United States – Page 2 – RV Travels in Europe and North America

January 30, 2020 Organ Pipe Cactus NM

The plan for today was to drive the Ajo Mountain Road and hike a couple of the trails along the road. I woke up about 6 am and thought I would go out and watch the sunrise after I made my morning coffee. I made my way to the top of a hill and enjoyed the quiet of the desert morning. The sky was crystal clear which made for a pretty but not spectacular sun rise. I ended up wandering up into the desert and ended up with a nice walk while enjoying my coffee.

I tried a little artistic shot of an Organ Pipe at sunrise, but I miss the real photographer in the family.

After returning to Scout and puttering around for awhile I bought another day for the campground before taking off for the drive. The Ajo Mountain loop is a 21 mile gravel road up into the Ajo’s. Both hikes are near the base of the mountains. One is called Arch trail and is an easy 3 mile out and back, though I never did see the Arch. The other trail is two trails that connect to lead you to an overview that gives you views into Mexico, and back towards Ajo. When I got to this trail I was feeling a little lazy so I decided to hike the flat part and skip the 1000 foot climb to the overlook. I was able to follow two Park Service Rangers out looking at plant life.

Two nice examples of the namesake cactus of the park.

The park is being significantly impacted by the current government immigration policy. A large portion of the wall is being built across the valley floor at the base of the Monument.

It was early afternoon when I returned to the campground for lunch. I was planning one more short hike from the campground for the afternoon, but instead I ended up talking to my neighbor John for a couple of hours about Tiger ownership, military experience, and blogs. John and Yvette’s blog is www.theturtleandthetiger.com, it is their adventures full timing in a Tiger around the US.

This bird was singing up a storm when I went by.

Before I realized it it was dinner time and time for me to do my evening catch up with Ton. I ended the day with another interesting Ranger Talk on how nocturnal animals navigate in low light. The Ranger talks are one of my favorite things about the parks, and the young men and women who share their passion for the parks and nature always gives me a warm feeling.

January 29, 2020 Organ Pipe Cactus NM

Today I reached the target for the trip. When I was looking for places to go both Ton and Dylan my son said that I should visit Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. So I am here now, and I am really glad they recommended this place.

I was pretty low on fuel so the plan was to find a gas station before I left Yuma. I plugged the Monument into Greta and she gave me a different route than I took yesterday but I figured there would be a gas station on the way. The route took me through an extensive agricultural area in the desert. I learned why the Proving Grounds tested bridges in the desert as the Colorado River runs thru Yuma. The agricultural area is a result of tapping the river water.

The green of the fields against the desert mountains was jarring.

I ended up on the Interstate without gas and I really needed gas so I got off at the first available fuel. When I pulled up to the pump they were really gouging so I put in enough to get me to the exit from the freeway. A little further up the freeway I saw fuel at a reasonable price so I filled up. With the fuel problem solved I headed on down to the Monument.

The drive thru the back country was pretty quiet, with no towns for about 70 miles until I came into the old mining town of Ajo. My family has a connection with Ajo as my sister lived there for a few years. On the way out I plan on stopping to check it out.

The drive into the monument is lined with all types of cactuses not just the Organ Pipes that the monument is named after. On arrival I was a little worried about campground availability so I headed up there but there was plenty of room and the Ranger told me I could pick any spot that had a green card on it. As I was driving in I saw another Tiger like ours which is pretty rare. The spot next to it was empty so there are two Tigers parked side by side. The couple is from Massachusetts and they are full timing in their Tiger.

Scout parked up next to a large Saguaro cactus.

Once I settled in and finished lunch I decided to head for the visitors center along a walking trail where I got an introduction to all of the different types of cactus in the Sonora desert.

There are four types of cactus in this photo if you look carefully.

They were giving a Ranger talk when I got to the visitors center so I caught the end of it. After I consulted with one of the volunteers and made a plan for the next couple of days I headed back to Scout to prepare dinner. After dinner I spoke to my other neighbors who are also from the west side of Portland and finished the day with another Ranger talk on coyotes.

January 28, 2020 Yuma AZ

Today turned into a shopping day. I wanted to swing by a couple of military bases to pick up some food and stuff. Yuma has both an Army testing area, and a Marine Corps Air Station.

I started at the Army base as they have a RV camp and I needed to dump and get some water. While I was in there I asked about availability and they said they had only one spot available so I moved on to the Marines.

After a run thru their stores it was early afternoon and I had to decide what to do. I had a couple of options there is a National Wildlife Refuge in the area so I headed over to their headquarters to look at the option. The nearest place I could camp was about 90 minutes away. I checked the next option which was to head on to Organ Pipe National Monument and that was over 2 hours away. I decided to call the Army to see if they still had that spot and they did so I headed over there for the night.

The base does ordnance testing, is the sight of the armed forces High Altitude Low Opening (HALO) parachuting school, which is done by special operations, and interestingly the place where they test bridging equipment despite the fact that it is in the middle of the Sonora Desert.

A WWII Sherman tank on display at Yuma Proving Grounds.

At the base entrance they have an interesting display of old armor and artillery that I stopped in to take a look at. This place was a major training area during WWII with three infantry divisions going thru here before heading to Europe. I wandered thru the old equipment for a while. Included in the display was an example of the howitzer that I worked on during my first two years in the Marines.

The M101 105mm howitzer that I operated during my first two years in the Marines.

By the campground they had an interesting display of a land train concept that was trialed at this base during the early 1960’s. The concept was to have a train that did not run on rails and was capable of going across country off of roads. The thinking was that this would allow for flexible logistics. The train consisted of a command unit, two power units, and 10 wagons. The entire thing was over 500 feet long. They tested it here for 3 years before abandoning the concept.

The command unit of the land train. The back includes quarters for 6 people. The wheels are over 10 feet tall.

January 27, 2020 Quartzite AZ

I wanted to swing by Quartzite AZ which is an interesting part of the RV culture. In the winter the town of 5000 year round residents swells to as many as 500,000 people as RV’s by the thousands descend on the town to enjoy cheap sunshine and parking.

I took my time leaving in the morning as I wanted the rush hour traffic in Las Vegas to settle before setting off. The drive was an uneventful 200 miles thru the Mojave desert. While the landscape was desert there are subtle differences. The valleys between the mountains are generally much wider, and on this drive the sage brush is gone and you begin to see various types of cactus. I really enjoy driving thru the desert as you realize how harsh and tough an environment it is.

I arrived around lunch time and the town was busy, but I missed the biggest week of the year by one day. Once a year there is a RV show under a giant tent in the desert that is supposed to be the biggest in the country. During that week an estimated 500,000 people attend the show. Thousands of RV’s park in the BLM land surrounding the town. Today driving from Las Vegas to Quartzite I easily passed a couple of hundred RV’s heading home from Quartzite.

I did a quick driving tour of the town and then headed over to the giant tent as there were a lot vendors set up there even though the show was over. I ended up in a giant flea market. I walked over to see the giant tent and imagined 500,000 people swarming it last week. I took a turn thru the flea market but could not find anything I needed so I decided to head out of town.

One of several vendor areas like giant flea markets around Quartzite. The theme is RV’s, Americana, and Seniors.

When I got to Scout I realized that Arizona is on Mountain Time in the winter so it was an hour later than I thought so I decided to find a place locally. Leaving town I saw a BLM office surrounded by several hundred RV’s so I pulled in there. When I went in the office they told me it would be $40 for a week, I asked if they had a nightly fee, but it was one week or nothing for this site. As I was walking out the volunteer told me that if I went up the road five miles I would see a bunch of RV’s parked on BLM land and that site was free for up to 14 days. So tonight I am parked up with several hundred other RV’s for free about 7 miles from Quartzite.

Scout on his free site courtesy of the BLM.

January 26, 2020 Las Vegas NV

It is a short one today. Alex and I met in the morning and had a buffet at one of the casinos at the strip. We then walked the strip and did some people watching, and kept up with the news of Kobe Bryants death.

Alex had a baby shower to attend so I went back and cleaned scout, and did some laundry. Alex joined me again for dinner and we had a good father son talk it was an enjoyable day for me.

Scout tucked in among all of the giant RV’s at Las Vegas RV Resort.

January 25, 2020 Las Vegas NV

Today was a quiet day in Las Vegas with Alex my son. He is an elementary school teacher here and has been at the same school for 6 years. I realized I had never seen his classroom so I asked if he could show me. He walked me thru the school for about 30 minutes and told me about the joys and the trials of teaching. While he has a lot of frustrations, he truly enjoys what he is doing and works very hard to help his kids. I am proud of him.

Alex wearing the local Hockey Teams logo with Chinese Characters.

After that we just drove around the non-tourist part of Las Vegas, visiting the hockey team training facility (Alex is a big fan), a teachers supply store, and had a nice lunch. We ended the day at the casino down the street watching the Lakers game on TV.

January 24, 2020 Las Vegas NV

I woke early and prepared Scout for the trip to Las Vegas. As I was leaving the park we drove by Zabriske point and it was sunrise so I pulled in for a quick look at what is my favorite view in the country. While beautiful it was different than yesterday and colder with some wind. I took one picture and then moved on for the day.

With an early start I rolled into Las Vegas about 9:30 am and the check in for the campground was noon so I got directions to a car wash to knock some of the grime off of Scout. I can now touch the side of scout without having to wash my hands. A quick stock up at the grocery, and I headed over and the campground let me check in early.

I met my son Alex for an excellent Mexican meal at a Freida themed restaurant in the arts district. The arts district is an interesting part of Las Vegas. It looks to me like the old downtown before gambling took over the town, and Las Vegas was a rail and cattle stop. After the meal we walked the four or five blocks looking at some funky stores and bars that could fit into Portland, Seattle, or San Francisco. Las Vegas’ little center of hipsterdom.

January 23, 2020 Death Valley NP

I woke up early and decided to head over to one of my favorite places. Zabriske point overlooks the gold canyon, and after today I think it is my favorite view in the US. I have been thinking about places that I really enjoy, and Zabriske point at sunrise is hard to beat. My writing style (military log book may be the best description) does not allow me to do justice to the beauty of Zabriske point at sunrise. The way the light cascades over the desert and hits the different colored light is magical to me. I could spend days on end watching sunrises there and never tire of it.

I do not have the photographic skills or equipment to do Zabriske at Sunrise justice.

Now that I was up early I had to decide what to do until my first planned event of the day which was a ranger talk at the old borax production site and mine. I headed over to the visitors center to watch the park movie to get some ideas. The movie was good and I enjoyed it but I did not get any ideas. So I finally just started driving north up the valley to see if anything drew my attention and before I knew it I was near Beatty Nevada which is the closest source of reasonable fuel so I decided to head over there to top off Scout. The fuel at the center of the park is $5.37 a gallon which must be close to the most expensive fuel in the US. There are two gas stations in Beatty one was $3.20 and the other was $3.09 when I tried the $3.09 the pump told me to go see the cashier. The cashier told me that their system was down and they could not do credit transactions, I asked about debit and she told me with a bit of an attitude that it was the same system and today was cash only. I went down the street and paid the higher amount with a credit card.

I ended up being late for the ranger talk due to my running around Beatty. I watched the last few minutes. A lot of the people at the talk were like me attending every talk while they were in the park so I was beginning to recognize faces. One guy told me I had to try the Indian Fried Bread Taco at the Timbisha Shoshone reservation in the park. The Timbisha are the native Americans who lived in this area. I decided to follow the recommendation, though I doubt this is really traditional fare of the tribe as beans, cattle, and corn would not have been native to this area. But as some one in France when I asked if a dance was traditional, he said no, but it could be in a hundred years. So Fried Bread Tacos may be traditional Timbisha food in 100 years. I now have had one, and I can cross it off my list.

One of the original 40 mule team wagons used to haul Borax out of the canyon in the 1880’s, the rear wheels are over six feet tall. The rear wagon is a water tanker as there was only water source on the 10 day trip.

I spent the afternoon hiking Mosaic Canyon a nice flash flood canyon with interesting rock formations. The road to the trail head was a mess and gave Scout a workout, but the first 400 yards of the trail were worth the drive. The ability of water to carve the rocks in the west never ceases to amaze me. The rest of the hike was nice but not super spectacular.

Mosaic Canyon had about 300 yards where water has cut down to the bedrock which is quite pretty.

I ended the day with a nice ranger talk at sunset at Mesquite dunes.

January 22, 2020 Death Valley NP

I started the day by heading over to the visitors center to see what ranger talks were available today. I was there as they opened and one of the Rangers was running up the flag for the day. I talked to her on the way back in after the flag was done, she told me there were two talks for the day and she was leading one of them.

So with a little time to kill until the first talk at gold canyon, I decided to do a little exploring. I had noticed a sign for another campground above the one we usually stay in here. The problem with Sunset campground is that there is no electricity so all of the big RV’s run their generators all day to power all of the stuff in them. They require generators to be shut down from 7pm to 8am, but nothing ruins sitting outside to enjoy the sunset than the buzz of three or four generators running around you. The Texas Spring campground costs $1 more than Sunset but is generator free and prettier so I moved up here and bought two nights.

Part of Artists Pallette Drive. A really nice one way drive in the park on the way to Badwater.

The first talk of the day was in gold canyon which is one of Ton and my favorite hikes in Death Valley. The person leading it was not a ranger but a young man on an internship at the park. He took the duty very seriously and one thing I learned is that some of Star Wars 1 The Return of the Jedi was filmed in the canyon. Besides that I learned a great deal about fan canyons which Death Valley is famous for.

The second talk was at Badwater Basin which is the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 280 feet below sea level. It is one of the must stop photo stops in the park. Besides being the lowest spot in the West it is also an interesting salt flat, and does have a spring which is 4 times saltier than sea water.

Badwater Basin, the lowest spot in the Western Hemisphere.

I returned to Texas Springs for sunset and climbed a hill above the campground to watch the sunset. Since the mountains on the west side of the valley are about 5000 feet higher than the valley but quite close, sunset happens about an hour and a half before the light fades which is kind of weird.

January 21, 2020 Death Valley NP

The original plan was to drive to Tonopah NV which was about 250 miles. I woke early and while I took my time getting going and doing a trip to Walmart to get some supplies I was still on the road at 8:15.

The route thru central Nevada goes thru some more remote land, though not quite as remote as yesterday. The roads are pretty good, straight as an arrow and posted at 70mph. I took it easy and cruised at 65mph, and while there was not much traffic it was all faster than me including tankers and semi-trucks.

I ‘m not sure what this thing was, but I was diverted to the shoulder so it could get past, and it had another truck hooked to the back to push.

The highlight of the drive was a giant gold mine at a place called Round Mountain Nevada. Gold was originally discovered there around 1880 and it was a very large and initially easy strike as it was surface gold. Over time while there was quite a bit of gold still around it became much more difficult to get at, and according to the signpost at the mine all of the different techniques for gold mining have been used there. At one point it was abandoned, but as mining technique became more sophisticated the mine was reopened and now it is quite a spectacular operation. It is now a pit mine and there are extremely large trucks moving the dirt form the hole to the site where it is processed. I stopped and watched these oversized dump trucks run up and down the hill for a while before moving on to Tonopah.

The Round Mountain Gold Mine with one of the giant dump trucks moving dirt from the pit to the processing area.

It was only about 12:30 when I got to Tonopah, and thanks to the miracle of satellite technology I was immersed in the Arsenal v Chelsea game on the radio so I decided to press on to Death Valley today. This turned todays drive into 380 miles. I arrived about 3 and went into the visitors center to register when I realized I was now eligible for the Golden Age pass which is a lifetime pass for all of the parks in the US. It also gives you 50% off at campgrounds. So taking advantage of my senior status and $80 I now have lifetime access, and half off in the campgrounds. Publishing this is probably going to be delayed as there is no internet at the campground, and really marginal phone service.

Sunset looking at the Panamint Mountains from the campground.

January 20, 2020 Winnemucca NV

Winnemucca Nevada has been on my radar since last year when we passed thru on the way home. I liked the name and it had an interesting history. It got its start as a railroad stopover on the intercontinental rail road. Their are several large gold mines in the area, and one of it’s banks was robbed by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It has a Basque heritage, and boasts of five Basque restaurants in town. The final reason is that it was only 230 miles from Bend and seemed like a reasonable distance for the day.

Windshield shot of the loneliest road in Oregon. Don’t worry about my safety, I was in the middle of a 10 mile straight stretch of highway without a car in site in either direction.

The first 150 miles of the trip was on Oregon Highway 78 which has to be one of the emptiest highways in the continental US. About 30 miles outside of Burns is a gas station and the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT, it comes up again later!) has put up a sign warning motorists that there will not be any fuel for the next 120 miles. Ton and I have driven this road several times in our visits to eastern Oregon and we always comment on the lack of man made objects. This time because I was by myself and had nothing better to do I paid attention, and for a 48 mile stretch of OR78 there are no visible permanent man made objects except the road and the power lines adjacent to it. For a 100 mile stretch of OR78 and US95 there are six man made objects, I kept track. In this stretch all you see are 2 ODOT facilities for road maintenance, 1 radar site for either the military or the FAA, 1 cell/microwave tower, and 2 very lonely ranches. It is hard to envision the emptiness of south east Oregon.

Typical scene along OR78. Sagebrush desert virtually unaltered by man.

Last night while researching things to do on the drive today I came across an entry for Paradise Valley in the Nevada tourism site. It had an interesting history as a gold mining town in the 1880’s and was billed by Nevada tourism as a living ghost town. The blurb showed a couple of interesting pictures. It was close to my route so I decided to swing over for lunch. I know that selling tourism in north central Nevada is tough but they really exaggerated the ghost town. What is there is a small farming community with a couple of well maintained churches, a few nice houses and some derelict buildings that are old. It is certainly no ghost town, and really shows the power of what a good photographer can do to make a mundane site look interesting.

I arrived in Winnemucca around 1:30 and checked into a very nice campground a couple of miles out of town. I was debating what to do for the rest of the day but I had noticed that there was a brand new sidewalk all of the way from town to the campground, so I decided if Winnemuca had gone thru all of that trouble to build a sidewalk I should use it. The walk into town was nice as I spent a lot of it chatting with Ton. The town itself was kind of disappointing. I expected more, but it looks like Winnemuca’s downtown has suffered from the suburbanization of it’s shopping so there was not much going on downtown. The tourist information office/museum was closed, and none of the other stores looked interesting. The restaurants looked shabby, and they do not brew beer in town. So after walking around a while I headed back to Scout and cooked up some of Ton’s Larb, which is my favorite Thai food.

January 19, 2020 Burns OR

We realized that Scout has been lonely in the driveway and has not moved in nearly a year. This is definitely not good for a RV so we were looking for an opportunity to take a trip before we take our spring trip to Europe. Ton has a much more active social life than I do and she was having a hard time freeing up time, and she is also not a fan of cold weather camping. On the other hand I had time on my hands and was going a little stir crazy at home so we made a decision for me to take Scout out on a trip by myself, this means the pictures are not going to be as good. I do not have an agenda besides getting out of the gloom of Oregon and finding some sun. The initial thought is to head towards Arizona.

Today was about getting over the mountains before the next storm runs thru and makes crossing over the passes difficult. Ton and I spent the last couple of days stocking up Scout for the trip. She was even nice enough to cook some of my favorite meals so I can microwave them. So I was ready to make an early start as the best stop for the first night was Burns which is about 330 miles. Last year we took a different route home thru central Nevada and it was really beautiful, so I decided to head south that way and this long drive would get me in position to do it.

The weather was clear and pretty warm on the west side of the mountains, but as I climbed up the temperature began to fall until it reached freezing and a there were a couple of accidents. One of the accidents involved two cars and was pretty serious. Some people get careless and try to drive too fast. One fool even tried to pass two snow plows that were spreading cinders until the guy in the plow made it clear that was not going to happen. Between the accidents and the snow plows the trip over the passes took a while.

Detroit Lake Reservoir had been drained in preparation to receive the spring snow melt. It made for an eerie picture.

Once I descended down the weather was good and the skies were clear. Eastern Oregon was its’ rugged and remote finest for the last three hours of the trip. I love the emptiness of the high desert. Last winter the campground we usually stay at was closed when we went thru here and we ended up in a hotel. This year I checked and their website indicated they were open, and sure enough they were. So all ends well today and I hope my longest drive is behind me.

Mt. Bachelor and the Three Sisters were out today once I crossed over the mountains.

October 2, 2019 Sens FR

We made it back to France. This time the trip was on Delta Airlines and unlike our previous flight on Icelandic they provided plenty of food for free. Another bonus is that they are flying 767’s on the route from Seattle to Paris which comes with 2-3-2 seating so Ton and I had our two seats to ourselves which is another bonus.

We were impressed the first time we arrived at Charles DeGaulle airport as there was no wait at all for immigration. This time was absolutely the opposite, there were easily a couple of thousand people in the arrival hall and the crowd had spilled outside the roped off area into a hallway where people fed in from three different directions so getting a line of any type formed out there was going to take some effort on someone’s part, unfortunately the people working there chose not to be the ones to make the effort, so the passengers did their best to organize things. it took nearly two hours to clear immigration.

The rest of the trip worked as planned with our normal train ride from the airport to downtown, a short trip on the metro to Gare DeBercy and a train to Sens. Overall from leaving our house to arriving at the hotel in Sens was a 28 hour trip.

June 25, 2019 Portland OR

Except for a terrible check in process Iceland Airlines got us home on time, and relatively comfortably. This was our longest trip so far at 8 weeks.

City scene from Flanders, this style of building is popular in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.

We visited 6 countries if you count our unplanned drive thru Austria on our way to Garmisch. We spent time in France, Germany, The Netherlands (one day), Belgium and Luxembourg. Germany is a very easy country to travel in. The roads are good and we fell into the habit of using the Autobahn which cut our drive time down quite a bit at the expense of seeing the countryside. There is a lot to see and we found the cities very comfortable to visit. I enjoyed seeing the former East Germany and found it very interesting, though the differences between the East and West to an outsider are fading fast. We really enjoyed Belgium, it is a charming country with some really pretty cities. Bruges is popular for a reason and was probably the prettiest city we visited.

Once again we ran out of time and ended up skipping some planned stops in Germany including Nuremburg and Berlin. So far we have had a hard time making capital cities on our trips. In Belgium we missed Wallonia completely, and I would like to give the Ardennes region there a look. Based on our day in Maastricht and talking with the many Netherlanders we met we have added the Netherlands to our countries to visit.

We covered about 5000km on this trip, (not an exact number because I forgot to note the starting mileage.) Besides the mystery leak when we are in monsoon like conditions François performed well. We are really enjoying Europe so far.

A view from the road in France, you really cannot beat the back country in France.

The final question; who has the better beer? I think it is Belgium by a mile, and Ton also votes for Belgium.

January 30, 2019 Portland OR

A pretty easy day after yesterdays marathon drive. We woke up a little later, had breakfast, and except for a pit stop in Costco we had a pretty uneventful trip. Our only problem was getting rid of our waste water. There was a rest area near Burns that had a dump facility, but when we got there the valve to release the gray water was frozen so we could not dump there. As we drove west we stopped at every possible place along the route, until we finally got rid of the water near home. It probably added an hour to our trip.

The Three Sisters in the Cascade Mountains.

January 29, 2019 Burns OR

Today we drove across the great basin of the US. The great basin is an old inland sea that covers most of Nevada and Utah, and parts of California and Oregon. Ton and I have always enjoyed the area. To give you an idea of how remote and varied this area is we drove 600 miles and the largest town we passed thru was Winnemuca Nevada which has a population of 7500 people. Generally it is about 100 miles between towns, and in between towns there is very little to see but mountains and deserts. We started the trip at 200 feet below sea level in Death Valley, and reached an altitude of just over 7000 feet near Austin Nevada. We drove a ridiculous distance today, but really enjoyed ourselves.

We woke up early as we had both fell asleep very early the night before. Since we were up we decided to head on out. We hit the home button on the GPS and it told us it was 896 miles to home following the quickest route. We usually pick a place we are heading for but today we decided to just follow the GPS and to find a place to park for the night when we ran out of steam.

Everything was going as we expected following highway 95, when we drive to Las Vegas we follow US95 from Reno to there so we knew this route, but in Tonopah the GPS told us to turn off 95 and follow US6 instead. We decided what the heck and followed her directions. She had us turn onto Nevada 376 which had us a little worried, but the road looked good so we decided to go ahead. It turned into a fun decision. We found the kind of road we love, heading thru wide open country with high mountains on either side. Towns were few and far between. Near the town of Round Mountain, we came across an immense gold mine which ran for about 8 miles along the road.

This picture looks like an impressionist painting, but Ton took it with her iPhone.

Eventually we came to US50 which we followed for about 30 miles to Nevada 305, another wide open road thru a valley called Antelope Valley for about 120 miles. The highlite was another mine which was even bigger than the one at Round Mountain, but we think was for Copper. At the town of Battle Mountain we joined I-80 for about 50 miles before turning north on US97. We followed US 97 to the Nevada/Oregon border and at that point had about 480 miles under our belt. We talked about parking up there, but we were on a roll and decided to keep going.

Ton is very proud of this picture, though it looks like a black and white picture it is color.

The last 120 miles were on US97 and OR78 was actually the most remote part of the road yet. For an 80 mile stretch the only man made structures we saw were a Road Maintenance station and a military radar site. When we rolled into Burns it was dark, and the RV park we had stayed in previously in the winter is now closed for the season. We had to scramble for a place to stay, but it was worth it.

Another Impressionist picture from the trip.

January 28, 2019 Death Valley NP

We are both still struggling a little bit with our medical issues so it is time to head home so we can see see our proper Doctors. Ron prefers to drive home east of the Sierra Nevada mountains rather than deal with the heart of California so we left San Diego and headed north and east towards one of our favorite National Parks to spend the night.

The drive to Death Valley was pretty uneventful, even the traffic from San Diego to San Bernardino while dense was moving pretty well with no significant slow downs. After you get out of the southern California metropolis, you quickly get into the Mojave and go from bumper to bumper freeway traffic to almost no traffic as you travel thru the desert.

When we arrived at Death Valley we checked in to see what had reopened after the shutdown. It turns out only a couple of the campgrounds have been re-opened so we are in a big gravel lot across from the visitors center with about 100 other RV’s. We took a walk and Ton got some nice sunset pictures, and we had a couple of short conversations with some of out other campers before settling in for the night.

January 27, 2019 San Diego CA

Today is Dylan’s birthday so we planned a big day around town to celebrate. We started out with a seafood brunch at Point Loma Seafood. It is part fishmonger and part restaurant, definitely a laid back California experience, but the food was really exceptional, and was a good start to the day.

Our next stop was Cabrillo National Monument on a bluff overlooking San Diego harbor. This was the first day it was open after the government shutdown and a lot of people were coming out to use the facilities. It is an interesting place located on former military property with stunning views of the harbor and the ocean. The monument has exhibitions on Spanish explorers, as it is believed the monument contains the landing place of the Spanish explorer who was the first European to land in San Diego. It also has a whale watching platform, some nice tidal pools, and exhibits on the military uses of the area. We really enjoyed it.

The Cabrillo Monument to the first European to see San Diego Harbor.

Next we headed over to another San Diego brewery located right next to Point Loma Seafood. We had a couple of rounds of really excellent Lagers and IPA’s and were quite impressed with Epigg Brewing. Our next stop was going to be Pariah brewery for Pizza and beer. When we got there Pizza was not available so we headed down the road for a great Mexican meal to wrap up the day. Thanks Dylan for a fun week in San Diego.

The shore line at Cabrillo National Monument.

January 26, 2019 San Diego CA

Dylan suggested we head up to San Juan Capistrano to visit the mission there. It is about an hour north of here and you have to transit thru Camp Pendleton. The Marines were out playing today. There was an amphibious ship off shore, and we saw some ship to shore movement including some helicopters, and amphibious tractors. It brought back some nice memories for Ron.

A CH-53 helicopter stopping traffic on I-5 as it passes thru Camp Pendleton.

San Juan Capistrano is one of the best preserved of the California Missions. When the Spanish were colonizing Alta California in the 1700’s they built a string of missions along the coast about one days horse ride apart. Each mission was part fort and part Catholic church. They were designed to encourage the native Americans to convert to Catholicism. California uses the missions as part of the 4th grade curriculum for elementary schools. We remember helping Alex with the construction of his model mission when we lived in California. The mission at San Juan Capistrano used to be famous for an annual return of swallows to the mission. These days the swallows are going some where else due to urbanization around the mission.

The interior of the chapel at Mission San Juan Capistrano.

After the mission we stopped at a couple of breweries, and swung by Walmart to by a new water hose for Scout as our old one gave up the ghost yesterday. We have been really impressed with the quality of the breweries in San Diego.

January 25, 2019 San Diego CA

This morning Dylan came over to give us his car for the day. We planned a shopping trip to stock up for the ride home, and to pick up a couple of things only available in California.

After spending the morning shopping on the Navy Base, we joined Dylan for a nice pizza lunch in a restaurant in his neighborhood. After lunch we headed over to Costco to pick up Ton’s favorite noodles that are only available in California. When Dylan finished work he joined us at the RV park for dinner and a couple of good Oregon micro brews we had brought down. We had a nice chat for a couple of hours before turning in for the night.

The good news is that the government shutdown is over, and Dylan will be able to return to a normal schedule on Monday. He was telling us that he attended a conference in Washington during the shutdown, and despite the shutdown they arranged for him to get a tour of the Department of Interior headquarters. He said it was quite weird walking thru the empty building with the Christmas decorations still up in mid-January.