2008 – Week 22

Tuesday, September 23, 2008:
We awoke this morning to the sound of sea lions, and actually whenever we were up last night, the sea lions were carrying on. Susie wonders if they ever sleep! Susie worked on her drawings in the morning before we left the campground at 10:30am. We drove around the public part of the Monterey Peninsula before paying $9.25 to drive through the private section. The oceanfront was clean and the waves crashed onto the rocks with vigor.

Unfortunately, if you went to look at the houses, most of what we saw was underwhelming. There were a few unique house designs that took advantage of the ocean views, but a lot of the stuff look like they were built in the 1970’s and never had any work done on them. More telling was the large number of ‘For Sale’ signs. We left the drive in Carmel and went to the Mission San Carlos Borromeo. The Mission was started in Monterey in 1770, but moved to Carmel in 1771 to be near the river and a source of fresh water. The church was built of native sandstone and took 4 years to complete. It was dedicated in 1797. A mortuary chapel was added in 1821. With the United States taking possession of the area, the buildings began to fall into disrepair, and it wasn’t until 1884 that efforts were made to save the structure. In 1931, another effort was made and was successful, and the buildings are still available for tourists to spend time there. We spent about an hour there and then decided to go to Los Lobos State Park and have lunch. Unfortunately they didn’t allow pets. We continued south on CA1 and noticed that the mountains came down right on the coastline. Most of the time we were about 100-200 feet above sea level viewing the wonderful blue ocean that turned to blue-green at the shore due to a sandy bottom. We stopped several times, but the most impressive was Hurricane Point, just a bit north of Point Sur. We had lunch and took pictures of the ocean, Point Sur and the mountains and road with a bridge to the north. Point Sur has a lighthouse that is located, along with numerous buildings on a tall and large rock formation that is still attached to the mainland, but just barely, by a sandy beach. We could have driven out there, but we saw only a single lane road and decided no. We had not seen many bicyclists so far, but all of a sudden they were eveywhere. We even saw a man riding a unicycle! We saw so many that we began to wonder if there was some sort of race underway. A few minutes later we saw a sign about the ‘California Coast Classic’. We don’t know where it started or where it ended, but it was a bit scary along this road, often with no shoulders. We passed the Point Piedras Blancas Lighthouse (I think), a very unique structure. It looked like a small version of a concrete cooling tower that you see around nuclear power plants. We continued past the William Randolph Hearst Castle, but did not stop since we had seen it before and once was enough. We eventually came into the town of Morro Bay where the skyline is dominated by Morrow Rock and 3 chimneys for an electric generating station. We wanted to be on the beach and so went to a RV Park, but it was undergoing renovations, and we figured we wouldn’t get any sleep, especially in the morning. We moved on the Morrow Bay State Park where we found a nice spot, or so we thought, until Susie noticed feathers on the ground and white spots on the asphalt. She looked up and saw at least a dozen turkey vultures roosting in the tree nearby. We moved the RV as far back as we could, but nothing will stay outside tonight. This State Park has numerous eucalyptus trees and before the smoke from campfires overwhelmed their smell, it was an unusual scent for us. Tomorrow we head further south, probably past Santa Barbara, after visiting another mission and town constructed in the style of a Danish village.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008:
It was 57 degrees and 72% humidity when I got up this morning to take Daisy for her walk. We walked into the very large eucalyptus trees and through the thick fog. We walked to the marina and looked at all the boats, some of which were wood and beautifully maintained. We did some chores, calling people, renting a U-Haul trailer in San Antonio, etc. We took showers and finally left the park at 11:30am and headed south. The fog was still so think that we were not able to see Morro Rock. Once again, once we were about 2 miles inland, the fog cleared, but the temperature didn’t rise terribly. As we were trying to get to the La Purisima Mission State Historic Park, there was road construction, Gabby Garmin seemed a bit confused, and we ended up going an extra 14 miles before we were straightened out. We bought lunch of malted shakes, hamburger and french fries. The extra miles were through quite an extensive area of vegetables, flowers and vineyards. The vegetables were being picked, and we noticed that the laborers wore hooded sweatshirts even though the temperature was in the mid-80’s. California must supply a very large percentage of the fresh vegetables for the US because they are farming wherever there is good land and water. We finally reached La Purisima Mission and had an enjoyable walk through the buildings that had been restored by the CCC in the late 1930’s. According to the brochures, this Mission was designed to hold 1,000 people, but the maximum number was less than 900. The first Mission was founded in 1787, and construction took several years. In 1812, a massive earthquake destroyed the original structures and a new set of structures was started in a new location 10 miles north. This site took 7 years to construct. In 1834, the Mission was sold to private owners as a ranch and was abandoned to the weather and time. In 1934 the CCC started reconstruction and the Mission was dedicated as a State Park on December 7, 1941. We spent about an hour there, and then moved on to the town of Solvang. Danish people started this town and to this day the buildings and shops maintain that theme. There was a Farmers Market, and Susie bought more fresh fruit for our trip. We didn’t stay long and headed back to the Pacific Coast for the night to prepare for the drive to Joshua Tree National Park. We pulled into the Refugio State Beach Campground where there were only 4 spots available. This is a surfer’s haven, and there are surfboards and wet suits everywhere. The camper next to us was a neighbor from hell, or so it seems to us. He talked long and loud on his cellphone, used a leaf blower to blow stuff around the site, and had too long a leash on his dog. Daisy and I took a walk to the beach and passed numerous large campfires, but no noise. As we looked out over the water, the sun had set and we saw 2 oil drilling rigs all lighted up and the masthead light of a small sailboat anchored off the beach. Too bad I wasn’t a bit earlier with my camera. Later Susie, Daisy and I took a last look at the ocean and the stars when we saw a bright light to the north. It was waving back and forth, and my immediate reaction was lighthouse. That turned out not to be the case as a southbound Amtrak train rolled into view. We decided it was time to go to bed. We plan to leave here at 9:00am, hopefully most of the traffic will be gone (if that ever happens in this area) and the trip to Joshua Tree NP not too strenuous. We need to find a self-service carwash to give the RV a good scrub!

Thursday, September 25, 2008:
Up this morning to see our last view of the Pacific Ocean. Susie had gotten herself turned around this morning and wasn‘t sure when north was. Of course, it wasn’t made any easier by the fact that the CA Coast where we had camped ran east/west. We left the Beach at 9:15am and traveled south on US101. We declined the opportunity to take CA1 along the coast because we believed it would take longer. We had decided to stay as far north of Los Angeles as possible so when the opportunity presented itself, we took CA134 that eventually turned into I-210. 180 miles later we needed gas so we stopped, and I asked the gas station attendant if there was a do-it-yourself car wash nearby. There was and only a 1/4 –mile down the road. I washed while Susie made lunch, but there are some bad stains that that would not come out after 2 pressure washings and 2 soap brush washings. It is certainly better than before, but it will take same work when we get home. I’m not sure what made the stains, but it seems to be from the roof, maybe bird droppings from Morro Bay SP? We saw a wind farm of about 200+ turbines while driving along I-10. We were in a mountain pass, and the turbines were placed to take advantage of the concentration of the wind as it passed through the pass. The wind farm was much longer than wide. Parts of this farm must have been in service for a long time as numerous turbines were smaller and less distance off the ground. Susie drove the rest of the way to Joshua Tree NP, and at the Visitor Center we learned that the Mormans had named the Joshua Tree. The outside temperature was 99 degrees and 15% humidity, and the building used a ‘swamp cooler’ for air-conditioning. The ‘swamp cooler’ is a device that has a water source that wets a series of water bags through which air is blown. It really works, but only because of the very low humidity. It would not work in MD! Joshua Tree NP is an amazing collection of granite and gneiss and trees.

The granite has come from below, through the gneiss rock, and has been worn and broken so that there a collection of big rocks may have been one very much large granite piece. Some of the pieces were smooth and others have a texture similar to stucco. We went to Keys View peak so that we could have a good look around, but the LA smog and a group of very nasty bees made us decide to turn around and go to the Jumbo Rocks Campground.
There are very few people here because the season starts later in the year and ends in April. We tucked in behind a big rock, and with the sun setting at 6:37pm, it started to cool off quickly. We cooked outside, and I wrote most of this while sitting at the picnic table. I was scared out of my wits by Daisy barking, jumping up and running to the end of her leash. This area is too desolate for most dangerous animals, but I had forgotten that. The stars were very visible tonight, actually better than last night because of less light pollution. I had planned to spend 2 nights here, but it looks as if one will do it.

Friday, September 26, 2008:
As we move east, the sun rises earlier! Susie and I took a hike to Skull Rock this morning before it got too hot. Skull Rock is piece of monzogranite that has been eroded so that when you look at it, it looks like a human skull .It has a nose, nostrils and eye sockets.

By the time we returned to the RV the temperature had climbed, and we turned the generator and AC on while we prepared the RV for the road. We left the campground and commented to each other that it was really a neat place and somewhat similar to others we have seen during earlier trips. Susie wanted more photos of Joshua Trees so we did that. We looked at information plaques that told of the Pinto Gneiss and Monzogranite and how they had interacted. The Pinto Gneiss is dark brown, almost black and the Monzogranite is tan. This granite does not seem to be as hard as other granite we have seen, and we say that because the material on the ground around the large rocks is small coarse pebbles and lots of them. We left the Mojave Desert section of the park and dropped down about 2,000 feet in altitude to the Colorado Desert. The plant life is very much different and sparse. One treat was the Chollo Cactus Garden,
an area of about 50 acres Chollo Cactus growing wild. There is a trail through the garden, but numerous warning signs about how dangerous the needles are. We were very careful! Next we saw the ocotillo, a deciduous plant that can sprout leaves numerous times during the year depending on the rainfall. We dropped down into the Colorado Desert, a flat area surrounded by mountains. There was not much in this desert but creosote bushes. These plants send roots down and out and spread a toxic material that prevents any other plant from establishing and taking the water. The plants look as if they had been planted in a geometric pattern. We left Joshua Tree and headed to the Salton Sea. Just before we arrived, we passed through a rocky gap that had the most interesting patterns in the twisted and turned rock layers.
Once through, we saw the Salton Sea and headed south on CA111 towards I-8. The Salton Sea is 15 miles wide by 25 miles long, averages 20 feet deep and is 229 feet below sea level. It was created in 1905 when the Colorado River flooded the area. It is now a salt-water lake (we didn’t taste it because it looked scummy and dirty). White pelicans were the most prevalent bird. We pulled over to the shore to have lunch and had to run the generator again. On we drove, passing through several towns on our way to I-8. There were a few factories with tall structures that had painted horizontal lines indicating “Sea Level”. The lines were a long way up! I-8 passes very close to the US/Mexico border and we saw numerous Border Patrol vehicles and checkpoints in the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area. There were numerous agricultural areas, supported by irrigation, The Colorado River, where it flows into Mexico is just a bit more than a trickle. We followed the directions in the AAA Book to get to the RV Park. They were wrong, and we had to call the place for verbal instructions. Even Gabby Garmin was wrong (I think). We pulled in, plugged in and ran the AC full force until 7:30pm when we were able to turn it down a bit. Don’t know what we are going to do tomorrow, as we want to go to Organ Pipe Cactus NM. It is on the US/Mexico border, and is supposed to be 100 degrees tomorrow. It is just plain hot! As we went to bed, with the AC on full blast, we decided to forego Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and drive on to Tucson to visit Saguaro NP.

Saturday, September 27, 2008:
I awoke at 6:15am just before the sun rose. With all the racket of the AC, there wasn’t a chance of going back to sleep. Daisy and I took our walk, and when we returned to the RV Susie was up and preparing for her shower. I had noticed several of the RV Park residents had taken their morning exercise at the same time Daisy and I took our walk. My guess is that they’ll spend most of the day inside their living quarters. Temperature was forecast to be 105 degreesWe had showers and coffee before Susie took Daisy on her 2nd walk of the day. We reconfirmed our decision not to go to Organ Pipe Cactus MN based on temperature and the closure of portions of the Monument due to security concerns. As we found out later, the security concerns were due to heavy and violent drug trafficking in the area. I straightened (cleaned was would be stretching the truth) up the RV and drove to the Park entrance to pick up Susie and Daisy. We filled with gas, and Susie had the sense to ask the gas attendant if there was a bakery nearby. It was about 100 yards, and she was going to walk there as I had the RV propane refilled. Oops, the station only filled the 20# tanks, not our big tank. We drove to the bakery, and I tried to go into the grocery store to get more cream. The bakery was open, but the grocery store was not. Off we went following 1-8 east towards Tucson, some 220 miles away. At the start, we passed through farmland, over the Gila Mountains then back to farmland. There were several cattle feed lot operations, and we could smell them before we could see them. These operations grow the cattle feed on irrigated fields, and the cattle were clustered under long canvas roofs to protect them from the sun. I am sure that humane treatment was not the reason for the shelter, but cattle out in the sun probably don’t fatten up quickly enough. Susie and I have been overwhelmed by the amount of food grown in the areas we have traveled. They have the sun and the water for irrigation (although that is becoming a problem as more homeowners want water to irrigate their lawns) plus labor to weed and harvest the crops. A crop planting technique we had not seen before (except for potatoes) is the mounding on dirt in long rows, plastic sheeting over the entire field (in some areas), and then flooding the areas between the mounds on a regular basis. These fields have been leveled, or provided with a small pitch, using sophisticated grading techniques so that the water flows from one end of the field to the other without any ponding. On the other hand, the suburbs are expanding at such a rate that excellent farmland has been purchased for housing developments and shopping centers. Pretty soon we’ll have all these people, but no way to feed them. We continued across southern AZ and were stopped at a Border Patrol checkpoint. These folks are dressed in dark uniforms and looked very uncomfortable! I-8 ends at I-10 just south of Phoenix, and we continued southeast to Tucson. There were mountain ranges on both sides of the road, but the ones to the southwest were more rugged and appeared to be from extrusions of lava through the earth. They reminded us of Shiprock (not the town) in northwest New Mexico. As we approached Tucson, large areas of saguaro cactus grew on either side of I-10. We passed by the Pinal Airpark, just west of Tucson, where old commercial airplanes are either refurbished or striped for parts. This is not to be confused with the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, which salvages military aircraft and is located a few miles to the east. We tried to go to AAA to get more travel info, but we needed food first. We forgot it was Saturday and AAA closed at 1:00pm. Off we went to Saguaro NP – East Unit. We spent about 2 hours there driving slowly through a very small portion of the Park. It was in the 1920’s that the local people began to worry about the destruction of the cactus because of the construction of roads and grazing of cattle. These cacti grow very slowly, and while the cattle didn’t hurt the large ones, they did kill the small ones.


It was a magnificent sight, but we heard from a local, that he thought the West Unit was better. If we only had a few more days we could explore so more. We left the Park at 5:30pm and headed to a RV Park for the night. The snowbirds must not have come to southern CA or AZ because the parks are mostly empty. Because we did so much today, tomorrow will be a bit quieter. Not so many miles to drive, and we’ll be a bit higher in the mountains so it should be a bit cooler. Tonight we will not need the AC, a small window fan and a circulating fan in the sleeping area should do it.

Sunday, September 28, 2008:
What a nice change from Yuma AZ! We didn’t even need the window fan last night. There was a nice breeze and cooler temperatures last night, and when we awaken, the temperature was 72 degrees 41 % humidity and wind from the east. We washed clothes (in the process I knocked a cup of coffee off the table to the floor; it landed right side up but the carpet took a small bath), trimmed my beard and had a late breakfast before leaving the RV Park at 11:30am to the grocery store for fresh vegetables and other stuff not so good for us. We drove west on I-10 before turning off at Benson to Bisbee. The land was rolling with mountains all around, but in the far distance. There were many more trees (still short) and therefore more green. As we passed through the town of Tombstone, we turned down a side street to see what was there. One block over, we discovered a dirt-covered street with old town stores lining both sides of the street. There were stagecoach rides, re-enactments of the wild west with shootings of good guys and bad guys.

It turns out that on the 2nd, 4th and 5th Sundays of each month they do a reenactment, and it seemed that all the townspeople participated. We learned later that the town was almost a ghost town until several western movies were made featuring The Gunfight at OK Corral (1881) Wyatt Earp etc. It is also the home of probably the most well known cemetery in the west, Boot Hill. As a result of these movies the town came alive and the townspeople covered the asphalt pavement with dirt, but then had to call for help from Hollywood because the merchants were complaining of too much dust. They sprayed the dirt with some substance, solving the problem. We continued on the Bisbee, where we climbed up Mule Mountain and then dropped into the town of Bisbee. It is a hard town to drive a car around, but the RV was much worse. We ended up parking it, but in a difficult place. We walked to the Bisbee Bicycle Brothel and talked with the owner for quite a time about bicycles and the town.
There is a bar named St Elmo’s, which has been in continuous operation since 1902. The town has an open pit mine and gold and copper is mined here. There are numerous art galleries, but the best one uses its profits to support at-risk mothers and their children. It seemed like a town with a large drug and alcohol problem plus some scary characters are walking around. We finally had to retrieve the RV and Susie did a great job getting us down to the main road. The streets were just wide enough, and I walked ahead to make sure she cleared the obstacles, such as street signs (showed signs of vehicle abuse) and parked cars. We went to a RV Park in town just as the sun went over the mountain. It is 6:30pm and the sky is dark. We finally realized that AZ never goes on daylight saving time and so is the same time as CA during the summer period. We are planning to head to Big Bend NP in TX, but it will take us 2 days to get there. Then we’ll head to San Antonio. Just before bed I looked at the NOAA and found that there are flood waters in Big Bend caused by flooding in Mexico from a hurricane that came in off the Pacific. Dams and leeves were breached and the Rio Grande was over its banks. Guess we better keep in touch with the Park.

Monday, September 29, 2008:
It was a great night for sleeping. When we awoke, an east wind was blowing and the skies had a smattering of puffy clouds. Because AZ is not on DST, the sun was up a bit early, and we had time to do more laundry and download to our blogs. Susie issued hers this morning, but I have one more day to make a full week. We left Bisbee at 10:30am MST and had a drive of almost 300 to face today. We drove east on AZ80 to Douglas and then northeast towards I-10.We drove through the town of Douglas, which is just a few miles for the US/Mexico border but there was nothing exciting there. On the northeast section, we kept hearing banging noises, but they were intermittent, and we couldn’t figure out what was going on. When we switched to change drivers as we got to I-10, I walked around but didn’t see anything mechanical. I did see signs of bugs but I didn’t connect the noise and the bugs. On this section of the drive, we also saw a new metal building out in the middle of nowhere. It was a retail building selling yoga, natural foods and outfitter supplies. We couldn’t imagine who the clientele would be. We drove east on I-10 through Las Cruces and then south to El Paso TX. On I-10 we saw numerous signs warning of dust storms and zero visibility, and we saw several large dust devils. We saw18-wheelers carrying hay to feed cattle, but not many cattle. We found the RV Park and settled in for the night. The noise had stopped so I walked around the RV again and found grasshoppers stuck in the grill. A big wash job is needed. We have located a self-service wash and a propane refill station that we can use tomorrow. With the conditions in Big Bend, Susie has suggested that we spend 2 nights in Guadalupe Mountains National Park. There are no driving roads through the mountains, but there are several campgrounds so we’ll spent each night in a different one. Then we’ll check on the flood status at Big Bend before we make our next move.