?  

How did they make it work out here?  There would be no water here, and the distance that would have to be traveled to get water and food would be daunting.  That could require many hours.  But here they were—they put up sheetrock, installed windows with screens, the whole shebang. 

Who were they?

Someone had a dream.  That is all we can come up with.  A dream to live here, in this out of the way, hard, desolate place without easy access to food, heat, water, emergency help, etc.

We hope that dream worked out for them. 

Camping and hiking in the Bouse, AZ area. A different type of desert terrain

We have been in our most recent spot for three days.  Will go into Bouse, AZ, tomorrow to restock, and then come back to these mountains for Christmas.

They are beautiful and remote.




While hiking here we discovered a new type of desert terrain.  It wasn't rocky (typical) or sandy (typical).  Instead, there were hills of red "dirt" that would stretch for several acres among the rocky and sandy soil.

What was interesting about these areas of red dirt was hiking in them. At first they looked delicious.  Soft, few cacti to avoid, no rocks to twist your ankles, etc.

But what we discovered was that there were holes everywhere covered by a layer of the red dirt.  When we hiked we would frequently step into one of these holes, usually about a foot deep.

The danger was walking too fast so that when you stepped in a hole you hyper-extended your knee.  So even though the surface looked ideal for hiking, we instead had to proceed slowly, staring at the ground for a stronger surface.

Still fun, of course.  But it once again illustrates the point that the "desert" is not just a single type of terrain or environment.  There are dozens of different types of deserts.  We discovered another type.

Camp Bouse: Patton's "secret" WWII Desert Training Center

It is unearthly quiet here.  Almost silent.  We sat outside for a couple of hours yesterday afternoon and heard nothing but a few flies buzzing.  No other cars, no homes, no irritating OHVs.  And last night was just as quiet. 

It is a stark contrast to what it would have been like 73 years ago when it was an area filled with hundreds of tents, thousands of soldiers, tanks, jeeps, and young men (actually boys like my father, Vicky's son Owen, my brother-in-law Dennis, etc.) laughing, cursing, and working.  And explosions at the nearby firing range, as these men (boys) learned to use their weapons by firing at mountains.

And knowing that many of these men (boys) recognized that this likely was the last place they would call home while in the United States, and maybe forever, as they were soon to be shipped off to the war in Africa.  Many lost their lives there, of course.  

Now……there is virtually nothing left to suggest any of that life was ever here.  And almost nothing to indicate its importance to all of us.   

We are at the site of Camp Bouse, the site of one of General Patton’s WWII Desert Training Centers.  Found it although there are no maps in town or on the roads around here.  The only place we have found that has the location is one of our Garmin GPS maps.  So we used that, plus a little help we got last week from a guy driving by our previous campsite.

Camp Bouse is about 20 miles from the town of Bouse, on a gravel road that now is being used to service the Powerline that runs through the valley.  Even on this obscure Powerline road there is nothing to indicate that one is at the site of Camp Bouse.

In WWII, in Africa, the allies were being beaten badly.  So the decision was to form several Desert Training Centers where the men (boys) could learn to fight in desert terrain, and could get used to the brutal desert weather. 

We have explored several of these on our previous road trip:

Camp Iron Mountain

Camp Granite

Camp Coxcomb

Camp Young.

Camp Bouse was a bit different.  Here they tested a secret weapon.  That weapon was a set of strong blinking lights on top of the tanks---designed to blind the enemy while not giving away the allied positions.  The mechanism was never used, but the men (boys) here were sworn to secrecy about it. 

The Desert Training Centers were instrumental in defeating Germany, which resulted in the United States we now know.  Instrumental because of the men (boys) who died fighting Germany using the training they received at these Desert Training Centers.

None of the Desert Training Centers have been adequately maintained for history, including Camp Bouse.  People have tried, and three cheers for them.  There were signs here, and a few remnants of the camp.  But, as we have said, there aren’t even directions from the highways on how to get here.

Our government has made an attempt to “preserve” one of the Desert Training Centers---Camp Iron Mountain.  However, as well-intentioned that effort is, only people who have 4-wheel drive vehicles can visit that place.  We almost got stuck.  And there is no parking.  Just a sign on the road indicating its presence--signs like the ones we often ignore also.

We believe that there is a certain duty we have to remember these places.  Camp Bouse is well remembered in the small town of Bouse, with a very nice display, but that's about it.

But here?  Cattle roam through the camp, dropping feces on the ground that men (boys) used 70+ years ago.  It seems disrespectful.  There is also a newer fence right through the middle of the camp, meaning you have to constantly open and shut gates to walk it (not the kind of gates that most people are used to, by the way--these require two people to open and close).  

At least do right by one of the camps.  I guess that is how we feel. 

 Here is the sign along the dirt/gravel "Powerline" road Camp Bouse is on.  Quite impressive, huh?

Our camp site:

Cattle in the Camp:

People have made efforts to erect some signs explaining what was here.  Kudos to them:

The boxing arena, built of dirt:

 Cattle watering station.  Pretty, huh?

About three miles up the road where, according to an old map we have, the "firing range" was supposed to be located, we found this odd well-constructed structure:

We couldn't figure out what it was, so we made something up.  We decided it was a fortification built to practice shooting from.  Are we good at making up stuff or are we?

These were some photos of our day discovering Camp Bouse.  We saw no one else today in the camp except, of course, a group of about four OHVs roaring through one of the roads, probably not even knowing where they were.

Lonely and silent.

We would not be here today, and our families would not enjoy the wonderful country we have, if it had not been for the men (boys) who were here over 70 years ago.  We will not forget them.