We had a slow start to the day. One of the things about staying on a military base is that sometimes you share your campground with Marines training. This morning a platoon of amtracks (a floating armored personnel carrier) went thru the camp.
Going thru the campground.They then took off down the beach.
We headed over to Oceanside for the afternoon we shared a fish and chips lunch at a nice restaurant. We then had a nice walk thru town and down to the pier. A lot of California coastal towns have piers, and Oceanside’s is nice, and not quite as commercial as some of the others.
The Oceanside pier.
We watched the surfers for a while from the pier. Ton pointed out one older gentlemen mixed in with all of the younger surfers. After a while though it was clear the old guy was by far the best surfer.
The first job for today was to try to sort out our camera. It suddenly stopped working. We are not sure if the battery has given up the ghost or it is something bigger. It is 6 or 7 years old so it may be just at the end of its’ life despite Ton’s meticulous maintenance. For now we are in possession of a new camera we bought at Costco. While Ton was sorting out the camera and doing some grocery shopping, Ron took Scout for an oil change.
After that we headed out to check out the north part of San Diego county. Once again Ron is shocked that an area he remembers so well from 20 years ago has changed substantially. Oceanside has gentrified tremendously, and Carlsbad is positively upscale now. We really enjoyed checking out the town including the Belching Beaver Brewery, a Pizza place that also brewed beer, and the farmers market. In fact we had such a good time that we decided to spend another night here.
Not sure what Ron is so focused on, a nice brewery called Belching Beaver.
Last night most of the sites around us were empty, when we returned tonight we were surrounded by a bunch of large RV’s. It turns out it is a group of Elks from around Moreno Valley California who are here for the weekend. They seem like a bunch of nice people and invited us to join them tomorrow for a card tournament. We will see.
Ton brought up the idea of heading over to the coast. Our original hope was to stay at the Navy park on Coronado Island in San Diego, but as with every other time we could not get a reservation. We instead are at the Marine Base with an ocean front spot. We are not disappointed with not getting into Coronado.
We started out trying to get up for sunset but did not succeed. Ron ran out to try to get some just past sunset pictures but they did not turn out. On our way out of the park we stopped at one of Tons favorite spots the Cholla garden. The Cholla Cactus has one of the nastiest thorns of any cactus, but it has really nice flowers.
The cholla garden in Joshua Tree.
We took a back road from Palm Springs to Temecula which kept us off the freeways. The highway was called the Pine to Palms Highway and takes you thru the Santa Rosa Mountains. The climb out of Palm Springs is quite steep as you quickly go from Sea Level to 3000 feet. You go from desert to alpine and pass thru at least three different plant types. While the road is windy and narrow for Ron it is less nerve racking than dealing with Southern California Freeways.
We arrived at the beach and as we were setting up a nice couple came up and struck up a conversation about our drive down and the Tiger. Ron was hooking up things and Ton was outside speaking with the wife. A few minutes later Ron noticed water coming out of the truck. Sometime along the way one of us had bumped the water in the kitchen sink on. While we are driving we store some stuff in the sink so that was blocking the drain, and we had a flood. So tonight we are drying out the floor, and some of our dish towels and things are hanging up to dry.
Sunset from our campsite.
We ended the day by doing something we have never done in seven or eight years of camping. We built a campfire and sat on the beach eating our dinner and enjoying the sound of the surf.
Today we visited one of our favorite national parks. Ton really loves cactuses and Joshua Trees. It was originally in our plans for the trip with our friends last fall, but we cut it out due to time constraints, so we decided to head over on our way to the coast.
Near our campsite in Joshua Tree.
The drive took a little longer than we thought, and we ended up driving around for over an hour looking for a place to spend the night. At that point Ron realized that we probably needed fuel, so we ended up driving back out into town to the Marine Base to get fuel. The fuel there was 50 cents a gallon cheaper than in town.
Part of the trip was along an old section of Route 66.
We got back to our campsite just in time for sunset, and had a nice walk shooting pictures of the sunset, rocks and Joshua tree’s. It was also fantastic weather, clear and 79 degrees, so for the first time on the trip we will not need the heater.
Today we did what most Americans do which is watch the Super Bowl. The RV park at Nellis was having a Super Bowl watch party and we signed up to join it . Our son Alex joined us for the party driving back 4 hours from a long planned trip to Phoenix to see us.
The game was unusually good though none of us really cared who won. We all decided to pull for the Eagles as they were the underdogs, and the underdogs won in an exciting way.
A slow day for us. We spent the morning taking care of laundry and using the internet at the office to publish the blog and do some research on next stops for us.
We decided to go to a Chinese Lantern Show that was advertised in the local paper. It looked like it would be interesting and a nice way to spend an evening. It totally blew us away. It was 5 or 6 acres of really complex lanterns, though they did cheat and use led lights instead of candles. Ton killed the battery on her camera taking pictures. We had a hard time selecting a couple of pictures for the blog. It also included a show of Chinese jugglers, acrobats, and a mask dance that was really extraordinary. The young women went thru a series of masks in just a couple of seconds. We have not been able to figure out how she did it, but it was really cool.
This frog changed colors.A famous tea maker.Chinese opera.Pandas.And of course a dragon.This is a traveling show if it ever comes to your town I highly recommend you go.
We moved into the city for the weekend. Today was about a little shopping, giving Scout a bath to knock some of the mud off of her, and going somewhere we could use WiFi to catch up and post the blog. We finished everything except the internet stuff as it turns out we are in the only part of the park that does not have WiFi.
Ron woke up a little early to go for a walk and chase some big horn sheep around for a while trying to get pictures. Ton’s from yesterday were better.
After breakfast we set out to explore the rest of the park. We took a couple of short hikes and really enjoyed ourselves. The weather was perfect for hiking, mid to high 60’s, and we picked a couple of easy places that still gave us wonderful views of the Red sandstone that gives the park it’s name. We really enjoyed Valley of Fire, it is a nice size and has a variety of places to visit. It is the equal of many National Parks for things to see and do.
This Raven kept an eye on us for a few minutes while we were walking.
Our next stop was planned for Lake Mead National Recreation Area if you are wondering what the abbreviation in the title for the day is short for. Ton and I were both surprised by Lake Mead as we thought the Lake would be front and center, and for the first 40 miles it was almost invisible. Instead we had a drive thru a typical Mojave landscape with occasional burst of Red from Sandstone deposits. It was not at all what we expected. We are staying at a campground called Las Vegas Cove. Once again we are parked along a river and the Lake is far away. We enjoyed a nice dinner watching another colorful desert sunset. We managed to actually drive less than 100 miles and were content to park up around 2pm. Maybe we can slow down.
Our alarm was set for 4am so we could get up to witness the eclipse/Blue/Blood/Super moon. The skies were clear, but it was really cold. The temperatures had fallen more than we thought and it must of been around 20 degrees. Ton stuck her head out of the truck and told me to call her when the moon turned Red. I stuck around and watched the eclipse from the inside of the truck. When the moon turned Red I told Ton and she reluctantly rolled out of bed to take a look. After a few minutes she could not get a good picture and was very cold so she decided to get back under the blankets. I followed her a few minutes later. So while we witnessed the eclipse/Blue/Blood/Super moon we have no pictures to prove it, you will have to take our word for it.
Ton loves Joshua trees, we passed this one on the way to Valley of Fire.
After a little nap we got up and headed towards Las Vegas to Valley of Fire State Park. It is about 70 miles from Las Vegas and is quite striking. It has very Red Rocks throughout with many different shapes and forms. As we were arriving we noticed about 100 RV’s parked on BLM land just short of the state park and Lake Mead National Recreation Area. We assume camping is free there and we were tempted to park there for the night, but decided to opt for the State Park and pay the camping fee.
Small arch in Valley of Fire.
After we settled in we went for a short walk near the campground to a site of some Indian petroglyphs. They were quite impressive. Our reward for ponying up for the campground came in seeing 5 big horn sheep a couple of hundred yards from Scout. While we have been in lots of places with signs warning us to watch for big horns we had never actually seen one until today.
Petroglyphs in Valley of Fire.Big Horn sheep near our campground.
I love the west. Today we drove a ridiculous distance thru the Mojave Desert. We wanted to position ourselves to see the Blue Blood Super Moon eclipse tomorrow and decided a good place we had never been before would be Kershaw-Ryan State Park near Caliente Nevada. So to explain tomorrow is a blue moon, the moon is supposed to turn red after the eclipse, and it is a super moon. The only problem it was over 400 miles away. But we decided to go for it and if we were tired in Tonopah we would shorten up the trip.
The drive from Reno to Caliente is thru mostly unoccupied desert. Quite often you do not see anything built by a human for miles and miles. Our route once we got clear of the urban area around Reno was US 95 to Tonopah, US 6 to no where in particular NV351 to a small town we forgot the name of already and US 93 to Caliente. We are familiar with US95 from Fallon to Tonopah as it is the route we take whenever we go to see Alex or to Death Valley, we had one of our flat tires on US95 near Hawthorne a few years ago. We had never been on the rest of the roads on the trip but they were fun and really isolated. Route 6 goes thru long empty valleys with nothing to stop you. The roads are straight as an arrow for miles and miles. Ron began looking at how many miles it was before turns in the road and we had stretches of 11, 14, and the longest of 16 miles of perfectly straight roads.
This stretch of highway was 14 miles without a curve.
NV351 is also known as the extraterrestrial highway as it skirts Area 51 where everyone knows the government is secretly keeping the aliens that come to earth. The businesses along the road know a good thing when they see it so they have set up souvenir stands. We of course stopped and bought a magnet to put on the fridge at home.
Ron could not resist getting his picture taken with an alien.
Our stop for the night was at Kershaw-Ryan, Ron was a little worried about arriving late in the day as it is a small park. There was no need to worry as we have the place to ourselves. it is a pretty location in a little canyon, and all of the facilities look brand new. We went for a short evening stroll, and the Blue-Blood-Super Moon gave us a little preview.
Ton had a restaurant on her bucket list that is near Reno. So we began our day by heading towards Gardnerville to get a Basque meal at JT Basque Restaurant. She had read about this place at a Basque Museum in Boise and she had been looking forward to the next time we passed thru Reno to give it a try. We had the family style meal which included all you could eat soup, salad, beef stew, bread, beans and French Fries, and an entree and a small bottle of wine. The food was superb and it only cost $25 per person. Ton was really pleased and crossed JT’s off her bucket list with all of her expectations met. If you are in the Reno area JT’s is worth the 45 minute drive over to Gardnerville.
After JT’s we headed over to Virginia City. It is one of the most famous boom towns from the gold rush era. At one point it had a population of over 30,000 including Mark Twain who worked at the paper in town. It is in the hills above Reno and has a great collection of mid to late 19th century buildings. It was a nice way to spend the afternoon and we were impressed with the buildings and the setting. We were tempted by a couple of the saloons in town, but were too stuffed from our lunch in Gardnerville to do it. It is probably overrun with tourists in the summer, but was pleasantly quiet in January.
The Red Dog Saloon founded in the gold rush in the 1880’s.
Our last stop was the Costco in Sparks. We were excited because the Sparks Costco had Diesel available and our experience on our Alaska trip was that Costco had by far the cheapest diesel in any town. So after going out of our way and driving during rush hour to get there we were disappointed that the Costco fuel was actually higher than one of the major chain stations in town. This is the first time Costco has let us down.
Today was a driving day as we decided to get serious about chasing warmer temperatures. The drive was long, but very easy as there is almost no traffic on the whole route. When we left we were surrounded by snow for the first two hours. The beginning of the trip was along Oregon State Highway 31 which is one of Ron’s favorite roads. It goes from LaPine to Lakeview, and is really remote and very scenic in a stark way.
After Lakeview you enter California and have to pass thru the state agricultural inspection station. After our experience losing our apples crossing into Canada, Ton was worried about losing our oranges so she had prepared by peeling the oranges and hiding them in the cabinet. Ron was sworn to commit perjury and swear we only had apples and bananas on board. All of this was for nothing because when we arrived at the inspection station it was closed.
We are parked up for the night in a casino campground in Reno. We stop here most of the time when heading south. We may be looking at alternatives after this stop as the area around the casino is deteriorating and the maintenance of the campground is neglected.
Today was a small scale pub crawl thru Bend. After a little shopping in the morning we visited three breweries. Monkless Brewing is one of our favorites in Bend. It is a relatively new brewery, but we really enjoy their beer. The second Brewery was a new one for us called Immersion Brewing. It was also very good though it had a tough time following Monkless. We ended the night at the original Cascade Lakes Brewery this time in Redmond. Ton wanted to see the Civil War Basketball game between Oregon State and the University of Oregon. We reprised our favorite beers from last night and while the game was really sloppy the right team won so all is well.
We are off on a short trip south. The first stop is to see our son Dylan to say Happy Birthday. When we got up to leave a trip of the road status showed 17 inches of new snow on the passes over the mountains to Bend. As a result we decided to take a longer route that would keep us out of the snow.
We found ourselves unexpectedly in the Columbia gorge and coming into Bend from the north. We have talked about the gorge quite often so I won’t say much today. It was mostly dry and thankfully we ran into no snow.
We met Dylan for dinner at Cascade Lakes Brewing. The food was ok, good pub food, and their IPA’s were exceptional.
For the night we are in a camp ground at the fairgrounds expecting 2” of snow and 29 degrees. Ron is looking forward to getting somewhere warm.
