Snowbirding 2016: Back to the Backwaters

Posted on February 10, 2016 by Maria Langer

I return to the backwaters to share a different campsite with friends.

Posts in the Snowbirding 2016 Series:
– Introduction
– The Colorado River Backwaters
– Quartzsite
– Wickenburg
– Phoenix
– Home
– Back to the Backwaters
– Return to Wickenburg
– Valley of Fire
– Death Valley
– Back to Work

My alarm went off at 3:10 AM on Wednesday morning. Although I’d gotten only about 2-1/2 hours sleep, I jumped out of bed. I’d set the alarm with a minimum amount of extra time. I needed to be on the road in my Jeep by 3:30. Penny looked at me as if wondering why I’d turned the light on to make one of my bathroom trips. But when she saw me getting dressed, she jumped out of bed, knowing something was up.

My bags were already packed. I’d slipped my small wheelie bag into my large wheelie bag so there was just one bag to check at Alaska Air. It doesn’t matter as far as cost goes — I’m an Alaska Air MVP member so I get two bags checked for free. It was more a matter of waiting for luggage in Phoenix. And the simple fact that I didn’t have enough things to take with me to fill both bags but wanted both with me.

The last thing I packed was the ribs. I’d wrapped them in foil and plastic the night before and had put them in the fridge. They were still warm when I pulled them out and put them in the big wheelie bag, along with the ketchup squeeze bottle I’d filled with my honey barbecue sauce. As I zipped the bag around them, I wondered what the TSA would make of them and hoped they’d be neat about opening up the wrapping.

I’d left the Jeep out overnight, not wanting to deal with the garage door in the morning. (No, I still don’t have automatic garage door openers; it’s on my list.) I started it up and set the heat to high when I brought down the first load of luggage. It was 27°F out and the snow crunched under my shoes. I made a second trip to bring down Penny’s travel bag and the garbage and locked up. My house sitter would not be back for a few days. Then I loaded up the Jeep, got Penny cozy on the passenger seat, and got on my way.

It was 3:35.

Getting to Phoenix

My road was still mostly covered with snow and ice, but my Jeep with its new tires doesn’t care. The rest of the roads were clear. I made it to the airport by 4:10, parked in short-term parking, went in to check my bag, and then came back out to move the car to General Aviation parking, which I’d arranged for a few days before. Then Penny and I walked back to the main terminal, enjoying the quiet of the cloud-covered predawn hour. By 4:45, we were through security and I was sitting in the waiting area with Penny in her travel bag at my feet.

It was an uneventful flight to Seattle. It usually is. The total distance is only about 90 air miles and the flight is usually less than 30 minutes long. Driving there, however, would take about 3 hours. I believe time is money and take the plane whenever possible.

At SeaTac, we had a very tight connection. I let Penny walk on her leash from the plane to almost the next gate. Then back in her bag for boarding. They had already boarded the flight and we were the last to get on. Twenty minutes later, we were airborne.

And twenty minutes after that, I was asleep.

I only slept for about an hour, but it was long enough to miss the food and beverage service. I didn’t know that, so after I woke up, I was waiting patiently for the cart with my credit card out for a cheese platter. When the cart came, however, it was a beverage cart and the flight attendant asked, “Do you want anything else to drink?”

Anything else? I wondered to myself. That’s when I realized I’d missed breakfast. I must have been sleeping pretty soundly.

Our flight arrived a full 30 minutes early. Alaska Air does that a lot. It was 10:30 when we rolled into the gate.

Cheryl or Mike or both were picking me up. I’d told them to get to the airport at 11:30 so they didn’t have to wait for me to get my bags and walk Penny. But by 10:45 I had them and Penny had already visited the doggie area. I texted them and Cheryl hopped in the car to get me. I waited outside in the cool shade, munching on an apple muffin I’d bought inside while other people came and went.

When Cheryl arrived, I tossed my big bag into the trunk with Penny’s travel bag and climbed in. Penny settled down on a pillow in the back seat. Cheryl had some errands to run and so did I. I needed to pick up my camera at Tempe Camera. They’d checked it out completely, found nothing wrong with it, and had cleaned it for me. I needed it for my upcoming trip to Valley of Fire and Death Valley. I’d planned on driving out to get it after picking up my truck, but Cheryl didn’t mind taking me on her way to do her things. So we stopped there before heading out to Ray Road near I-10 to visit a lighting store, a Bed Bath and Beyond, and a Home Depot. I treated her for lunch at Wildflower Bakery, where we ate outside and I began soaking up the sun in earnest.

Afterwards, we went back to her house where my truck waited. I had a choice to make: spend the night with her and Mike or head out to Quartzsite to retrieve the Mobile Mansion and join my friends at the backwaters. It was nearly 3 PM and the RV dealer in Quartzsite closed at 5. It would be tight. I decided to go for it; I figured I could always spend a night in one of the few motels out there if I couldn’t get the Mobile Mansion. So I thanked Cheryl, said goodbye, loaded up the truck, and headed out.

Getting to Camp

Google put me on southwest Phoenix back roads to wind my way north and west toward I-10. We finally got on the freeway at 3:30 — just a bit too late to use the HOV lanes — and we headed west. Soon the scant city traffic was behind us and we were cutting through open desert at 75 mph. The kayaks on the roof shook a bit, but didn’t shift.

I pulled into the RV dealer’s lot at 4:50 PM. The owner/manager remembered me and commented on how I’d just made it. I paid the bill — which was about $200 less than I expected — and took the truck out back to hook up the trailer. That’s when I realized that the hitch pin — a metal rod with a cotter pin at one end — was missing. I did a search, then went back inside to see where it might be. But it was gone. While I fumed a bit, they came up with another pin that would do the job. I finished hooking up the RV, stowed the landing gear, and headed out.

My friends were waiting for me at a new campsite about seven miles south of I-10. This one was right at an inlet between the Colorado River and one of the backwater canals. They’d voiced some doubt about whether there was room for my big rig to turn around and park and I admit I was a bit stressed by that. But when I arrived, I saw that there was plenty of room. In fact, they’d saved me the best spot, right in the corner of the campsite where my big back window would look out over the Colorado River and I could look up the backwaters from the window at my desk. With some guidance from Steve, I backed the Mobile Mansion in. Then I set about disconnecting the trailer and setting up camp.

This photo, shot from the levee road after I unhooked the Mobile Mansion and took down the kayaks, shows most of our camp. I think I got the best spot.

That’s when we discovered that one of the bolts securing part of the landing gear raising/lowering mechanism had sheered off. It must have happened back at the dealer, when I raised the landing gear. Steve was able to extract a small portion of the bolt that remained so we could match its size. But we had no replacement bolt.

No problem. I left the rig attached to my truck for the night. We’d get the bolt at Ehrenberg or Blythe in the morning.

A campfire was already going. I poured myself a Makers Mark on the rocks and joined my friends.

Life at the Backwaters

Arizona treated me to a beautiful sunrise my first morning at camp. This was the view out the window at my desk.

In the morning, we drank coffee around the campfire. There were five of us at this camp: Janet and Steve, who I’d stayed with at the previous camp, and Karen and Steve, who were friends of Janet’s that she’d camped with the year before. Janet and Steve had their small travel trailer, a horse trailer with three horses, and two dogs. Karen and Steve had their larger travel trailer and two cats. We all had boats: two pontoon rowboats, a peddle boat, and two kayaks. As you might imagine, it was quite a setup.

After breakfast that first day, Steve and I went in search of a bolt for my landing gear. We tried the little store in Ehrenberg first, since it was closest. They had a lot of random hardware there, but no appropriately sized bolts. So we went to the excellent Ace Hardware store in Blythe, about 7 miles away. The two of us put on our readers and studied nuts and bolts until we found three possible matches. I bought them all. We stopped back in Ehrenberg to fill water jugs and a water bladder before heading back to camp.

It took just a few minutes to fix the landing gear. Steve did it, cramming his body into the front compartment, which couldn’t be opened more than a third of the way because of the truck bumper and the angle I’d parked at. A short time later, the landing gear legs were down, the trailer was disconnected, and I had full use of my truck again.

I went back into Blythe to do some grocery shopping and buy myself some lunch at a chicken place. When I got back, I saw that a fifth wheel toy hauler had moved into the campsite across the inlet from us. I heard the steady hum of a generator running. This was my introduction to Generator Man. I wrote about his idiotic and inconsiderate behavior in another blog post, so I won’t rant about him again here.

We had dinner together that evening around the campfire. We ate the ribs I’d made in Washington and had packed into my luggage for the trip back to Arizona. They were fully cooked and just needed to be brushed with barbecue sauce and heated up over a fire. We used a separate campfire at Janet and Steve’s place for that. Janet made fire-roasted corn on the cob and Karen made beans to go with them. It was an excellent meal, if I do say so myself.

The generator was still going when I went to bed. Fortunately, I couldn’t hear it inside the Mobile Mansion.

Life at the campsite quickly got into a routine. Coffee and breakfast around a campfire near Karen and Steve’s trailer in the morning. I made muffins one morning and Pillsbury cinnamon rolls another morning, but we usually all took care of our own meal. We’d break up and do our own thing in the middle of the day. In late afternoon, Janet and Karen’s Steve usually went fishing — and they always came back with a few fish. Then we’d get together for dinner around the campfire in the evening, usually playing music to drown out the sound of Generator Man’s noise.

Examples of the old (top) and new (bottom) light bulbs. The new ones will last 10 years, are super bright, and use a fraction of the power

I went in to Quartzsite twice with Janet. The first time, I picked up another 20 or so LED light bulbs for my RV. I’d experimented with them the previous month and liked the extra brightness and power saving. The bulbs were pricey — about $5 each — but their benefits and long lives made them worth it. With them installed on all of the fixtures I used regularly, I cut my evening and morning power consumption so much that I only had to run my generator twice for a total of maybe two hours the whole time I was there. My water pump is now, by far, my biggest consumer of battery power.

The second time we piggybacked a Quartzsite trip on the back of a Blythe trip. Janet’s single RV battery had gone bad and needed replacement. She was also having trouble with the charge controller for her solar panel. So we made a few stops in Blythe to pick up odds and ends for both of us before going to Solar Bill’s in Quartzsite. I looked into a solar + battery setup for the fuel tank and pump on the back of my truck. I no longer need it on my truck so I plan to move it onto its own utility trailer when I get home. Ideally, a solar panel would keep a battery charged to run the pump. Bill showed me a solution that would only cost about $250 to set up: 40 watt solar panel, charge controller, and 2 reconditioned golf cart batteries. I told him I’d have to give it some thought, mostly because I’m not ready to set it up just yet.

Here’s one of the shots I took when I paddled across the river to the RV park there. They had their own backwater that I wanted to explore, but I got too late a start that day. You can see my kayak parked at the boat ramp.

One afternoon, when the river was running high and fast, I paddled a kayak across to check out the campground on the California side. It was a hard paddle, requiring me to point the kayak nose upriver from where I wanted to end up. I don’t think my friends expected me to make it, but I did. On the other side, I found an RV park full of RVs but with few people. Apparently, people park their rigs there and come use them once in a while. All of the full hookup spots were reserved on an annual basis by Canadians, none of whom were there. The onsite store had very little to offer in the way of groceries. It was all kind of sad, like an RV ghost town. I took a few pictures and paddled back, missing the inlet by about 100 feet. After a rest along the rocky levee — where Penny jumped in — I paddled upstream and slipped into the inlet. Nice upper body workout.

The sand looked a wee bit too deep on these hills to take my truck up, so Penny and I walked.

Another afternoon, I decided to take my truck up onto the top of the cliff just east of our site. Most of my friends didn’t think I’d make it — they’d been up there with the horses before my arrival and said it was too sandy — but Karen’s Steve claimed to have seen another pickup up there. I figured it was worth a shot. The access road started out very steep and rocky — a very doable hill climb for a 4WD truck with off-road tires on it. Once up the first climb, a narrow road wound around on top of hard hills covered with loose volcanic rock. Deep sand had blown over it in patches, but they weren’t big enough to stop a truck moving fast enough, so I made sure I moved quickly through them. Finally, however, I faced a sandy hill with two two-track trails climbing up it. The sand looked deep and while my truck is properly equipped for off-road travel, it’s heavy and I didn’t want it to sink into the sand. So I parked and walked with Penny up one of the hills, mostly to check it out. When I got to the top, I realized I was at my destination and didn’t bother retrieving the truck. Penny and I spent about 20 minutes up there, checking out the views and taking photos. It was nice up there, away from Generator Man, where the only sound was the wind.

This shot offers a great view of our campsite, as well as the one across the inlet and the campground across the river. Although the Arizona side is all BLM desert, the California side has lots of farming for quite a few miles.

Janet and Karen’s Steve show off the fish we caught while Karen and Janet’s Steve photobomb them.

I went fishing one afternoon with Janet and Karen’s Steve. I don’t think they expected me to catch anything — I didn’t either, in all honesty — because they suggested I bring my own truck to the fishing hole in case I got bored. I surprised all of us by hooking a decent sized redear sunfish (or orange ear, as Janet and Steve call them) not long after Janet hooked a large mouth bass. Janet caught a slightly larger orange ear after that but Steve brought in the main catch just as the sun was setting: a very large bass. He cleaned all the fish for us later on and took his bass away; Janet, Steve, and I feasted on the remaining fish a few days later.

Here’s Penny, demonstrating one of the reasons I sometimes call her “adventure dog.”

On Sunday, after Karen and Steve left for their next destination, Janet’s Steve dropped Janet, Penny, and me off with our boats about five miles upriver from our camp. We launched and headed downstream, stopping at one of the backwaters on the California side along the way. The river was moving at about three miles an hour, so there wasn’t much work in the paddling. I was wearing shorts again that day and left my white legs atop the kayak to get some sun on them. Although my formerly year-round tan has faded considerably, I don’t get sunburned like I used to. It was nice to get out for a good long paddle. It took about two hours to get back.

Steve watched the second half of the Super Bowl at a sport bar in Ehrenberg that he said was surprisingly good, although not particularly busy. I stayed in the Mobile Mansion — mostly to escape the sound of Generator Man — and read, following the Super Bowl action on Twitter and participating in NPR’s #SuperBowlHaiku meme. We’d tried during the day to pick up CBS on one of my two televisions as well as Janet’s but couldn’t get any channels at all. (I guess Generator Man has a satellite dish over there, too.) I fell asleep earlier than usual — the sun might not burn me, but it apparently sucks the life out of me: I’m always exhausted after a day in the sun.

Here’s a shot of Janet on her horse during our Monday afternoon ride.

On Monday afternoon, we took the horses for a short ride back up to the top of the cliff. They put me on Flipper again and the steep climb was a bit much for her. I suspect I might be the last adult to ride her. At least I hope so. She’s getting a bit too old for such strenuous work.

Breaking Camp

By that time, we’d all decided to leave on Tuesday. Janet would be showing her artwork at Gold Rush Days in Wickenburg. I’d be spending some more time with my friends in Wickenburg. And Steve would be bringing the horses to where I was staying; there was a nice horse corral in the backyard.

So we spent some of Monday afternoon breaking camp. I put the kayaks back on top of the truck, put away my generator, and stowed most of my loose items. Steve cleaned, deflated, and broke down the pontoon boats and put their frames atop Janet’s van. Later, we had fish for dinner with salad and rice, eating in the Mobile Mansion to get away from Generator Man’s drone. We played Exploding Kittens a few times and I actually won once. I gave Janet the game to play with other friends and sent Steve home with the remains of a bottle of Honey Jim Beam, which was too damn sweet for my taste.

In the morning, there was no campfire. Janet was the first to pull out. I finished packing up, cleaned the inside of the Mobile Mansion, and closed everything up. Steve guided me to hook up the trailer. I made a wide U-turn in the campsite and pulled out, leaving him to pack up the horses.

I made just two stops before I left the area. First stop was the convenience store in Ehrenberg where I dumped the Mobile Mansion’s tanks, topped off the fresh water supply, and filled my four 6-gallon jugs with fresh water. I also bought one of their excellent Mexican iced fruit pops on the way out. Second stop was the post office to pick up a temporary license plate the car dealer had sent me to replace the expired one.

I was on I-10 heading east by 11 AM.

On Camping and Generators

Posted on February 8, 2016 by Maria Langer

Makes you wonder why some people go “camping” at all.

For the past few days, my friends and I have had the displeasure of camping across a small inlet from a man in an RV almost the size of my Mobile Mansion who runs his generator from about 10 AM to about 10 PM every day.

Nonstop.

His rig is what’s known as a “toy hauler” — a fifth wheel with space in the back and a ramp for one or more motor vehicles such as motorcycles, ATVs, or, in his case, a sand rail. He’s got the fifth wheel and sand rail parked in a very large camping spot overlooking the Colorado River and some backwaters. Of course, it’s not actually facing this peaceful view, but I guess that doesn’t matter to him. Outside, he has a table and a few chairs and a barbecue grill. But none of that matters since he spends virtually all of his time inside his RV doing something that obviously requires a generator. We think he’s watching television.

All day.

Every day.

When I asked him, after listening to his generator for most of Thursday, whether he was going to run it all weekend, he replied, “Just during the day.” And if you don’t count the five to ten minutes between 5 AM and 6 AM that he runs it — likely to make coffee — and the time between sunset and 10 PM that it continues to run past what a normal person would call daylight hours, I guess he was telling the truth. Or his version of it.

Generator Man, as we call him, is camped directly across the inlet from us. We seldom see him outside. I guess he’d rather be inside watching television.

Of course, we’re camped here — and we did get here first, if that matters — and we don’t spend all of our time indoors, as he does. Sadly, inside my Mobile Mansion is the only place I don’t hear the damn thing. We’ve listened to it day in and day out. The only thing that’s prevented it from ruining our evening campfires is the fact that we’ve been playing music to drown it out. But I know that we’d all rather be listening to nature’s sounds — crickets, night birds, coyotes — than the never-ending drone of this inconsiderate asshole’s fucking generator.

We do get some silence in the morning, after his coffee is made and we’ve come out for our breakfast chat around the campfire. Yesterday, we enjoyed watching — and hearing — a variety of water birds as they fished and dove in the backwaters. That time was longer than usual, since he drove off in the morning, leaving the generator turned off. We think he went to church. I wonder if he asked God for forgiveness for disturbing the peace and quiet.

And that makes me wonder why someone would drive a truck, RV, and desert toy out to a wonderfully peaceful part of the desert, set it all up in a prime campsite, and then spend the entire time indoors, watching TV. He could have left it all parked in his driveway. Or a truck stop.

At least then the noise he was making wouldn’t really bother anyone else.

He obviously isn’t here to enjoy the scenery, let alone the silence or wildlife. He isn’t even here to play with his sand rail. He’s here to spend time inside a smaller box than his home, probably doing the same thing he’d be doing at home.

I know what you’re thinking right now. Don’t you have a generator, Maria? Don’t you run it?

If you’ve been reading about my Snowbirding adventure, you know I do. I wrote about it when I first wrote about the backwaters. It’s a 2KW Honda, known for its low sound level. I paid more than I needed to for a generator that would be as quiet as possible. And no, I don’t run it every day — especially now that the weather is warming up. I was running it for about an hour or two in the evenings to top off the charge on the RV’s battery so my heat would work throughout the night. But I don’t even need to do that anymore. I think I’ve run it twice in the past week — and once was to work a soldering iron.

I don’t even run it to make coffee — and I have two electric coffee makers on board the Mobile Mansion. I can boil water and drip a nice, strong cup without a fucking generator.

My friends each have generators. One couple runs theirs once a day — yes, to make coffee that they reheats on the stove in the morning; go figure — and the other hasn’t run theirs at all. Even when the battery on their RV died.

We all have solar panels that keep our batteries (mostly) charged. After all, we’re in the Arizona desert. There’s nothing but sun here every day. Why would we burn gas and make noise to get power when the sun is providing pretty much all the power we need?

And what do we really need power for when we’re outdoors, camping?

My friends, although annoyed by the generator sound, have been trying to be understanding about it. “We don’t know his story,” Karen said.

Wow. I’ve heard that a lot lately. It seems like a standard excuse for people to be inconsiderate of others.

But it’s true: we don’t know his story. He could have an invalid wife inside the box who needs electricity for her life support system. (That’s Karen’s suggestion, not mine.)

But is that an excuse for him ruining the peace and quiet of a beautiful place that other people are trying to enjoy?

Hell, it’s not like he’s even spending time outside, enjoying it himself. He’s inside the box all day. He could do that anywhere.

Are you like this when you camp? If so, you’re not camping.

As for me, well, I just have one more day here before I move on. I’ll spend some time with friends, then hit the road on a long-awaited photo trip to Valley of Fire and Death Valley. I’ve already been warned about the generator people at Death Valley.

It’s too bad that these people just don’t get it.

Scouting for a Custom Tiny Home in Idaho

Posted on September 25, 2015 by Maria Langer

I go to Idaho in search of a tiny home solution to winter travel needs.

Tiny houses are big these days. People seem unusually attracted to the idea of living in a very small, very simple space. Tiny home communities are popping up all over the west — such as the one in Portland. There are tiny home books and websites and forums. I’ve been told that there’s even a tiny home television show, although since never bothered to get connected with cable or satellite television, I’ve never seen it. (A quick search on Google for a link shows me at least three of them: Tiny House Builders, Tiny House Nation, and Tiny House Hunters. Seriously?)

While I agree that tiny houses are cute, they’re really not much different from living in an RV — which I did for two years and more summers than I care to remember. It’s nice having less space to heat, cool, clean, and furnish. But it’s not nice to live in cramped quarters with barely enough space to store the things you need to live and work. So while I have no problem with short-term life in a small space, I think people — especially families of two or more people — who turn to tiny homes for their primary living space are, well, nuts.

That said, I’m currently considering a tiny house as a replacement for my mobile mansion, which is now for sale.

The Misunderstandings

When I mentioned this on Facebook, I got a few sarcastic comments from friends of friends who (1) didn’t understand that I was considering this for part-time living and (2) apparently know nothing about tiny houses.

One person said, “I don’t like the idea of my toilet being in the same room as my kitchen sink.” Well, neither do I. And I have to say that I’ve never seen a tiny house design with the toilet in the kitchen. So I don’t know what the hell this clown is talking about.

Another person said, “Why would you want to live in a closet?” I wouldn’t. I don’t know anyone who would. But unless you have a 200+ square foot closet, most tiny houses are considerably bigger that your closets. They even have rooms and windows. Can you imagine?

Seriously: what’s with people on the Internet? Why do they find it necessary to shoot out their opinions in such a nasty, narrow-minded way, especially when they obviously don’t know what the hell they’re talking about?

‘Nuff said.

Tiny House RV

My idea is to have a custom tiny house built as a fully-functional off-the-grid RV. What gave me that idea? The Tiny Portable Cedar Cabins website. Dave, who designs and builds these cabins, constructs them on trailer frames using dimensions that keep them road-worthy without special permits. That means they’re no wider than 8’6″ and no taller than 13’6″.

Just like any RV on the road.

Because they’re built like this, they can be licensed as an RV and they follow all the rules governing how RVs are used and transported. That means I can hook it up to the back of my pickup and take it anywhere I can take an RV.

Of course, Dave doesn’t outfit them as RVs. He outfits them as homes, assuming the owner is going to park the unit and plug it into permanent power, water, and sewer line sources. He does offer off-the grid options like a composting toilet and propane appliances. But he doesn’t normally include the features a true off-the-grid RV needs, such as fresh water storage tanks and holding tanks for gray and black water. To me, that’s what distinguishes his “tiny portable cabins” from a true recreational camping vehicle.

But that doesn’t mean he can’t make one with the things I need in a real RV.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

Tiny Home in Marlin, WA

Dave works with Janet, who apparently manages his website and blog and helps him sell the his houses. Janet has one of his tiny house models, a custom “Caretaker” unit. She’s parked it on her property in Marlin, WA where it’s currently sitting, waiting for a tenant to arrive.

I drove out there about two weeks ago. Anyone who says that I live in a remote area really needs to go to Marlin (AKA, Krupp) to put things into perspective. The town has about 300 people and sits at the bottom of valley with the tiny Crab Creek running through it. The closest grocery store is 18 miles away; the closest supermarket is 34 miles away. It took me nearly two hours to drive there and once I was there, there was nothing much there. But there was Janet’s tiny house, sitting inside a fenced in area with a lush green lawn.

How fitting that I drove my tiny car to Janet’s tiny house.

We chatted for a while and then went in to take a look. The house was set up with a generously sized kitchen, tiny — and I do mean tiny — bedroom, and decent sized bathroom that even had a washer and dryer. It had a lot of nice touches, including pocket doors and a stained glass window. It also had two storage lofts that weren’t very tall. The exterior siding was cedar; the interior finish was a natural wood that I really like.

She showed me the composting toilet. Because the house was set in a spot without access to a sewer, she’d chosen this option. As she explained, the “liquids” go through some small holes on the front of the bowl where they collect underneath. If you plan to deposit some “solids,” you prep the bowl by laying in what looks like a giant coffee filter. When you’re finished, you “flush,” which opens the bottom of the bowl and drops the filter and its contents into another container. Somewhere along the line, you sprinkle something on the waste which gets the compost action going. Janet claims that it never stinks, but I find that very hard to believe. And, of course, you eventually have to empty the waste into a compost bin. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather live in a closet than have to deal with a toilet like that on a daily basis.

I asked her about RV-related options and she really didn’t have the information I needed. For that, I’d need to talk to Dave. And since I’m better talking in person to someone than on the phone, it meant making a road trip to Idaho.

Idaho Road Trip

Spirit Lake, where Dave builds his tiny homes, is about 40 minutes north of Coeur d’Alene, where a pilot friend of mine, Jim, lives with his wife Teresa. I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone by visiting them and Dave on the same trip.

I set off last Wednesday morning with Penny in my distance car: my 2003 Honda S2000. Bought new in 2003, it had just under 60,000 miles on it — indeed, it would roll over to 60,000 on my way home. I’d prepped it earlier in the week with an oil change and a check of tire pressures and fluids. (I’d also had the leather armrest repaired; the leather had been shrinking for years and made the car’s interior look shabby. Fixed!) I put the top down, secured a scarf over my head to prevent my hair from flying around and getting all tangled up, and took off.

We took Badger Mountain Road up toward Waterville. It was the first time I’d taken that road in that direction at that time of day and it was the highlight of the drive — the Wenatchee Valley looks amazing from a viewpoint along the way in early morning light.

Wenatchee from Badger Mountain.

I eventually hooked up with Route 2 near Douglas. From there, it was mostly straight roads over the Waterville Plateau, past rolling hills of harvested wheat fields and through small farm towns with tall silos. The road dipped down to cross Moses Coulee, then climbed again for more wheat fields and towns on the other side. I crossed the lower end of Banks Lake on the earthen dam in Coulee City and continued east on Route 2, through even more farm towns. I stopped in a small town along the way — Hartline? Almira? Wilbur? Creston? Davenport? Readan? — for bathroom break, buying an egg sandwich to go and then getting right back in the car.

Although I was enjoying the drive — I really do like a good road trip — I wasn’t disappointed when I arrived on the outskirts of Spokane. Route 2 dumped me on I-90 — which I could have taken from George if I wanted a faster route — and that took me through Spokane and info Idaho. Then Google Maps’ navigation feature directed me to exit onto Route 41. I took that north, passing a homemade billboard that said “Pray the Rosary, Vote for Trump,” and after a few miles and a few turns ended up at Dave’s construction lot outside the town of Spirit Lake.

Dave’s Tiny House Construction Yard

Janet had told me that Dave was working on about 20 houses and she wasn’t kidding. There were tiny houses in various stages of construction all over the yard. All different models, from a 22-foot Caretakers Cabin to much larger and longer models. Dave wasn’t doing any of the actual construction work himself — at least not when I drove up. Instead, he had at least a dozen guys working for him, each busy with a specific task on a specific building. Looks like he’s built himself a nice little business that employs quite a few people.

I told him what I was looking for and he led me over to one of the Caretakers cabins. It had exactly the bathroom and kitchen layout I’d envisioned. We discussed weight and tanks and all the other things I needed. I think he was surprised that I was so well-versed in not only construction but the kinds of features I needed and how they might be implemented in his buildings. For example, we discussed the placement of fresh water tanks up in the loft area and how they could be filled using a standard water connection with a value that switched the water flow to the tanks. I asked if having the tanks high would provide enough water pressure for sink and shower usage and he said it would, but not enough pressure for the instant hot water systems he used; a DC pump like the ones found in most RVs would be required.

We also talked about ways to make the building lighter. In the size unit I wanted — 24 feet max including a 4-foot porch — he estimated the total weight to be around 12,000 pounds. While my one-ton diesel pickup could easily pull that — after all, it pulls my 15,000 pound mobile mansion like its nothing — I was really hoping to replace the truck with a smaller, newer, gasoline model. That wouldn’t be advisable if I had to tow around a 12,000 pound RV. I asked if he could do 2×4 construction rather than 2×6 construction. He said that would allow for less insulation, which I was okay with. We also talked about using metal on the exterior, with the idea of it matching my building at home. That could drop the weight by another 500 or so pounds.

I absolutely love the upper floor windows in this little house.

After checking out how the stairs were constructed in one of the other units, we stopped to look at an unusual model that was taller and wider than the others with a “shed style” roof. It was a custom unit for a family of three in Sacramento that would become their primary residents. (Remember what I said about that idea earlier in this blog post?) It had an upstairs bedroom and a very small downstairs bedroom, a decent sized bathroom and a great room with a kitchen. The main features I liked were the huge windows; the home would be very bright indeed. I wondered whether I could design a unit with the same style roof and still get the sleeping loft I needed in a space only 8-1/2 feet wide.

And that’s where we left it. I told Dave I liked that style and would rework my design with that in mind. I said I’d send him my floorplan with a list of required features. He could then work up a price and try to estimate weight.

I was supposed to do that last weekend, but didn’t. I’d better work on it soon, though. If I decide to go forward, I’m looking at an 18-week wait.

As for pricing — well, one of the reasons I was attracted to Dave’s work is that the prices are within reason. I’d seen 400 square foot tiny homes like the one pictured here selling online for over $80,000. That was absurd. Dave’s prices were much more down to earth and easier to swallow.

Still, there was no doubt that this custom tiny home RV would cost about twice as much as a 20-foot RV — which I’d also been considering.

A Visit with Jim & Teresa

From Dave’s lot, I drove down to Coeur d’Alene. I texted back and forth with Jim and discovered that he was working on a project at his new homesite. I stopped for lunch in town, then drove out to meet him.

Jim and Teresa are building a big, beautiful home on a small lot on the Spokane River just east of the Lake Coeur d’Alene. Their property includes a two slip dock that they share with their next door neighbor. The place is walking distance from one of those Main Street style malls — you know, the ones with shops and restaurants and apartments over the businesses. Odd that we abandon our downtown areas, yet build replicas of those towns to live in.

Teresa and their dog Zeus showed up as Jim was giving me the tour. I saw the whole place and complemented them on the innovative design and unusual features — including L-shaped windows and angular walls. Afterwards, we drove over to the shopping center and had margaritas and nachos while catching up. I hadn’t seen them in two years. Jim, who had been a cherry drying pilot in the Wenatchee area for about 15 years, had sold his helicopter and given up flying.

We walked back to the house from there, letting the dogs run and play off-leash along the way. The we walked along the boardwalk between the homes and the river. The sun had set and nighttime came on. We got back to Jim’s truck, which we’d left at the house, and rode in it back to the restaurant parking lot to fetch Teresa’s truck and my car. Then we rode back, convoy style, to the house they were still living in.

I got the guest room in the basement, which had been their son’s bedroom. It was nice and dark and quiet down there. I slept well.

In the morning, we had breakfast at a restaurant not far from town. I think it was the same business they’d taken my wasband and I years ago, when we’d passed through with my old RV on a sort of road trip vacation. Now it was in a new building. Great breakfast, more great conversation. Teresa recommended that I stop at Blue Dog RV in Post Falls to see what they had in the way of RVs. Since I wasn’t in any hurry to get home, I figured I may as well take a look. After all, there aren’t any RV dealers near where I live.

We said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. It was about 10 AM.

RV Shopping

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s RV shopping. I’d gone through this too many times to like it.

When I bought the mobile mansion back in 2010, I honestly thought it was the last RV I’d ever need. I bought it to fit a specific need: a seasonal home for two grown people and a mid-sized dog. I figured my now wasband and I would live in it every summer for 4 to 6 months, then go home to Arizona for the rest of the year. That’s why it’s so damn big. I wanted it to be comfortable for two people for months at a time. And I fully expected to use it for many years to come, as semi-retired snowbirds.

Unfortunately, plans change. My wasband is now nothing more to me than a sad, bitter memory. I live in my own home in Washington state where I make most of my living in the summer months as a cherry drying pilot. I keep busy enough in the spring and fall to stay home. But I want to travel in the winter and spend some time in California in the early spring, where my helicopter is parked on frost control duty. I figure that I’ll only be on the road 2 to 4 months out of the year and, during that time, I won’t be parked in one place. Since it’s just me and Penny the Tiny Dog, I don’t need a lot of space. And I definitely don’t want a big rig. I want something easy to tow and easy to park. While towing the mobile mansion isn’t difficult with my big truck, parking it is a pain in the ass. And because of it’s size, I’m automatically closed out of more than a few park campgrounds.

So here I am, looking for a new solution to meet a new need.

One thing I learned the last time around is that it’s all about floor plans and features. I want the length under 20 feet, but I want the bigger refrigerator and I want the stove with the oven. That cuts out about 3/4 of the shorter models. I don’t want slides (or pop-outs) — they add weight and maintenance concerns. I want plenty of windows, a power-controlled awning, stereo sound system with DVD player, and television.

I am a sucker for big windows in an RV. This Hideout was a bit longer than I wanted but the big window in the back made it nearly irresistible.

So that’s what I proposed to the very patient salesperson, Lydia, at Blue Dog in Post Falls, ID. After reviewing a few models online, she loaded me into her golf cart and drove me out onto the huge lot. We looked at about a half dozen models. We even drove back to their other lot in Coeur d’Alene to look at models there. Just when I started to glaze over, she focused me back on what we’d seen. She priced up a new and a used Keystone Hideout, each in a different style. The prices were workable, but the deal wasn’t good enough for me buy that day. I wanted to sell the mobile mansion — which was worth far more than these smaller rigs, making a trade-in impractical — before I bought a replacement.

And I was still thinking about the tiny house idea.

Spokane’s Falls

It was nearly 2 pm when Penny and I drove away. By this time, I was very hungry. But I also felt that I needed to see more of the area before I went home. I’d heard of Spokane Falls and decided to check that out. Google guided me.

I knew nothing about the area, but when I drove over a bridge and saw an aerial tram, I decided I needed to get on it. I navigated back to a shopping mall called River Park Square and got a parking space across the street in the shade. I cracked the car’s windows, leaving Penny inside, fed the meter with my credit card, and went inside.

Conveyor belt sushi, Spokane style.

Back in the 1980s, I worked in New York City for New York City. My partner, a Chinese woman from Hong Kong, occasionally took me for lunch at a restaurant near the Empire State Building that served up dim sum and sushi on a conveyor belt that wound past all the seats. Since then, I’d seen conveyor belt sushi only one other time — in San Francisco. Believe it or not, they have it in Spokane at the mall I found myself in that afternoon.

Needless to say, that’s where I ate.

And maybe it won’t surprise you when I tell you it wasn’t that good.

On the Spokane Falls Sky Ride.

Afterwards, I made my way out to the ticket booth for the Spokane Falls Sky Ride. It was pretty much deserted on that Thursday afternoon, so I didn’t have to wait. I paid $6.50 (with a AAA discount) and was loaded aboard my own car.

I’ve seen reviews of this ride and some of them pretty much bash it. But I thought it was kind of fun. I even did a live broadcast on Periscope which had quite a few viewers. And the view of the falls is great!

The Trip Home

By that time, my two hours of meter time was nearly up. I went back to the car, leashed Penny, and took her for a walk around the block. We got back into the car and headed toward the freeway. I’d already decided to pass on the long ride through the wheat fields. I got on I-90 and headed west.

The drive was long and dull, made only marginally more interesting by the string of podcasts I listened to along the way. I exited at George and followed familiar roads all the way home. It was probably around 8 when I pulled into my driveway.

Was my trip a success? I think so. I got a chance to see Dave’s tiny homes first hand and learn that what I wanted was definitely possible. I also got to see some friends I’d missed — and get an invitation to return in the spring with my boat when their house is done. And although it had taken longer than I wanted to price up a few RVs, it was good to see what was available.

Now I’ve got work to do: sketch out a floor plan for a tiny home and see if Dave can make it happen. I’d love to hit the road with something different next winter.

Mobile Mansion for Sale

Posted on September 14, 2015 by Maria Langer

Perfect for snowbirds or a life on the road.

Back in 2010, I bought a 2010 Montana Mountaineer 5th wheel RV. I chose it after looking at well over 100 RVs of all sizes. At the time, I thought it was a “Perfect” RV.

Here’s the floor plan for my mobile mansion.

And it was. At the time, anyway. I bought an RV large enough for two people and a mid-sized dog to live comfortably for 4 to 6 months out of the year. It would need plenty of space, a comfortable dining area, a cozy queen sized bed, and a dedicated office area where I could spread out while working on books. And the kitchen would have to have enough space to prepare meals for two.

You see, the man I was married to had promised that he’d join me on the road in the summer months when he turned 55 in 2011. Buying the RV was just one of the preparations I made for him to leave the latest in a series of dead-end jobs, join me in Washington during the summer months, and chase his own dreams back in Arizona in the winter.

But although I trusted that man to keep his promises, he didn’t. Maybe he never intended to. Instead, he came up with another plan — one that didn’t include me. The divorce proceedings began in the summer of 2012.

Do you know how many books I wrote at this desk? And yes, that’s an HDTV — one of two in the RV.

In a way, it’s a good thing I bought what I came to call the “mobile mansion.” It gave me a very comfortable place to live in the months between when I left my Arizona home and when my new home in Washington was ready to be occupied.

Unfortunately, however, it’s a lot more RV than I want or need for the winter travel I’d like to make part of my rebooted life. Yes, it’s spacious and comfortable and it’s easily towed behind my 1-ton Ford diesel truck. But it’s a pain to park and it doesn’t fit into many of the tight spaces I’d like to go. It’s perfect for a snowbird — someone who wants to go south for the winter (or north for the summer) and just park in one or two places for the season. But to travel? To move every few days? Not practical.

So I want to downsize. I’d like to replace the mobile mansion with a bumper-pull trailer that’s under 20 feet in length and has no slides. Something light that I can pull with a 1/2- or 3/4-ton truck. Something that’s easy to park, even in tight spots. Something for a life on the go.

That’s why the mobile mansion is for sale. I’ve got it listed on RV Trader and on Craig’s List, as well as in a few local places. If you’ve been thinking of joining the ranks of snowbirds — or breaking free from your nine-to-five grind to start a life of adventure on the road (in comfort) — this might be the perfect solution for you.

This whole rig can be yours for just $42K!

The asking price? $32,900 for the RV — pay the asking price and I’ll deliver it within 500 miles of 98828 at no extra charge. You can get a NADA Guide RV value and specifications here; just keep in mind that the value doesn’t include the solar setup.

If you want the truck with it, the price is $42,000 firm for the whole rig. You can buy them as a starter kit and hit the road before the first snow falls!

Camping in the North Cascades

Posted on August 11, 2015 by Maria Langer

My first real camping trip in at least 15 years is an exhausting ton of fun.

Last week, Kirk and I went off-the-grid on a 5-day/4-night camping trip in Washington’s North Cascades National Park.

To many people, the North Cascades is a “drive-thru” park. That’s because one of the nation’s most scenic roads, the North Cascades Highway (SR 20) winds right through it. It’s also part of the Cascade Loop, a 400-mile driving tour through the Cascade Mountains. The loop runs right through Wenatchee, up Route 97 through Chelan, up the Methow Valley on Route 153, past Twisp and Winthrop on Route 20, and then through the North Cascades Mountains past Washington Pass and the Skagit River dams and their lakes: Ross, Diablo, and Gorge. It eventually dumps down into the Seattle area where it goes south, eventually hooking up with Route 2 for the eastbound leg up Highway 2 through Stevens Pass, Leavenworth, and Cashmere, back to Wenatchee.

Although I’ve spent eight summers in Washington and have been living full-time in the area for the past two years, I’d never driven any part of the North Cascades Highway. I was supposed to do a camping trip up there in September 2012, but more pressing matters brought me home to Arizona early that year. But this year, I planned two trips that way: a drive-thru trip on motorcycles with my friend Bob to Friday Harbor later this month and a camping trip with Kirk at the beginning of the month.

The Gear

I had all my camping gear from when I brought it to Washington in 2012. Back then, I had the silly notion that my wasband, who claimed to want to spend the summer with me, would go boat camping out on the Columbia River. So when I packed up my RV for my annual migration north, I packed up all the gear we’d need: the good tent, sleeping bags, cotton sleeping sacks, mess kit, lantern, etc. My wasband apparently had other ideas, so we never used the equipment together again. But it sure came in handy when I packed for this trip.

Although Kirk has an all-wheel-drive vehicle, I really wanted to take the Jeep. I thought there might be some back road opportunities. I’d already removed the back seat from the Jeep so there was plenty of open space back there. The trick was to stow the gear in boxes that would be organized and easy to pack.

Fortunately, I had a number of wheeled storage bins, including a very large, heavy duty Husky toolbox I’d bought to store tools before I had a building on my future homesite. That became the camping gear box and it held everything we’d need to set up camp: tent, sleeping bags, sleeping sacks, tarp, rope, bungee balls, queen sized air mattress, and three air pumps (two battery and one manual).

I used another smaller box for kitchen items: butane camp stove (which I’d bought in 2012 but had never used), two covered frying pans, a coffee pot, a small bin full of dinnerware and cups, and the vitally important equipment to make coffee. That box also took the items that didn’t need to be kept cold: coffee, scones I’d made the day before, bread, cookies, oil for cooking, etc.

I also have a wheeled cooler I bought for my boat. I filled that with frozen meats (burgers, chicken, and sausage) and a wide range of vegetables from our gardens (beans, peppers, and tomatoes from Kirk’s; eggplant, onions, garlic, and cherry tomatoes from mine). I added milk for my coffee, eggs from my chickens, cheese, and two pounds of cold cuts (turkey and ham) for lunch, Two solid ice half-gallon milk bottles would help keep everything cool for the five days we expected to be out.

I packed a bag with clothes and toiletries, Kirk packed two smaller bags with the same. He also brought along his two inflatable kayaks — mostly because I didn’t have a roof rack for mine — life jackets, and paddles. I brought my portable propane grill, which I bought years ago for travel with the RV — it folds up into its own little carry bag.

Packed Jeep
The Jeep was jam-packed for our camping trip.

Packing all this stuff into the Jeep was a bit of a challenge. When we were finished, the back of the Jeep was completely crammed with stuff. So crammed, in fact, that Penny had to ride on Kirk’s lap for the drive.

The Drive Up

We started out at about 10 AM on Monday, heading north on Route 2 to avoid having to drive through Chelan. We filled the Jeep with gas before we got too far, then settled in for the long drive to Twisp, our first stop, which was on Highway 20 not far from where the North Cascades Highway begins.

Twisp is a great place to stop at mealtime. There are two good places to eat there. Most folks like Cinnamon Twisp, which is where we stopped. It’s a great bakery that’s also open for breakfast and lunch. We sat outside with Penny, eating fresh-made sandwiches on whole grain bread. Of course, I bought an oat bar for dessert.

(In case you’re wondering, other place I like to eat in Twisp is the natural foods store next door, the Glover Street Market. Their Curry Stew and Forbidden Rice Bowl are great warmups for cold winter days. I usually pass through Twisp on my cross-country ski trip to Winthrop every Christmas.)

Kirk with Cider
Kirk posed with a taste of cider at the Methow Valley Ciderhouse.

We continued on our way, stopping briefly at Winthrop in search of a good map. We found several in the local visitor’s center. That’s also where we decided to make a quick stop at the Methow Valley Ciderhouse, just outside of town. This is a funky cool place that looks like it would be fun to visit with a bunch of friends. But that Monday morning, it was just us and the owner. We tasted a flight of ciders and I have to admit that I wasn’t terribly impressed. We left empty-handed and continued on our way.

Our next stop was quite a few miles up the road, at Washington Pass. There’s a big fancy overlook there with lots of parking and a short trail to a lookout point. We parked and made the climb. The view was spectacular, but smoke in the area from the Wolverine Fire on Lake Chelan had drifted into the area, muddying the sky. We’d been driving in the haze since leaving my home that morning and to see it this far up in the mountains was very disheartening. Fortunately, the smoke cleared out as we headed down from the pass, deeper into the Cascades.

Washington Pass Panorama
A panoramic view from the overlook at Washington Pass.

Somewhere along the ride, cell phone service completely dropped out. It would be like that for most of our stay in the area.

The First Camp and Hike

We continued on our way, stopping at just one more overlook. But that time, it was after 3 PM and I was starting to get worried about finding a decent campsite. We’d already decided to camp at Colonial Creek Campground on Diablo (pronounced “Die-ah-blow”) Lake. The campground map showed some tent sites right on the lake and I was hoping to get one of those. By the time we arrived, however, it didn’t seem like any of those sites were open. We wound up instead on a nice, private wooded site. We paid the fee for one night and set up camp.

I was very pleased to see that the tent and its poles were still in perfect condition. I’d bought the tent back in 1992 for motorcycle camping. We needed a good 3-man tent with poles that folded up short enough to be packed on a motorcycle. This was a great tent that had made several motorcycle trips with me and my wasband, including our epic Skyline Drive/Blue Ridge Parkway/Outerbank Islands adventure in 1992 or 1993. Its main drawback was that it wasn’t tall enough to stand up in. That wasn’t such a big deal when I was in my 30s, but 20 years later, it matters, especially when I try to dress. (I wound up changing my clothes outside the tent; our site had enough privacy to make modesty a non-issue.)

The air mattress was another story. Although we’d tested it at Kirk’s place and it had lost some air there, Kirk was convinced that the valves hadn’t been properly closed during our test. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the valves. The mattress, which was admittedly old, apparently had other leaks. It wouldn’t hold air. With no camp store in the area, we couldn’t replace it that first night. So Kirk spread out all our sleeping bags and blankets and towels as padding under where we would sleep.

The campground featured flush toilets in several well-kept buildings on the camp roads, water spigots, and a mix of RV and tent sites. There was a fishing pier and a boat launch. (Boats are limited to 14 feet in the lake, which is why I didn’t bring mine.) Each site had a large picnic table, a designated tent area that was level and smooth, a fire pit (which was useless with a fire ban in effect), and a bear box. A bear box is a secure place you can store anything that smells like it could be food; every night we had to pack up our kitchen box and cooler and stow them inside it.

Kirk and the Big Trees
Here’s Kirk along the Thunder Creek Nature Trail. There are some seriously big trees throughout the park.

We had burgers and green beans for dinner, then headed out on a trail that led from the campground up Thunder Creek. There was a nature trail off the main trail, a 0.9 mile loop that climbed steeply up the side of the mountain, past rock slides, fallen trees, moss, ferns, and old growth cedars and pines. Numbered sign posts corresponded with a guide we didn’t have so we amused ourselves by making up interpretive comments about what we saw at each sign post. Kirk was very good at this — way better than me.

Later that night, we crawled into the tent and settled down on the relatively hard ground. I thought I’d have trouble sleeping, but I must have been exhausted because I slept surprisingly well. Penny slept like a log, mostly because I’d brought along her bed and she was perfectly comfortable.

Day 2: Hiking, Shopping, Moving, Napping, and Hiking

I heated up the scones with butter in a frying pan the next morning for breakfast. The coffee was good and hot. Because the campground was down in a valley, it took a while for the sun to reach us. I think it may have been a bit overcast, too, and that burned off as we headed out on our morning hike.

Colonial Creek is full of the “glacial flour” that gives it and Diablo Lake their milky blue-green color.

The hike was on the Thunder Knob Trail. This was a 3.6 round-trip hike that climbed about 425 feet to the top of a heavily wooded hill on the lake. From our campsite, the trailhead was about 1/2 mile away, so we walked to it. The trail starts by crossing Colonial Creek, where glacial runoff flows down the mountain and into Diablo Lake. It then winds through the woods, climbing up on switchbacks. I was still fresh and full of coffee so I didn’t need more than a few short rests. Only one hiker passed us on the way up. At the top were two viewpoints looking down at Diablo Lake and across at the peaks it’s nestled in. It was mind-boggingly beautiful.

Diablo Lake from Thunder Knob
Diablo Lake from one of Thunder Knob’s lookout points.

On the way back, we took a walk along the lakeside campsites. Some of the previous day’s campers had departed. We found an excellent site right on the lake and wasted no time staking it out for ourselves. Then we spent about an hour packing up our original camp, moving everything over to the new one, and setting up the camp again. The old air mattress wound up in a dumpster.

Two views of our campsite: from the lake looking in (left) and from the campsite looking out toward the lake (right). We were right on the lake.

After a good lunch of thick sandwiches and chips, we hopped into the Jeep and headed out to the nearest town, Newhalem, in search of a new air mattress. This was a nine or so mile drive farther down Route 20. Along the way, we passed the Diablo Dam and powerhouse, Gorge Lake, Gorge Falls, and the Gorge Dam.

Just as we got into town, my cell phone, which had been charging in a cradle, came to life with a handful of text messages — including a thank you note from the Realtor who had finally sold my old Arizona house. Let’s just say that I wasn’t the only one celebrating that sale with champagne.

Newhalem is a “company town” that was built by Seattle City Light, the publicly owned power company that owns and operates the three hydro-electric power plants on the Skagit River. It features a general store, a restaurant with odd hours, and a bunch of buildings for company use. Employees who work in the area live in town or in the small community of Diablo, just downstream from the Diablo Dam.

We beelined it to the General Store in search of a new air mattress. The store had a tiny bit of camping gear but no air mattresses. The clerk suggested Marblemount, 14 miles farther up the road.

We stopped for a few minutes at the Visitor Center, which had the usual collection of displays about the river, dams, lakes, salmon, and original native settlers. Kirk spotted a sign with information about a “Dam Good Chicken Dinner” and nighttime tour of Ladder Creek Falls that coming Thursday night. He signed us up. I bought a good trail map.

Then it was on to Marblemount, which isn’t much bigger than Newhalem. The store there had a bit more camping gear, much of it stowed away in a back room. There were some roll-up pads that would have helped us in a pinch. But we were ready to try our luck at Concrete, even farther up the road, when I spotted some twin sized Coleman air mattresses on a bottom shelf. We bought two, feeling very lucky to have found them.

Park Sign
Penny and I posed atop the fake snow at the park entrance sign.

We gassed up the Jeep at the only gas station I’d seen since leaving Winthrop the day before and headed back to the campsite, stopping for some super touristy photos at the park entrance sign, a visit to Gorge Falls, and a very short hike to what was supposed to be an overlook of the Gorge Dam but was blocked by trees.

Back at the campsite, we inflated the two air mattresses and stuffed them into the tent. They literally filled the tent’s floor. Then Kirk inflated his kayaks while Penny went on chipmunk patrol around our site. Sometime around mid afternoon, we found our way into the tent for a nap. The air mattresses were perfect! We woke up near dinner time. I cooked up a concoction of eggplant, garlic, olive oil, and polenta that came out pretty good. We had that with grilled sausages.

Kirk in a Tree
Another shot of Kirk, this time in a tree.

After cleaning up, it was time for our evening hike. We headed back up the Thunder Creek Trail which followed the lake shore up Thunder Creek. It was yet another heavily wooded trail, surrounded by tall, old growth trees but offering few views of either the lake or the creek. Although the trail went on for miles, the idea was to hike until 7:30 and turn back. 7:29 found us at a grove of old growth trees with a big hollow one that was obviously a spot for taking photos. So we took one.

I slept amazingly well that night.

Day 3: Ross Lake, Rain, and the Folks from Maryland

Eggs with tomatoes, onions, pepper, and cheese for breakfast. And coffee, of course.

After cleaning up, we headed out on a hike to Ross Lake Resort. This is one of only two lodging facilities inside the park and it isn’t easy to get to because there’s no road to it. There seems to be just a few ways of getting there. The easiest is to take a ferry from Diablo Dam up to the portage area near Ross Dam, get on the portage truck, and then take a water taxi across Ross Lake. If you’re on a kayak, you can launch it at the Colonial Creek campground, paddle 5 miles up Diablo Lake, catch the portage truck to Ross Lake, and then paddle across. Or you can do what we did: park at the Ross Dam Trail trailhead, hike down to the dam, cross the dam, and hike up the lake to Ross Lake Resort. Although I didn’t have my GPS app tracking us, I estimate the total mileage to be about 2 to 3 miles each way.

Ross Dam was built with future expansion in mind.

It was a pleasant hike on narrow, well-worn trails. We crossed a creek on a nice wooden bridge early on, near the parking area — more glacial runoff. Then a descent down almost to lake level. Crossing the dam was interesting; I later found out that the reason the Dam has the stepped sides is so that it can be built up to enlarge it at a future date. (Apparently, the Canadians aren’t too happy with that plan.) On the other side, I was surprised to see the trail climb up the side of the hill — I hadn’t planned on two climbs on the return trip — but it eventually leveled out as it headed up lake. We met two hikers waiting for friends at a trail intersection and turned right, down the hill to Ross Lake Resort.

Ross Lake Resort consists of 12 cabins on floating platforms: house barges, in effect. They’re all moored against the shore. There’s an office, a boat rental facility, and not much else. No restaurant, no store beyond snacks. Anyone who stays there not only has to get there, but he has to bring in all his provisions. The cabins are various sizes and include everything you need to live comfortably for the length of your stay. Most folks likely spend most of their stay boating and fishing; most cabins had a boat tied up out front. And of course, the place was entirely off the communication grid. Talk about a comfortable remote getaway! Sign me up!

Ross Lake Resort consists of a string of floating cabins.

I let Penny off her leash to play with the other dogs, including a boxer named Maple. Kirk and I rested, snacked on nuts and energy bars we’d brought along, and prepared mentally for the walk back. By that time, it was starting to cloud up. We’d heard in Newhalem the day before that there was a 20% chance of rain on Wednesday and it seemed to be coming. The first small drops started falling on us as we crossed the dam. The drizzle continued, on and off, but we arrived back at the Jeep dry enough.

We drove back toward the campground and beyond. Kirk wanted to check out the town of Diablo. I directed him on a turn that took us over the Diablo Dam instead. That put us at the Seattle City Lights Ferry terminal instead. We saw a few young deer and followed a sign for the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center. I was hoping they had a restaurant where I could get something hot to eat, like soup or chili. I ran in to investigate and discovered the only other lodging place in the park: a learning center with weekend programs on a wide variety of topics. I took some literature to check it out later on.

We continued along Highway 20 and soon found ourselves back in Newhalem. (My phone alerted me when we were getting close by displaying a list of new text messages and missed calls.) I bought a can of chili in the General Store and we headed back.

Tarp over Table
We rigged up this great old ripstop nylon tarp over our table. (They don’t seem to make tarps like this anymore.)

By this time, it was raining lightly but steadily. It let up a bit when we reached camp and we had enough time to heat and eat the chili and some sandwiches before it started up again. I mentioned the tarp I’d brought along and we pulled it out, along with the rope and bungee balls I had. It took two tries, but soon we had it hanging nicely from four trees. We moved the table under it just before the rain started coming down in earnest.

We read and napped the afternoon away. The tent stayed remarkably dry, despite the fact that we hadn’t properly tied out the fly. The tarp completely covered the table. I propped a walking stick under its middle on top of the table to raise it and help the water find a way off.

Later, we ran to the bathroom, took care of business, and waited in the shelter of the building overhang for the run back. That’s when we met a family from Maryland who were camped near us and had just returned from a very long hike. They were disappointed that they didn’t have any shelter from the rain and would likely be eating cold food inside their tent. So we invited them to bring their food over and prepare it under our tarp with us. The tables were big enough for all six of us to eat outdoors and keep dry. I don’t think they thought we were serious, but a while later, when we were preparing to make our own dinner, Kirk ran over to their site and reminded them they had the option of joining us. I had just begun heating up the frying pan for a stir fry of green beans (of course), onions, tomatoes, and chicken when they arrived with two big ham steaks, the biggest yam I’d ever seen, two stoves, and two frying pans. Soon we were all cooking and chatting and then eating in the bright light of my old camping lantern, which had to be at least 25 years old.

It was dark when they left. We cleaned up, packed up the bear box for the night, and turned in. It was still raining. But by morning, the only rain sound was the dripping of water through the trees.

Day 4: Long Hike, Where I Sh*t in the Woods, Bear Sighting, Dam Good Chicken

Kirk in a Kayak
Kirk headed out for a pre-breakfast paddle on Thursday morning.

It was still cloudy when we woke up, but with low clouds that clung to the mountainsides offering glimpses of blue sky beyond. After coffee, Kirk took one of the kayaks out on the lake, which was as smooth as glass. I stayed behind and prepped to make breakfast. When he returned, we had the last of the eggs and onions. And the scones. The cooler was getting empty enough to start storing other food in it. The ice was nearly gone, but it was cool enough.

Soon I couldn’t resist the call of the smooth lake surface beyond our campsite. I changed into shorts and climbed into the kayak for a quick paddle up the lake toward Thunder Creek. There were geese feeding on grassy areas and a low ground fog hanging over the water surface here and there. I snapped a few photos with my camera before turning back. The wind was just beginning to pick up when I pulled into shore.

Diablow Lake
A view up the Thunder Creek arm of Diablo Lake from a kayak, early in the morning.

We debated two hikes from the same trailhead that morning: East Bank and Happy Panther. Both ran alongside the Ruby Arm of Ross Lake. Although it seemed to me that Happy Panther Trail might run closer to lakeside, Kirk opted for the East Bank Trail. So we headed that way, descending down to lake level where Panther Creek and Ruby Creek met. There was an interpretative sign there with information about mining operations that had been in the area, as well as a hermit who lived in a home across the creek. We crossed the bridge and started up the trail on the other side, which led downstream toward the lake as it climbed gradually up the hillside. Yet another densely forested trail, soon there was no sign of the creek, although we could hear it and the cars on the road we’d come in on. Soon even that faded away as we walked through the forest on what used to be a road, crossing small creeks along the way.

Open Air Privacy
With no one around, this beats a stinky outhouse any day.

My GPS app, which I’d preloaded with topo maps of the area, showed a barn and horse meadow and we tried unsuccessfully to find that. I think we may have found where it had been, though. We certainly found meadow areas, long overgrown. A little beyond that was the Ruby Pasture campsite, where someone had hung his covered hammock between two trees before heading out on a hike. There was a sign for a toilet and I followed it through the woods. It ended at a pit toilet out in the open with its seat facing the forest and lake. It was probably the nicest pit toilet I’ve ever used.

After a short rest, we headed back. Thats when my leg muscles started aching. I think the rest was the mistake — it seemed to flip a pain switch inside me. I joked that I’d reached my weekly hiking distance limit of 10 miles and now my body was shutting down. I kept a slow pace on the way back, despite the mostly level terrain for the first part. That was probably a good thing. Because I’d hung back, Kirk’s approach down the trail was quieter. So quiet, in fact, that the bear about 100 feet off the trail didn’t hear us until I joined him for a look. It was a young bear — maybe a year old — and it seemed to be alone. After taking a good look at us, it headed up the hillside away from us. I like to think that Penny’s tentative bark drove him off. I took two pictures, but I won’t waste your time or mine sharing them; the bear is nothing more than a black lump in the trees.

I’ll admit that it was great to get back to the Jeep. I was exhausted. We’d only hiked about six miles, but I’d done so much hiking during the week that I really was beginning to tire out.

We went back to the campsite for a quick bite to eat. It was late — about 3 PM — and we didn’t want to ruin our appetite for the dinner later that evening. Then we were back on the road, this time zeroing in on the tiny community of Diablo along the way. This is a collection of company housing for the folks who work at the dams. A bunch of houses that all look the same and a road that terminated at Diablo Dam.

Number 6
I felt a little like a kid climbing up on this nicely preserved steam engine.

From there, it was on to Newhalem. We bought a frozen burrito for the next day’s breakfast — we’d run out of breakfast food — climbed the old steam engine parked nearby, walked the 1/3 mile long Trail of the Cedars Nature Walk, and then checked out the Ladder Creek Falls trail, where we’d be walking later that evening. I was too pooped to make that climb before dinner, so I hung back and waited for Kirk, answering a few text messages and posting a photo or two on Facebook and Twitter while I had cell service.

We got to the Gorge Inn dining room just in time for dinner. It was cafeteria style dining with family style seating. I got to sit beside the ranger who would be leading the walk after dinner. Across from us were a pair of brothers who had grown up in the area and were revisiting it as adults. Dinner was fried chicken, using the same recipe that had been used when the dining hall first opened, with mashed potatoes, and gravy. And green beans, if you can believe that. Dessert was homemade apple pie and ice cream. We left feeling stuffed. I got a doggie bag of chicken skins and meat for Penny and left it for her in the Jeep before we started the walk.

Ladder Creek Falls
One of the ways that Seattle City Light got early support for their dam project was to offer nightly tours of these falls lit up much as they are now. Electricity was new back then so this was a real treat for visitors.

There was a group of about 40 of us for the evening walk. The ranger took his time getting from the Inn to the falls trail — he needed to wait for the lights to come on. Along the way, he talked about the natural and social history of the area, including the history of the dams along the Skagit River. Finally, we reached the start of the falls walk. The lights up the trail were turned on and the colored lights on the rushing creek and falls were doing their thing. We walked along the trail with our companions, stopping to look at the lights along the way. It was funky weird and thoroughly enjoyable.

It was nearly 10 PM by the time we got back to our campsite. We fell into the tent and got right to sleep.

Day 5: Views, a Hike, and a Walk around Winthrop

We heated up that burrito in a frying pan for breakfast. It was remarkably good. But then again, everything tastes good when you’re camping.

We packed up camp at a leisurely pace. Everything was dry. I didn’t bother washing the dishes since the next time they’d be out was home, with my dishwasher handy. We got everything back into the Jeep and even had room to put Penny’s bed up on top of one of the camp boxes, behind the driver’s seat.

We headed out, making just one stop in the park before leaving: Diablo Lake Overlook. We’d stopped there before, but the light and sky was much prettier that morning and I wanted a good photo.

Diablo Lake
I shot this using the pano feature of my iPhone; panoramas don’t have to be wide.

Rainy Lake. Can you see the waterfall just left of center in this shot? It was so quiet, we could hear it from the trail’s end.

Then it was back down the road toward Winthrop and home. But not before one more hike. We stopped at the trailhead for Rainy Lake. This was a “handicap accessible” trail, meaning that it was paved the entire way. It wound through forest, under a canopy of fresh-smelling foliage, with signs that pointed out the different vegetation along the way. At the end of the trail was the lake, nestled into a glacier-dug cavity. The entire lake is surrounded by mountains and a waterfall at the south end feeds it with a healthy flow from melting glaciers out of sight above it. Amazingly, there was no one there when we arrived. We climbed down to the water’s edge and watched fish swimming in the clear water. We also found some kind of water bugs in the shallow water that were strangely fascinating to watch.

Washington Pass View
Another view from Washington Pass.

Back in the Jeep, we continued toward home. We stopped again at Washington Pass. Although we’d started to notice smoke again, it wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been on Monday. I wondered if the Wolverine Fire had gotten some of the rain we did on Wednesday.

From there, it was downhill and eventually back in civilization. We passed the turn off for Mazama without stopping and headed into Winthrop, which was surprisingly busy for a Friday midday. We had lunch at a Mexican place — I felt like having a hot, hearty meal — and then walked around town. I bought a birthday present for my friend Bob who turns 65 later this week. After a few hours in town, we got into the Jeep and pointed it toward home again. We stopped for fuel in Twisp but skillfully avoided the bakery, which I longed to visit.

The final stop along the way was at the Orondo Cider Works, which I thought was a cidery. Instead, it’s more of a farmstand that also sells cider. I bought an 8-ounce bottle to drink immediately — I was parched — and Kirk bought a gallon to split with me at home.

It was nearly 5 PM when we pulled into my driveway. We unloaded the Jeep and unpacked the perishables. I checked the chickens — they’d laid nearly 2 dozen eggs! — and irrigation. Everything was fine. Nice to know that I can leave for 5 days without having to worry about anything at home.

Final Thoughts

The trip had been great — everything I wanted and more. Kirk is a good traveling companion who prevents me from being lazy when I might be. We stayed active most of the time and I really got a workout that I needed.

But what surprised me the most was how well we’d packed for this trip. We had everything we needed with some minor exceptions:

A second rope would have made hanging the tarp easier.
Duct tape would have made it possible to repair the storage box for my camp stove when it cracked.
Fresh batteries for the pumps would have made them work a bit faster.
Throw rug would have been nice to have outside the tent to keep the entranceway clean.
Some canned chili or soup would have been nice when the weather turned rainy.
More breakfast food. I honestly hadn’t expected us to stay four nights.

The camp boxes made bringing equipment down to the lakeside campsite — which was not near the car — very easy. And they also made it easy to keep things secure and dry when the wind kicked up or it rained.

There were only three casualties on the trip:

Kirk’s air mattress. Admittedly, it was past its prime.
One of my folding chairs. I carry two in the Jeep but broke one when we sat out by the lake one evening.
Ground cloth. This old piece of plastic, which had to be at least 20 years old, was stuffed in the tent bag. It had become brittle and although it worked for this trip, it would not be good for the next.

Would I do it again? Hell yes! But I think we’ll take Kirk’s big tent next time. I’m getting too old to crawl in and out of that old tent’s doorway.

An Eclectic Mind

Web site and blog for Maria Langer, writer, video producer, jewelry artist, boat captain, and helicopter pilot. Blogging since 2003.

Tag Archives: camping