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Author Archives: rvrrat520
Counting Down To Blast Off (AKA: Escaping the 3rd World Tyranny That Is Kalifornia)
This will be a short post due to our “limbo” status but beware—-many pictures of grandkids to follow! So, despite the absolute fiasco of the China virus shutdown, apparently Glacier Nat’l Park has reopened (with limited services, of course) and the W. Glacier KOA is open so our original plans of flying Chad & his family into Montana for a week’s run on the Nat’l Park are still a go. With Jeanne’s mom settled in, we ventured south back to Atascadero for a month’s worth of babysitting the two granddaughters Hailey & Ellie. It seems the scam China virus shutdown caused Chad’s wife Crissy to get furloughed from her job, then their daycare was shut down (luckily Crissy was forced back into being a stay-at-home mom), but then all of a sudden she got called back to work in June, with no daycare available. Hence, Oma & Opa to the rescue. They were able to find new daycare (but not until July), so it was June in Atascadero for us! We started off with a stint back at the Atascadero Elk’s Lodge RV lot.
It got tiring having to put up with the China virus silliness, what with not being allowed in certain businesses without wearing a useless mask, to businesses being closed, period, to having to stand in insufferable lines just to get into buildings, but we did manage to squeeze some fun into our babysitting tenure. We made a run into Pismo Beach to play at the Dinosaur Caves Park. Chad, Crissy, Hailey, Ellie, and the old folks (Oma & Opa) went on a mild hike (ending with getting drenched in the rain) at the 3 Bridges Oak Preserve. The girls got some water time on several very hot days in their backyard inflatable pool. Then, we spent a week back at the Cava Robles RV Resort in Paso Robles where the girls got some REAL pool time at the fancy pools there.
Like I said, short post…
4/20/2020 Family Medical Issues Put the Stall On Our Travels
With Big Bend Nat’l Park in our rearview mirror it was “California here we come.” First stop was for a few days at the Las Cruces Elk’s Lodge for some big city shopping for supplies and stuff. This Elk’s Lodge just finished putting in several nice FHU RV sites.
From there it was on to the Bernalillo (Albuquerque) KOA for another couple of days. Now, I thought I have learned from my mistakes over the years. After many instances of being misled by locals, I STILL tend to give them the benefit of the doubt when they give me information. Many times we ask “locals” about the area, how to get anywhere, etc., we either get incorrect directions or the ever popular “I don’t know…” I have learned over the past 8 years to ask the clerks at the RV parks if the interior roads were easily navigable for my 40’ bus with Jeep in tow or do I need to disconnect prior to driving to our site. More than I care to admit I have been told “No problem, no need to disconnect…” only to find out the hard way and having to try to disconnect the toad at a difficult angle. Well, the Bernalillo KOA female clerk just laughed at me when I asked if I should disconnect at the office, and told me I would see her humor as I navigated the spacious interior roads of their park. Well, I did not see her humor as I promptly got stuck on a very tight turn in the half-lane wide road and needed a sledge hammer to get the toad disconnected. Shame on me…We did get a chance to sample some of the local fare by way of a couple of breweries, Basque Brewing Co. and Kaktus Brewing Co., neither of which were real memorable.
Moving on we overnighted at the Holbrook (AZ) KOA, then a couple more days at the Prescott Valley Elk’s Lodge. From there we returned to the Jawbone Canyon OHV area outside of Mojave, CA for an overnight boondock, then into Atascadero for a pre-birthday visit with our granddaughters Hailey & Ellie, both soon to be 4 & 2, respectively. A couple of days entertaining the girls at a couple of local play areas, then we needed to head over to Madera and assist Jeanne’s mom (Yvonne). Her health issues became a priority and required the family to team up and relocate her to brother David’s home in Anderson, CA so she could be closer to medical assistance. Her previous residence in Coarsegold, CA was just too far away from her frequent doctor’s appointments in Fresno and Madera. So we got her moved out, with Jeanne’s brothers Dwayne’s and David’s help. With Yvonne loaded up in Rosie with us, we set up short camp at the Madera District Fairgrounds for a couple of last minute doctor appointments in Madera. Unfortunately, Yvonne began a bout with A-Fib and a racing heart and we got her into the ER. Less than a week later, heart settled down and stable, Yvonne was released and we made our way to Anderson and her new digs at David’s house. The task was then to get her settled in with all new medical personnel.
Well, with everything else in life, it seems timing is everything. We mooch-docked at Dwayne’s house for our time there which we surely appreciated. But soon all hell broke loose. With all the headaches involved in trying to establish medical care (for Jeanne’s mom) after a move, we got hit with off-and-on sloppy weather, rain, hail, wind, etc. And since that is not enough to contend with, China decided to let loose on the rest of the planet with the China virus (China virus China virus China virus China virus China virus China virus China virus, there, I said it!) and with it came the ensuing stock market crash. We stayed very busy tending to Yvonne’s medical needs, appointments, etc. and the issues related to the China virus China virus China virus were not conducive to much heading out on the town, visiting friends, or in other words having much FUN! But hey, you know the saying about life, lemons, & lemonade. Dave & I found a fairly clear day to hit Lake Shasta in his fishin’ boat for some good quality self-quarantine time. He caught the lone, scrawny little trout of the day, but you know the saying, “Your worst day fishin’ is better than your best day workin’!” On another day we decided to commit an act of civil disobedience, Jeanne & I hiked the Flanagan Rd. Trail to Chemise Peak overlooking Lake Shasta Dam. It was a fairly easy 5+ mile hike and as it was, we discovered a whole lotta other folks committing the same act of civil disobedience. Go figger…Time for society to re-engage I guess…
Well, this was not much of a blog post. We are kinda in limbo still because of China and our governmental response. We will continue lollygagging indefinitely in the Redding area until Yvonne’s health care regimen gets established & stabilized. Until next post…
(Editor’s note: Don’t ask. I am in the process of recovering my previous posts from my Blogpost days and backdating them into this blog. If this all works, I will have amazed myself.)
02/14/2020 Southwest Texas in the Wintertime
Having left El Paso, TX, we wanted to head up to Guadalupe Mountains N.P. for a little ‘splorin’ & boondocking. However, after conducting some due diligent weather checking, we discovered the forecast highs for the next few days there was to be at or around 20 degrees, with snow expected. “Aha! No you don’t!” Being the smartest human on the planet, I altered our destination to the big city of Van Horn, TX. Mother Nature-0, Me-1! (Or so I thought, as you will soon read about). We rolled into town just as it was turning dark and found the Wild West RV Park had space for a couple of days, taking an extra day to explore the area. Well, it took all of about 10 minutes to thoroughly explore the area (Van Horn is a little tiny town/rest stop at the side of I-10. You know you are in Sticksville when the town is limited to one Dollar General store for all your fine shopping needs.) OK, now I gotta give Mother Nature-10, Me-0. Forecast was for snow on our exit day, so we re-upped for one additional day to stick it out. And it did snow, to the tune of about 6” of fine powder. The RV park clerk said it was the most they had gotten in several years. Yeah, that makes me feel good…
So we hung around a little later into the morning of moving day to give the roads a chance to de-ice a bit more, then hit SR90 headed south, intended destination of Marfa, TX. The roads turned out to be good but when we got to the megalopolis of Marfa, we found no RV space acceptable & available. So, march on we must, on into Alpine, TX. We found a home at the Lost Alaskan RV Park for a couple of days.
One of those days we headed back over to Marfa to take in the sights. About the only claim to fame Marfa has is they have a rare local phenomenon called the Lights of Marfa. About 9 miles out of town the locals have built a nice little observation station/rest stop from which to attempt to view those lights. Their originating source is not known; some claim they are reflections of vehicle traffic from the highway (it runs nowhere near the area of the lights), some say swamp gas, some say camp fires, but nevertheless nobody has discovered their source. After researching a little about the Lights of Marfa, because they are reported so infrequently, and me not desiring to sit out in the frigid temps at night to hope to see them, we decided not to do another night trip into Marfa for the lights. But we did check out the big city, which is a whole lotta depressed, distressed buildings and closed up shops.
Our second day out of Alpine we drove over to Marathon, TX. Jeanne wanted to see the world’s smallest Target store and that just happened to be on the way. It’s not really a Target establishment, some “artist” painted some logos on a tiny square building in the middle of nowhere and parked a shopping cart in front of it. Marathon itself is another booming, bustling southern Texas town…NOT! There was not a lot other than the Gage Hotel, the White Buffalo Bar, and the Brick Vault Brewery & Barbecue. They have an awesome American Stout called Starlight Stout, for you stout/porter drinkers out there. Marathon does happen to have an RV lot at the hotel, in case anyone wants to make this their vacation destination…
Out of Alpine it was on to Terlingua, TX for our stay at Big Bend National Park. The RV parks around Terlingua just outside the park are all pretty “rustic”, and we found home at the Big Bend Resort & Adventures. This is a pretty good sized park, sites large and spread out, FHU’s, and a gas station parked right next to it.
First up was a short drive up to the “ghost town” part of Terlingua. On the way we encountered the Terlingua Cemetery. This is an ancient cemetery with wild west style gravesites scattered on the hillside. Just a stone’s throw up the hill we found “downtown”. There is the old Terlingua jail, a hotel, a trading company, & the remnants of an old gas station among the many ruins covering the area. People still live there, some of the homes looked to have been “add-ons” to the ruins of older buildings.
We were told by a local in Van Horn that we just had to go to La Kiva for dinner. The place is cave/dinosaur themed and does indeed have a cave-like architecture/feel. It also has a dark history for the folks of Terlingua. It seems the former owner, Glenn Felts was murdered out in the parking lot of the business back in 2014. A local river guide/drinking buddy of Felts was charged and acquitted of the murder. La Kiva should not be confused with an establishment of fine cuisine, but it is quirky and worth seeing if you ever find yourself in the area.
The Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive, with return on Old Maverick Rd. was next on our dance card. We loaded up Woodrow Wilson in the Jeep and hit the road. The Scenic Drive is a paved 2-lane road down to the Santa Elena Canyon Overlook and trailhead, then Old Maverick Rd. is a mild Jeep trail back to Maverick Junction and the park entrance station there. With constant scenic views along the way, there were several points of interest that we took in. The Homer Wilson Ranch, Mule Ears view point, Tuff Canyon, Castolon, and Santa Elena Canyon were all along the Scenic Dr. Santa Elena Canyon is very cool, the Rio Grande River flowing at the bottom and through the dueling cliff faces, one belonging to Mexico, the other to the USA. On the Old Maverick Rd. we found an abandoned family’s home called Luna’s Jacal. Back in them days I guess either humans were really really short, or folks just did not care to stand erect inside there homes, as the photos will show.
We returned home, fed our faces, then left Woody to guard the bus while we headed over to Chisos Basin to try and catch a sunset through a mountain formation called The Window. The views were OK, not outstanding, seeing that it was most fully overcast during sunset that night. And we FINALLY got out first real glimpse of wild critters as we were driving home at dark…a couple of Wile E. Coyote’s cousins ran across our headlights.
The Rio Grande Village area is on the eastern side of Big Bend N.P. We left Woody at home for this trip (poor guy, but we think he tends to get car sick so we try to limit his road trips). First detour was to see the Hot Springs just outside the Rio Grande Village. A short walk past some of the old buildings led us to the small hot springs. The springs are on the Rio Grande River (our border with Mexico). Along the path we found where some of the Mexicans from across the river had set up a little “arts and crafts” area, selling walking sticks and desert art (mostly wire & bead scorpions) with a self-pay jar and prices listed. Jeanne actually read in the National Park’s newspaper that it is illegal to purchase these “arts & crafts”, I’m sure it has to do with duties and taxes, it’s all about government greenbacks…
We then continued on to Boquillas Canyon Overlook. There we got an overview of the big Mexican city of Boquillas Del Carmen, as well as a short walk to see into Boquillas Canyon where, again, the Rio Grande River splits the canyon faces between Mexico & the USA. We found more “arts & crafts” along this way, and this time I believe we got to see some of the “artists”, lounging across the river.
A little bit of mild Jeep trailing (4 miles +/-, one way) led us to Ernst Tinaja. Ernst is the name of the German who came to the area in 1873 and discovered this particular “tinaja” (translates to big earthen jar), a rock formation containing a large pool of water. Stories have various animals getting caught trying to drink from the water, falling in, then drowning when unable to escape the smooth limestone walled pool. There are also stories of Private Morton Diedel of the 14th Cavalry, during the Mexican Revolution in 1913, having fallen into the big tinaja and drowned. And as it turned out, we happened upon an old gravesite for a 26 year old named Juan De Leon, died in 1932, a short distance from Ernst Tinaja. He was supposedly on his way to or from Ernst Tinaja when he was shot & killed. Buried on the spot, murder never solved. The canyon containing the tinaja was pretty scenic.
On a day that it was supposed to rain on us but did not, we decided to load up Woodrow Wilson and take the scenic drive to Presidio, TX, through the Big Bend Ranch State Park. The drive was very scenic, most time spent parallel to the Rio Grande River, passing by more ruins, an area called Hoodoos (not like Utah hoodoos at all), lots of steep canyon walls, and a pass through a golf resort area called Lajitas. We stopped for chow at a place in Presidio called El Patio—-not the best Mexican cuisine I’ve had, kind of a mix between Mexican diner fare and Tex-Mex. We even got treated to a herd of wild donkeys and a couple of wayward Wile E. Coyotes along the drive.
With a little clearer skies, we returned to Santa Elena Canyon to take the short 1.6 mile round trip hike into the canyon. The hike actually climbs the USA side of the canyon wall and leads you into the mostly shaded canyon above the Rio Grande River. The river is a popular venue for kayakers/canoers led by river guides and we were treated to a 4-boat floatilla coming through the canyon. Once out of the canyon, there was a small piece of quicker moving water. I’m no expert on river rapids classifications, but I would say these “rapids” needed to pick up just “a touch” of speed to approach a Class VI rapids. However, as you can tell from some of the photos I took, one of the presumed guides had a bit of a struggle “shooting the rapids”…On our way back home we stopped by the Sam Nail Ranch, one of the features of the park. It is an old, abandoned (in ruins) ranch, tucked in amongst the thick cacti, with one of two windmill water pumps still working. There was basically only part of one wall still standing, an old chicken coop, and for the life of me I don’t understand the desire to locate a ranch in the thick cacti.
The next morning it was back to the Chisos Basin where The Window trail takes you through the desert mountains to the “pour off” point where a spring fed creek goes over the cliff, they say falling about 200’. We got to the trailhead bright and early, wearing 43 layers of clothing because it was FREEZING! (Just kidding, we only bundled up in 21 layers. OK, OK, it was 3 layers, jeesh!) Off we ventured, down to the valley floor and out to the base of The Window. It is a 6.1 mile round trip hike from the store with some pretty spectacular scenery. Once we reached the “pour off” point, I made a wise decision not to get too close to the point to try & verify the 200’ waterfall…the edge is all slickrock, not many handholds anywhere, and the slickrock looked damp – bad juju if you ask me. We pretty much had the trail all to ourselves that early in the morning which was nice. On the way back, all the fair-weather hikers had arrived and there was quite a bit of them passing us. The last mile or so of the return hike is moderately strenuous, it had us huffing & puffing.
Seeing that this was a nice, clear day, we decided to return for the sunset as seen through The Window. We had dinner at the Lodge, then hung around and waited for sunset to arrive. A couple of deer wandered by as we waited, then sunset arrived. There were no clouds to offer much contrast in the sky colors, but it was a cool sunset just as well.
We have come to the conclusion of our stay in Texas for now, time to start the westward march for Grandkid time, routine medical stuff, and overall family time back in Kalifornia. We had a nice time here at Big Bend N.P. and recommend a visit here any time you can find the time. Until next post…
02/02/2020 Southwest Follies in 2020
Jeanne found us a spot to do a little boondocking just outside the Valley of Fire S.P. near Vegas, at lat/long 36.444454 – 114.675583. It was on a nice & wide/level gravel road on BLM land with ample numbers of “sites” for rigs of all sizes. In fact, I was able to make a U-turn on the dirt road with our 40’ MH (with toad). We had all of (4) “neighbors” that were in visual sight but scattered pretty well. After set-up, we ventured out to let Jeanne do a little Jeepin’ in the area while exploring our new back yard. The weather here was cool but clear, 50’s-60’s for highs, and the lovely cholla’s were just starting to “glow” (you know, where the little prickly pods are starting to morph into the appearance of cute, but lethal, fluffy cotton balls…ouch!). A negative here was that our closest neighbor (100 +/- yards away) ran their generator all night long. Some folks just seem to think boondocking negates RV-etiquette of maintaining some semblance of “quiet time”. Thankfully, they left the next day. I discovered an additional RV-etiquette violation by this former neighbor – they had (3) very large K-9’s which were allowed to fertilize the edge of the desert (in a very prolific manner I might add). I don’t care if you do need a backhoe, CLEAN UP AFTER YOUR %$#&*@! DOG!!!!!!
We got up the next morning, gave Woodrow Wilson a walkabout in the desert, left him to guard Rosie the Bus, then we ventured over the mountain into Valley of Fire S.P. When we boondocked out at Government Wash along Lake Mead several years ago, we managed to sight-see most of the area except for Valley of Fire S.P. This day we drove the whole park, west entrance to east entrance, then Visitor’s Center up White Domes Rd. to the White Domes Trail. Because of time (Woody back at the bus), we were not able to hit all the features of the park, but did get a couple of hikes in (White Domes & Fire Wave), then got to see Arch Rock, Atlatl Rock, Beehives, Seven Sisters, the Cabins at Lone Rock, the Clark Memorial, Elephant Rock, and a drive around the Scenic Loop Rd. I do have to say despite this Park being a very scenic experience, as far as the level on my “spectacular meter”, it is not as high as was the “Bowl of Fire” that we experienced during our first stay in the area at Government Wash. It is still worth a visit. And for all you tent campers and smaller RV types, there are a couple of campgrounds with at least some sites for smaller RV’s with W/E hookups, those campgrounds/sites wedged in between some of the beautiful red rock formations.
Our next stop was a scheduled service for the MH & the generator at the No. Las Vegas Cummins shop. We were very satisfied with their customer service and work that they had done for us when we had the malfunction with the Bakersfield Cummins shop last year, so we decided to get our yearly service done here now. And they have several sites for RV’s out front, with E hookups. After a frustrating delay waiting all day for an air filter to be delivered, we finally were able to hit the road.
We were still in the mood for more boondocking and decided on the area around the big megalopolis of Congress, AZ. We needed some hookups to prep tanks and do laundry, so we returned to the North Ranch SKP park to do just that. We also did some recon scouting up on Vulture Mine Rd., an area we had previously boondocked at. There was also a boondocking area out next to the old Congress Cemetery we checked out. That one was a little bit rough as far as the dirt roads went. After all was said and done, we decided against a repeat boondock in this area. But before we lifted jacks, we spent a day on an 8-mile hike at the Granite Mountain Hotshots State Park. The park is a memorial tribute to the local Hotshots crew who lost 19 of 20 members in what was called the Yarnell Hill Fire back in 2013. The hike traverses through the Granite Mountains with a 1,200’ elevation gain and up to 8% grades, with sweeping views of Congress, Wickenburg, and Yarnell. Along the trail they placed memorial plaques for each of the Hotshots that perished during the fire. The hike was moderate+, I wouldn’t call it strenuous but it had this 60 year old and his lovely wife “a-huffin’-and-a-puffin’”! The plus was that it was mostly uphill from the start, then once we got to the observation platform it was only about 3/4 mile down to the valley floor and the fatality site. That meant the return hike was downhill from the platform…The fatality site has a memorial built around it, a very somber, melancholic atmosphere. I can only imagine the level of grief for the families of the firefighters, now knowing and seeing just how near the crew had been to their designated “safe zone”. That would be the ranch that appeared less than 400 yards from the fatality site. The park ranger we spoke with said “the ranch” had that designation due to the wide clearing of brush from the structures, as well as the stucco construction with metal & tile roofs. Such a sad note to end our stay in Congress, AZ…
So now we were eastbound and down. Our “goal”, if you want to call it that, was to get back to the great state of Texas where I need to renew my driver’s license (in-person due to the Class B endorsement) and get our Jeep & bus safety inspected (a requirement for Texas vehicle registrations that we have been able to waive in the years we were not present in state). We hooked up to I-10 outside of Phoenix and settled in for our stop-n-go eastward journey. In Tucson we found the Desert Diamond Casino & Hotel that welcomes RVers to stay in their back parking lot (free, dry camping). I never asked the security folks I talked to about stay limits, but the casino only asks RVers to check in with them if they will be staying longer than one week. We used our time at the casino to get some shopping done, then relieved the casino of a few bucks, only to feed it back to them a little later. We also checked out one of the many local microbreweries, the Sentinel Peak Brewing Co. It was created by a trio of firefighters “moonlighting” as beer aficionados. The beers I tasted were OK, just did not give me the “WOW” factor. Jeanne found a little Mexican restaurant touted as the nation’s longest running family-owned & operated Mexican restaurant (since 1922) called El Charro Cafe. We hit them for lunch and had an excellent meal, definitely one of the best Mexican restaurants I have eaten at.
From Tucson we continued East for a return stop at the Dream Catcher SKP park in lovely Deming, NM. With not a lot for us to see that we already haven’t, we got chores and shopping caught up, got to send for supplies at amazon.com , and even squeezed in a road trip to beautiful downtown Columbus, NM, which is a bordertown neighbor to Palomas, MX. You can all pass on making Columbus, NM your top vacation destination.
The boondocking lifestyle was still calling to us. Jeanne found Sierra Vista Campground (BLM) just outside of Dripping Springs Natural Area at the base of Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Nat’l Monument, in Las Cruces, NM. We found it to be a very small (limited spaces) improved area in the desert just 7 miles from town. There are no services/amenities, it is free, and carries a 14-day stay limit. We lucked into a site that could accomodate a 40’ beast. It is fairly popular by the way it stayed filled up while we spent 8 days there. This area had some hiking trails running off into the desert, as well as some easy Jeep trails where Jeanne got to test her skills at avoiding brush scratch on the Jeep.
We ventured up to the Dripping Springs Nature Area (sans Woodrow Wilson), where Jeanne & I took about a 7 mile walkabout to check out the springs, Van Patten Mountain Camp (ruins from days gone by), Boyd’s Sanitorium (also ruins from the past), Fillmore Falls (alas, dry as a bone at this point in time), and La Cueva.
Old Town La Mesilla boasts La Posta de Mesilla as T-H-E place to eat for Mexican fare, so we motored on over one day to partake as well as walk the tiny town area made famous by the Billy The Kid imprisonment, trial, and where he was sentenced to hang. The food was real good at La Posta, as were the margaritas.
When we were last in this area, we never happened to venture much North, so this time we wanted to check out the infamous town of Truth Or Consequences (TOC to locals). We grabbed Woody and drove the hour and a half North to find the quirky town. We walked the main drag, checked out a funky used book store called Xochi’s Book Store, found the Truth or Consequences Brewing Co. for a flight of tasters, then ate lunch at Latitude 33, a little hole in the wall Asian Fusion style eatery with very awesome food. The beers at TOC Brewing were pretty good, they brewed a Belgian Tripel that was out of this world. The townfolk we spoke with mentioned they currently have a campaign on-going regarding re-naming the town…again. We learned the town was previously named something similar to Hot Springs, but back in the day the game show host for the TV show Truth or Consequences dared the town to change its name to that of the TV show. Lo’ & behold, the townfolk up and did it! Sounds like maybe they regret the name change…
While in Las Cruces, we managed to drive into El Paso where I found one of their Departments of Public Safety (DL bureaus). Boy was I surprised that my in-n-out time was just one hour and I had my DL renewed and ready to rock! We also found an inspection station & got the Jeep safety inspected (registration requirement). Now we just gotta get Rosie inspected (the bus).
Finished with Las Cruces, it was eastbound and down into El Paso, TX for a few days of lolly-gagging. We had a bit of a hard time trying to find an RV park with hook-ups (coming off an 8-day boondock) that was not full. But we lucked into the Mission RV Park on the east side of town. More chores (massive laundry), shopping for another upcoming boondock, and a tiny bit of sight seeing at the Scenic Drive Park were in order. El Paso closes Scenic Drive on Sundays and only pedestrian/bicycle traffic is allowed. The views from the road open up to a very large panoramic viewing of the towns of El Paso TX/Juarez MX, both towns only divided by the Rio Grande River.
Before leaving El Paso, we have to stop by the local Freightliner shop to get a couple of minor issues addressed. From there, we will be heading for more boondocking, hopefully at the Guadalupe Mountains Nat’l Park area. If not, then wherever the wind blows us, we’ll let you know next blog post. Stay tuned…
1/5/2020 Headed Back To Prescott AZ
Since Jeanne and I were not going to be here for the end of the holidays, we had a nice family get-together for Thanksgiving/XMAS/Max’s birthday in Atascadero. Jenn, Gus, & Max drove down for the T-Giving weekend to spend the time with family at Chad’s house. It was great to spend the time with the grand-chitlin’s all at the same time. So here are a few (OK, more than a few!) parting shots of our time spent together.
After being on the road as full-time RVers for over (7) years now, hitting all of the lower 48, Jeanne & I are starting to think about settling down again, just not decided on a location. The Prescott, AZ area is on our short list, so we decided to head over there and spend a little more time exploring the area for that purpose. A couple of mishaps (OK, brain-farts on my part) happened along the way. The first was our stop at the Palmdale Elk’s Lodge for an two-night stay. On the morning that we pulled out, as I neared the driveway, I could see the dip was pretty intense with evidence of previous RVers failures to clear the pavement (where they bottomed out/scraped the asphalt). But hey, I am the most intelligent person on the planet (a legend in my own mind) and I KNOW how to navigate such hazards. I crept along at a speed where you could clock me with a calendar, achieved an extreme angle to avoid bottoming out, and nevertheless scraped the $hit out of that asphalt anyway, only with one corner of my rear cap. “%&$*#@!” That was enough to wreck one’s day, but travel on we must. (The second mishap soon to follow.) We next two-nighted at the Needles Elk’s Lodge, this time without incident. We completed our escape from The Evil Empire and landed in the Prescott/Prescott Valley area. There we split our time between the Prescott Elk’s Lodge, the Prescott fairgrounds, and Point of Rocks RV Park. My second brain-fart happened when we were moving from the fairgrounds to Point of Rocks. Due to the park’s prohibition from early check-in, we had to kill a couple of hours. On the way in we found the Constellation Trails, a small park, where we took Woodrow Wilson out for a short walk. This park is off of one of Prescott’s INNUMERABLE traffic “roundy-rounds” (complete with skinny lanes) and as I pulled out to head for our new destination, somebody put one of those $%&@*^# low guardrails alongside the road. I promptly scraped against said guardrail and caused yet more minor body damage. “%&$*#@!” (We’ll be hunting down an RV body shop in our travels soon). Jeanne’s brother Dave wanted to take his son Alex on a vacation, so he booked a flight to Vegas where he rented a small Class-C motorhome and drove out to meet up with us. Dave & Alex joined us at Point of Rocks RV Park. The weather was a little harsh, most nights the temps were teens to twenties and we had to disconnect water hoses. But the days warmed up into the blazing 30’s to 40’s…
Playing tourguides for Dave & Alex, we first ventured out on a small hike around Watson Lake (OK, small is a relative term. This “small” was about 8 miles, plus or minus). Alex got a kick out of the weird ice formations we ran into.
On a fairly clear day we drove up to the old mining town of Jerome and walked the streets taking in the views and reading some of the history of what is now considered a ghost town.
Jeanne wanted to shake off the dust bunnies from her 4-wheelin’ skills, so what better way than to try to jar Alex’s eye teeth on the dirt road to Crown King, AZ. S. Senator Hwy leaves downtown Prescott and 7 miles out loses the asphalt. The road/trail is not particularly difficult as far as 4-wheelin’ goes, but there were a couple of fairly deep water crossings. We came upon Palace Station, touted to be one of the oldest structures in Arizona. What was once a stage station on the Senator Trail from Phoenix to Prescott is now used residentially by the U.S. Forest Service. Crown King is but a “wide spot in the road” where a couple of folks have set up businesses and call it a town. We stopped in to the local saloon and had a beer before we headed on back to civilization.
The “big kahuna”, the “piece de resistance”, the “BMOC”, has to be Grand Canyon N.P. We dragged Dave & Alex up to the South Rim where they were awed by the spectacular views of the canyon, even on a semi-overcast day like it was. There was just a touch of snow added to the scenery and the short couple mile walk along the rim was envigorating.
What visit to the Prescott area would be complete without a trek into Sedona? First stop on the way was the Nat’l Park site called Montezuma’s Castle. We got to give Alex exposure to some early Indian cliff dwellings that, even though named after Montezuma, Montezuma never actually had anything to do with and never visited. Then it was on to Sedona and the Chapel of the Holy Cross. Views were extraordinary from the small hill this church was built into. It also overlooks “The House”, a good sized mansion built by the inventor of Lasik eye surgery. From there we ventured into downtown Sedona for a stroll and lunch at Oaxaca Restaurant.
Dave & Alex stayed with us through XMAS and up to the end of December. We had a nice XMAS dinner, fun times touring the area, and many cold nights of UNO, Phase 10, and Wits & Wagers. I hate it when Alex gloats over his victories…But, alas, all good things must end and it was time for Dave & Alex to return to the real world. We said our good-byes and headed out to our respective destinations. Ours just happened to be about a week’s stay in the Mesquite, NV area, another prospective choice for settlement.
In Mesquite, our home of choice was the Casa Blanca Resort & Casino RV Park. Scouting the area, including another run into St. George, UT, we looked at some properties, shopped locally and actually got pretty good exposure to the area in just the short week we stayed. Enough to decide a very small “retirement community” such as Mesquite was not for us, at least for now.
That about catches us up for now. Next destination…? Until next post…
11/19/2019 More Family Time in Kalifornia
I know, it’s been a while since my last post. So, for all of you non-family member readers, this is about to be one of the all-time boring-est blog posts you could imagine (hint/warning: many photos of grandkids to follow). We had the last of our big appointments in Redding, CA for some minor repairs on Rosie the Bus. We made the reservations with Martin Hveem Restoration & Coaches after seeing a recommendation by Bob Tiffin himself. So into Redding we went, splitting time between Win-River Casino RV lot and Jeanne’s brothers Dwayne & David (another big thanks to both for their hospitality and patience). As far as the repair work getting done, they did an OK job on most tasks. The only problem – we needed two of four of our slide toppers to be replaced and they completed that, except they replaced the wrong side, rear topper. But I have to say, Hveem made good on the error by refunding the cost of the back topper, basically giving us an unneeded slide topper replacement for free. I’m still smh… We had a good visit with Dave and Dwayne and their families and we actually got a little sightseeing in with Dave. We took him up to Castle Lake near Lake Siskiyou, then stopped off at Dunsmuir Brewery Works for lunch in the big megalopolis of Dunsmuir. The MH repairs, a few good BBQ’s, a night at the local FFA fundraising auction, a little cash donation action at the casino, and in no time almost 4 weeks gone in a flash.
We then continued southbound to the land of grandkids and our first stop, the Sonoma County Fairgrounds RV lot in Santa Rosa, stomping grounds for 7 y.o. grandson Maximus. School interferes a bit with quality grandchild time, we were pretty much limited to weekend time only. So we made the best of it, hitting the local batting cages for some batting practice. Max got to do a little rock painting & hiding at the RV lot, then we hit the fairgrounds for a traveling event called “Pumpkin Nights”. Max got to dress up in his Halloween garb and join the rest of the little ones attending the event. We got a very limited visit with Max this time, but we will see him & his family again at the end of November for T-Giving & his 8th B-Day celebrations when they meet us at Cousin Hailey & Ellie’s house in Atascadero.
Speaking of Atascadero (segue…), there we went. Next stop we landed back at the Atascadero Elk’s Lodge. We were ecstatic to find they increased their stay limits at the RV lot to 2-weeks per month. With our plans to include staying in the area until the end of the month, we jumped between 3 facilities – the Elk’s, a short stint at Cava Robles RV Resort, and the Paso Robles RV Ranch, all places we have stayed many times before.
Our stay here included a whole lotta playground time for 3 y.o. granddaughter Haily and 1 y.o. granddaughter Ellie. We hit a neighborhood park, the playground at Cava Robles, including some pool time, and a couple of private playground businesses, Hop’s Bounce House and Mighty Munchkins Play Zone. The girls did their level best to try and wear out Oma & Opa…
Since we were here during Halloween, Hailey helped me carve up a Jack-o’-Lantern for their porch. The town of Atascadero does a nice Halloween night event by closing off Entrada Av. to traffic and the local businesses set up trick-or-treat venues (their actual shop or a booth) for the kids to do trick-or-treating. We accompanied Hailey & Ellie (oh yeah, mommy & daddy too) as they did the deed and scored buckets full of treats.
So a while back Chad got us hooked into a beer app called “Untappd” (sic). It keeps track of your favorite beers, lets you rate beers, compare your ratings to a global average, in other words all things beer. Chad informed us of a possible gold mine for craft beers called “The Backroom” in Solvang, CA. On one of our “non-grandchild” days we loaded Woodrow Wilson up and did a roadtrip to Solvang to find The Backroom. It is just a little hole-in-the-wall, small beer store up front, a home brewers equipment store downstairs, and the taproom in the back, behind a painted fake bookcase used as the door. We scored a couple of craft brews to take home and sample with Chad, had a nice pizza lunch from Solvang Brewery Co., and tasted a couple of offerings from The Backroom. A visit to Solvang would be incomplete without a short walk around the scenic Danish themed town.
Chad has a particular favorite brewery in Monterey, “Alvarado St. Brewing”, that he had been meaning to check out. We made it happen in a mini-adventure for Hailey and her dad. We loaded both of them up and drove Rosie down to stay at the Moss Landing KOA. While there we visited several of the local craft breweries, including Alvarado St., and spent some top-quality time at the beach chasing waves and seal-watching for Hailey. Included in this fun package was a couple of hours at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Hailey was in hog-heaven.
So that catches you up to date. Time to start getting ready for Thanksgiving, hope you all have some good quality family time and pleasant gastric experiences! Until next post…
9/12/2019 A Stopover in Vancouver
Jeanne had found out about a lot of stuff to do in and around Vancouver/WA & Portland/OR (both pretty much the same city, just divided by the Columbia River), so we set our sights on the Vancouver Elks Lodge for a few days’ stay. Unfortunately, the weather was horrendous for doing outdoor activities, lots of rain off and on. But we gave it the good ol’ college try. After our (5) hour drive and initial set up, first on our itinerary was to hit a brewery we had heard about (OK, our son Chad sent us on a beer shopping spree…) called Great Notion Brewing. We braved the absolutely horrible driving conditions (traffic, plus rain, plus drivers with HUA) and found Great Notion. They had a pretty good selection of brews and I found (3) porter/stouts to be worthy…Double Stack, Cake Party, and Hot Fudge Saturday. Unfortunately, they don’t distribute much, particularly the Cake Party and Hot Fudge Saturday, beers that are limited in production and usually “tapped out” fairly quickly. But at least I got a taste…
On another rainy Monday we ventured over to Ft. Vancouver to check out Officer’s Row. The U.S. Army “fort” built in the mid 1800’s was called Vancouver Barracks and later part of the Department of the Columbia. Officer’s Row was a series of some 21 residences for the officers and their families with the Marshall House and the Grant House belonging to various commanders of their times. The City of Vancouver took over ownership of the residences in the 1980’s and restored them. Today, some of the homes are working businesses, some residences. The city gives free tours of the Marshall House (lower level) and our docent did a very nice job of giving us a history narrative surrounding Brigadier General George Marshall.
Being the intrepid travelers we are, it was off into the rain again, this time to drive the historic Columbia River Hwy. and see some of the sights along the way (mostly waterfalls). First stop was the Vista House. It was built on a point overlooking the Columbia Gorge as a rest stop & observation point for travelers to stop and gawk at the scenery. The views were very nice. It was then onward and eastward where we encountered Latourell Falls, Shepperd’s Dell Falls, Bridal Veil Falls, Wahkeena Falls, Multnomah Falls, & Horsetail Falls. The trail to the upper falls area of Horsetail Falls was closed, so we only got to see the falls that were next to the road. (Gee, I hope I don’t mislabel any of the photos, but if I do, go ahead and sue me!) We ended our journey along the Columbia River Hwy. at Clock Tower Ales in The Dalles. Clock Tower Ales is housed in one of the early courthouses and is now a tap room and restaurant. The beer was good, the food fair, and the building historic.
When we finally got a clear day with minimal clouds we loaded up the Woodster and headed to the Waterfront Renaissance Trail, a trail along the Columbia River in Vancouver. We let Woodrow lead us on a couple miles of paved walkway along the river, watching a few of the fishermen catching whoppers out of the river. When we finished we dropped Woody off at the bus and headed into Portland to check out a brewery Jeanne found on line with some high end seasonal offerings, the brewery called Hair of the Dog Brewing Co. We had a nice pre-birthday lunch (her birthday happens to be this week on Friday the 13th…great!) and tasted some of the malts, barley, and hops they offer. Holy moly, I just added one to my top 4 brewers list. Hair of the Dog now occupies my top tier of breweries (my opinion) along with Evil Twin Brewing, Founders Brewing, and Firestone Walker Brewing Co. We had a great lunch to boot. May I suggest the brisket and potato/pasta salad with a wash down of their Fred From The Wood. Mmmmmmmmmm! Hair of the Dog also does a very limited production (sometimes just a dozen bottles per release) on a barrel aged brew they call “Dave”. “Dave”, as they have a couple of bottles there now, goes for upwards of $800 per bottle. It is about a 29% ABV Barleywine that has been aging in multiple barrels for over 20 years. I better get crackin’ watering that money tree I have…
Moving day came and it was off, southbound and down.
9/7/2019 Time Well Spent at Olympic National Park
So, Forks, WA was our chosen base camp for the west side of the Olympic Peninsula. We found space at the Forks 101 RV Park, right in the middle of town along Hwy. 101. The RV park was a grass field with FHU’s, pretty primitive showers/bathrooms, and basically no amenities/activities located on site. It is a bit overpriced as well, $50/night being their base rate, but at least they give a 10% discount to first responder retirees. It is centrally located to many of the features of the Olympic National Park. At Olympic National Park be prepared to do a lot of driving, similar to Yellowstone and Glacier N.P.’s. There are no interior roads to drive around inside the park, only spur roads off of Hwy. 101 which circles around the park.
Outing number one took us to La Push and Rialto Beach. I’ll tell you right now, don’t waste any time driving into La Push. It is a very typical Indian Reservation town, run down, nothing there, waste of time. We even tried to stop off at the one restaurant in “town” for a seaside beer, but were told they had a rule if we were going to order beer, we also had to order food. Good bye, La Push…We quickly headed for the other side of the river to Rialto Beach, but Mother Nature slammed us again. To walk the 2 mile hike down the beach to see the Hole in the Wall rock feature, it really needs to be anything but near high tide, which it just so happened it was at the time we were there, sooooooooo, no Hole in the Wall. We would have to save that for another day.
We headed out early one morning to hit the Hoh Rainforest along the Hoh River. There are 3 trails out of the visitor’s center there. Since Woodrow Wilson is not allowed on park trails, he had to stay home. The Hoh River Trail was automatically out for us, it is over 17 miles one-way and I don’t think the little Chihuahua-mix has a sufficient sized bladder for us to be gone that long. But we did take the other two trails, the Hall of Mosses Trail (0.8 mile loop) and the Spruce Trail (1.25 mile loop). The Hall of Mosses was eerily spectacular with some massive trees covered in moss, I don’t know if it is considered Spanish Moss, but very similar in nature. We also noted the chrystal clear nature of both the Hoh River water as well as the springs within the rainforest.
A quick lunch break and we picked up Woody and headed south to Lake Quinault. There is a 31 mile loop road encircling the lake, through more rainforest, with a couple of waterfalls along the way. The North Shore Rd. was part paved, part gravel, lots of thick trees, but not a lot of other views besides trees. Once we began the trip back on South Shore Rd. we quickly found Bunch Falls and Merryman Falls, both small but still scenic (c’mon, face it, waterfalls are pleasing to the eye in just about any form or size). On the way back home we stopped off to walk the beach at Ruby Beach. I guess the name derives from the appearance of the rocks/sand at some certain time of day and year, but at this time, that appearance was not to be. Still, the coastline at Ruby Beach has some stand-out rock formations and, like most areas around here, would be a driftwood hunter’s dream location. Mother Nature still laughing at us, the tide was up, taking away our opportunity to check out any tidal pools that are allegedly here at this location.
Getting another early start, this time on a blue-sky-sunny day, we drove out to Sol Duc Falls and hit the short 0.8 mile (one-way) trail to see the waterfalls. Before we got to the trailhead we came upon an area of the Sol Duc River called Salmon Cascades. These were beautiful cascades into some of the clearest pools of water we’ve seen. A few pix for posterity and we continued on to the trailhead for the falls. The hike was easy on a well maintained trail, through more rainforest and moss covered trees. Sol Duc Falls did not disappoint in the scenery department. Now, for those of you daredevil hikers out there, there are many other trails that are accessed off of this one as you hike past the falls, traversing many many many miles of rainforest terrain. These would be the type of trails used by back-country, overnighting back packers who are required to purchase permits for said types of hikes. We are not that level of hikers…yet.
Since the weather gods were smiling on us we chose to head back to see Cape Flattery again, this time without the shroud of clouds. We got there with fairly blue skies and were treated to unobstructed views of that area that were in stark contrast to how we saw them less than a week ago in a heavy drizzle, clouds, marine layer, fog, you name the marine obstruction and we had it! Wow wow wow! Very nice! I even got to get a good look at what I previously described as “ghost island” from our first low-visibility visit to the Cape. Turns out it even has a lighthouse on it and Jeanne later discovered the island to be Tatoosh Island, a sacred island of the local Makah tribe of Indians.We topped the day off with “linner” at the By the Bay Cafe in downtown Sekiu, looking out onto the marina area and watching some of the locals cleaning their catch of the day.
Since the weather gods were feeling generous with us, we made another return trip, this time to Rialto Beach but this time paying attention to the ocean tide tables. With tides low enough, we hiked down the beach to the Hole in the Wall. The sun did not want to come out to play, but the marine layer/fog stayed away as well, with just overcast skies and visibility good. The area of the Hole in the Wall is jam packed full of tidal pools at low tide and we got treated to some very colorful sea anemone(s), starfish, and even some well camoflaged fish swimming among them. The Hole in the Wall is just that – a large hole in the rock wall. You can walk through it and as you do, there are many little tidal pools with sea anemone(s) glowing in their brightness. All in all, we definitely got our money’s worth in the scenery department.
Our last day in the area was, surprise surprise, another crappy weather day, so we just hung out and prepped for travel day. That about wraps up our stay here at Olympic National Park. Until next post…
09/02/2019 Our Time in Port Townsend, WA
We caught the ferry from Coupeville (Ft. Casey) to Port Townsend. It was our first experience loading our 16 ton bus towing the Jeep onto a ferry boat which I was a little apprehensive about. But all was well, after all, they are HUGE ferries. For the mere cost of a $90-something half hour boat ride we saved ourselves 200 miles of driving through some of the more congested areas of Washington state. It was well worth the price. But, again, no orcas, just a few porpoiseseseses…
Our first home on the Olympic peninsula was the Jefferson County fairgrounds camping lot in Port Townsend. Relieved we found space on the Labor Day weekend, we opted to stay at the fairgrounds until the holiday weekend was over. The Jefferson County fairgrounds is terrible as far as RV lots go. It definitely is not of the breathtaking scenery type of RV lot. The grass/dirt area for parking the rigs is extremely uneven and it takes a little effort to get level. I committed an RVer’s mortal sin; after finally getting level (used up all of my levelling blocks), we did a full set-up, pop-outs and all, before I went to hook up power. At the self-check in station it lists the sites with water, electricity, and sewer. We chose one of them, but when I tried to plug in I discovered the electricity offered was only a 20A 110 outlet. Shoulda inspected the power before set up, coulda saved me a whopping $5 per night…I ate the extra, being too lazy to load everything up again and relocate to the cheaper sites. Besides, with the (8) solar panels on my roof we don’t need their meager offering of 20A electricity…The sites here were stacked like cord wood, with very skinny travel lanes between rows of RV’s. But we had a base camp for the area…
Hurricane Ridge is just outside Port Angeles in Olympic Nat’l Park. We loaded up Woody and drove out to investigate the scenery. Being a National Park, in typical fashion Woodrow Wilson was not allowed on trails, so we nixed any trail hiking. I think that choice was made for us by Mother Nature anyway, it was an overcast day with limited visibility.
On another overcast, drizzly day we took the chance and drove all the way over to Neah Bay to check out Cape Flattery, the N/W point of the lower 48 (not the northernmost, just the N/W most). It was still overcast and drizzly when we got there, but it was jam packed with visitors. We hooked Woody up and let him lead us down the 25 minute trail to several Cape Flattery viewpoints. Even in the thick mist, it was a pretty scenic area. As we left we decided we may just have to return if we ever get some fairly clear weather after we relocate to the area of Forks, WA, our intended next destination. So far, we are not fans of this end-of-summer weather in Washington. Also, not fans of the cell service/wifi we have experienced at the places in Washington we have been thus far.
We finally got a hint of blue skies, with some clouds, but we capitalized on it and did a walkabout around the downtown waterfront area of Port Townsend, sans Woody. Port Townsend is touted as “Washington’s Victorian seaport”, with many Victorian style homes on the hills overlooking Port Townsend Bay. The waterfront area is home to a great many older buildings from the late 1800’s to early 1900’s, still in use by businesses today. We found our way to the Port Townsend Brewing Co. for a flight of their finest. Not a lot to write home about, but their “Peeping Peater Scotch Ale” was fairly tasty. Lunch time found us at Taps at the Guardhouse at Ft. Worden State Park. A unique little Pub & Eatery, some of the tables are held within the confines of a jail cell. Their wings were good, washed down with a Fremont Brewing “Dark Star” imperial oatmeal stout. One thing we have discovered, there are a whole lotta deer here in town. They pay no mind to us humans and you really gotta pay attention while driving around, they just meander out into the roadway whenever they wish.
That about covers our stay here in Port Townsend. Tomorrow we are off toward Forks, WA and the other side of the peninsula. Until next post…