California to Arizona to Nevada

Before we all leave Palm Springs, I must say our last day there gives points to California.  We did a motorcycle ride climbing up to about 6000 feet elevation, giving us views like this:

       ..... then through an adorable little hamlet called Idyllwild, with shops like this:

..... and to a tiny town called Julian, which is best known for this:

..... where we HAD to buy this:

It was an apple/cherry pie.  Fantastic!

Then, to Husband's delight, we came back down the mountain on this:

It might go down as our best ride of the trip.  Thank you California!

Our next location was a quirky, dusty little town called Quartzite, barely into Arizona.  If you are an RVer, you will have either been there, or have heard of it.  It goes from a population of two to three thousand in the hot months to over a hundred thousand in the cooler months.

I am not kidding:

Yes, those are all RVs.

There are shows and entertainment, highlighted in January and tapering off through February.  We got there after a lot of people had left.  It was a do-once type of thing, with blocks of flea-markets selling everything you never thought you'd need for your RV.

Ambience and charm are NOT the objective here.

We bought a new filter for our water tank and some Kettlecorn.  That was about it.  Other than that, the town featured a few truck stops and a handful of other small businesses.  But our camping spot was great and we stayed there five nights for free!

Oops!  I just noticed this picture also shows my socks hanging out to dry.

We went to bed with this:

And woke up to this:

We did some car/motorcycle trips to Yuma (loved Yuma!) and to Lake Havasu City, before pulling up the anchor and heading on to Pahrump, Nevada.  (Ya can't help but have fun with that name.)

Why Pahrump?  Two reasons.   We found a deal in an RV park with all the amenities plus laundry facilities, and it is near Death Valley.  Oh!  And it gives us a 20% discount at Dairy Queen!  (That's three reasons.)  We did a day-trip into Death Valley, where we discovered we can boondock (rely own our own water and power) for $7/night, so that will be our next stop in the Beast.  There Husband plans to do some sunrise/sunset photography.   (Did you know that the heat record there is 134 degrees and is the hottest spot on the planet?  But thankfully not in February and we might even see some rain.)

Thoughts about Pahrump ..... it's not a big town, but it sprawls out all over.  It seems typical in Arizona and Nevada to set a sign at the city limits announcing that you are entering the town, with the town no where in sight.  You must drive another five or so miles before anything man-made starts to appear.  And in the town, there are big empty gaps between buildings.  Just empty land between the Texaco and the Walmart, and between one strip mall and the next.   And huge gaudy, glitzy, obnoxious casinos gracing every other block along the way.  Kinda weird.

And that brings us up to date.

Stuck in Palm Springs

Our intent was to be here a week.  But unrelated to the small fiasco I wrote about in the previous post, we have had some bouts with an overheating engine.  The light would come on, typically going uphill, Husband would back off the throttle, it would go off.  So last week he found a truck mechanic nearby.  We're now on the third nonconsecutive day, of running tests.  At least the appearance of this shop encourages much more confidence than Smitty's did.

The culprit has been narrowed down to the fan controller and the fix will be either:  1. reprogram the controller, or 2. replace it.

Right now it's on its third trip to the mechanic, as we have had to work around his overloaded schedule.   At least we can drive it back to the RV park each time.  Might I add .... "bringing in" a motorhome is not at all like taking a car somewhere.  It must be prepped for moving which can take anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes or more (depending on how settled in we've been) and navigated out of the space it's been quietly occupying.  Plus, while it is gone, we are homeless.   So, to end a long, dull story, we are currently in limbo.

But hey ...... Palm Springs.  Who's complaining?  It's 70 degrees.  We have a swimming pool, a hot tub, pickle ball courts, miniature golf, friendly neighbors, and a large portion of south-central California to explore.  Which we've been doing.

About 40 miles away is Joshua Tree National Park which was created by God of course, but with the help of Dr. Seuss.  We did a quick exploratory drive there a few days ago and then returned to it on the motorcycle.  A few pictures:

These odd creations are the Joshua Trees after which the park was named.  I just learned, via a sign in the park,  the name came from Mormon pioneers who thought the trees looked like Joshua of the Bible, when "he raised his hands to the sky in prayer" ...... and if you can find this story in the Bible, please let me know ..... because I can't.

And this gem below is by the Husband, who loves to play with night photos and lighting ..... including that from headlights of a passing car.

But in my opinion, the rocks steal the show.  This one is called Skull Rock.

Below is the cholla cactus, (pronounced choy-ya).  Don't touch.  Those prickles are nasty.

When the sun hits it just right, it lights up.  (Not in this photo.)

We also did a motorcycle ride around the Salton Sea, a sad mishap of nature and man.

With no where to drain, it's very salty and is polluted by algae (mostly) and local farming pesticides (secondary) so it is more of a blight, than the lovely lake one would expect it to be.  The water is a blackish brown, with an odor.   It has an interesting history.

We stopped, along with a friendly group of Harley-riders, for burritos at a homey little cafe in the tiny town(?) of Niland.

Which sat next to this.

A couple of the towns we passed through on this ride weren't bad, but nowhere I'd choose to live.  (An understatement.)  In one area, you can buy a lake-front building lot for under $8,000.

It's sad, in my opinion.  Disclaimer:  I am not a fan of California.  Many of the coastal areas that I've been to are nice, but too many are plagued with crazy traffic.  A lot of what we've seen is seedy.  Palm Springs is upscale and appealing, but a few miles out, you're back to seedy.  The economy for many of the rural areas does not appear to be going well.  Mexican culture has spread across the border, judging by the music in the stores, products sold, and Spanish spoken everywhere ..... which I'm not at all saying is a bad thing, it's just very evident.  (Everyone here seems to have a favorite local Mexican restaurant they're happy to recommend.)   Poverty permeates the air in areas where it shouldn't be .... although, I can't think where it should be.   Some of the towns looked like the money spent to build them, quickly ran out.  A big part of the problem is the drought.  A lot of barren, dry land, that should be full of citrus and almond orchards, is for sale   And without going into politics, I'm not a fan of what's happening here in that department either.

So yesterday we hiked a beautiful slot canyon, called Painted Canyon, near Mecca, CA.  It was over five miles of sand, ladders, rock scrambling, and views.  If you ever do this, get a good map online and copy it to your phone.  They say you can't get lost if you stick to the trails.  We have proven that to be false.   (And we had a map!)

This canyon, they say, sits atop the infamous San Andreas fault.  I tried not to think about earthquakes during this part.

It's easy to see this was once a huge mud flow because the canyon walls were made up of dried mud which, apparently, anciently flowed from who-knows-where, picking up every type of rock along the way.  This is a close-up shot:

All in all, generally the scenery here is not pretty.   (Sorry, but I can't quite shake my inner Oregon snob.)   Too brown.  Too arid.  Too many mountains look like someone dug a big hole somewhere, trucked the dirt to here, and dumped it in big piles.  The really big mountains are pretty because they are still topped with snow and the palm trees are always way cool.  

Palm Springs itself is not what I expected.  Instead of it being all resorts, golf courses, and expensive boutiques as I have pictured for years, it has a charming, almost funky downtown with lots of shops, restaurants, and cafes .....  

.... where you MUST try a date shake (says my sister, Susan) from one of many shops who ALL say they make the best.

So I guess, if you have to be stuck somewhere, this ain't bad. 

On the road again ..... for better or worse

Two posts ago I whined about being stuck in particularly bad weather, when one would think we COULD have just rolled on down to a more tropical climate.  Moveable house and all.  Over two months in our parking lot, waiting out three ... THREE(!) ice storms, and having to chisel the ice off our slides (the walls that move outward to give us space inside) so that we could close them.   (You can't drive anywhere with your slides out and sometimes ya gotta -- 1. go to the dump station, 2. fill up on propane, and 3. get to the repair shop to fix some leaks we discovered in the very wet weather. )  Once we successfully freed up the slides to close them, we kept them closed for fear of more ice ..... reducing our living space to a hallway.

After said repairs, an oil change, and outfitting our Jeep with special brakes to be legal in California, we waited for a break in the weather.  In our corner of the Pacific NW, you cannot go far without encountering mountains that are equipped with passes, that tend to fill with snow.  Now our Jeep can practically climb trees in icy weather, but the motorhome ... no.

Finally, after wrapping up some last minute business, we had what we thought was a brief window and made a break for it.   We got as far as Grants Pass where we spent the night in a Walmart parking lot to assess the notorious Siskiyou pass ahead.   Our little weather window had slammed shut, so we left I-5 and headed southwest towards Crescent City, keeping to lower, non-snowy elevations.

T'was a narrow, winding road, but Husband handled it well and we finally put the snow behind us.  We were reminded, later that day, why we don't like congested city traffic when driving a 40 foot beast and towing a Jeep, as we crawled through the Oakland/San Francisco evening traffic on a six-lane freeway.  Again, Husband did well and we made it to Los Banos and another Walmart.

We had set our sights on Palm Springs where it's supposed to be warm.  And dry.  In fact .... isn't most of California supposed to be dry?  I mean, aren't they having a drought or something?  If so, they are taking a good, solid vacation from their drought with plenty of rain and not enough drains and ditches to keep it off the road.

So here's where the fun really began .....

Day three, just after dark, after covering a significant amount of distance out in the lone and dreary boondocks of southern California to avoid the San Bernadino and LA traffic, we had barely rolled into the town of Yucca Valley when suddenly a warning light popped on and the motor died ...... in about the same about of time as it took you to read this sentence.  We couldn't even get off the road.  And we were blocking traffic, which, thankfully, was not heavy and there was an open lane to get around us.  A friendly police officer named Wayne, stopped by, hung around for a while, and gave us some flares.  We called our roadside assistance people (Coachnet) who began the search for a tow truck.  And we waited ..... still blocking traffic.   When we learned there would be no tow truck until morning, we were left to fend for ourselves.  Coachnet did their best, but there simply was nothing available within 200 miles.

I took off in the Jeep to buy more flares.

While I was gone, Husband came up with a gutsy plan to roll the motorhome backwards about 300 feet, into an empty lot off the road.  (We were on a slight incline.)  He would be at the wheel steering, and my job was to be out on the road directing him.  Needless to say, I was a bit freaked out.  Remember, it was dark, and he wasn't sure what to expect with air brakes and no power steering.

It worked.  We got off the road.  We then called the police to let Wayne know, so that no one would show up at two a.m. to complain about us being on private property.  Apparently by then, the entire local police force knew about us and were all very supportive.  So there we spent our third night.

The road where we were stuck:  

 In the empty lot.  

The next morning we learned an available tow truck had been located and (eventually) we would be towed some 50 miles to a truck mechanic named Smitty in a town called Indio.  His was probably the only place they could find that was open on a Saturday.  (Why do these things always happen on weekends??)

While we waited (the tow truck finally arrived around three in the afternoon), Husband bought a 5 gallon container to buy some fuel so that we could run our generator ..... our fuel level read 1/4 full .... an important point in this story.  Fortunately we were next to a Circle K station, and he went back and forth about six times with the container.  This was over 25 gallons WHICH is about a quarter of what the tank holds.  Again, another important point.  Husband noticed the gauge level hardly went up.

T'was here where we noticed a small cluster of "Not-my-president" protesters (part of the anti-Trump women's march) had gathered a couple of blocks away.  With nothing else to do, I walked over.   There I noticed across the street from the sign-toting group, a guy holding a Trump/Pence sign.  So I went and stood in solidarity with my new friend Carl, waving at the Trump supporters who drove by.

When the tow truck arrived, I took the Jeep and headed to Smitty's.  Husband rode the motorcycle, followed by our towed beast.  I arrived about 45 minutes ahead of them, located Smitty's place which was guarded by fences, barbed wire, and a pit bull, in a rather sketchy neighborhood.  And there we spent the next night, parked on the side of the street, next to Smitty's and my second new friend, Winchester, the very sweet pit bull.

Parked next to Smitty's.  

Winchester.  Such a good boy.

As it turned out ..... we had run out of fuel.  Now before you laugh, remember the gauge did say a quarter full.  Somehow, as we came down the hill into Yucca Valley it had probably sloshed the fuel around, letting a little air into the system which, with a diesel engine, must then be primed or something (I'm really out of my league here) to start again.  You can't just pop in some gas and go, like with regular motors.

So all in all, after a free 50-mile tow (yay for insurance!) and $100 to Smitty, and some cheese treats for Winchester, we finally made it to a lovely RV park in Desert Hot Springs near Palm Springs.   After nearly three weeks of living in a hallway with our slides in, we could set up with all the amenities.  Power.  Cable.  Space.  Etc. Etc.  Once again life is good and once again I remember why on earth I ever wanted a motorhome.

Lessons learned:

Never again let the gauge read less than 1/3 full.

California isn't all palm trees, beaches, and sunshine.  It can be brown, barren, and wet.

Pit bulls aren't all bad.