Tag Archives: driving

Snowbirding 2020 Postcards: Day 2 Start in the Dark

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I get a very early start on day 2 of my trip.

After just one fuel stop (in Baker City, OR), I arrived at my overnight destination just before sunset: Three Islands State Park Campground. I chose the campground for its convenient location just a few miles off the Interstate and the fact that it had electrical hookup. That enabled me to run my portable electric heater all night, which is a heck of a lot quieter than my camper’s forced hot air propane heater. I was also able to turn on my electric blanket, ensuring that I’d be comfy and warm all night.

I slept like the dead, but because I went to sleep so early, I also woke up early. Early enough to hit the road by around 6 AM. I took a picture after starting the engine.

Dark Departure
There were only two campers in the campground Tuesday night. I got the only pull-through site.

The weather report said there was freezing fog in the area, but it was perfectly clear and dry for the start of my drive.

Although Id made coffee before hitting the road, I stopped about an hour later in Twin Falls, ID for breakfast. It was still dark when I went into Starbucks — I admit that I love their breakfast sandwiches– but getting light as I left. I stopped at a local Walmart for milk and dog food and diesel exhaust fluid. The sun was just coming up as I refueled at the Walmart gas station — 20¢/gallon cheaper than everyone else in the area — and poured that exhaust fluid in.

Snowbirding 2020 Postcards: Hitting the Road

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I hit the road in my new and improved winter travel rig.

I hit the road today at around 7:15 AM — just a few minutes after my intended departure time. I took this shot of my new and improved winter travel rig before leaving:

My Winter Rig
You’re looking at a 2012 Ford F350 SuperDuty Diesel with 4WD carrying a fully-equipped 2007 Lance slide-in truck camper, and towing a 12-foot 2011 Continental cargo trailer. In straight driving, I can neither see nor feel the trailer behind me.

The weather on departure was as it appears in the photo: foggy and cold with snow on the ground. The 2 miles of gravel road to get to pavement was slick in spots but I took it slow in 4WD all the way.

Sadly, I got about 2-1/2 miles from home when I realized I’d forgotten my winter jacket. My excellent neighbors, the Ts, very kindly agreed to fetch it for me to save me a round trip down that slippery road. (If my house-sitter had arrived before my departure, I’m sure he would have brought it.)

After stopping for breakfast along the way, I was southbound shortly after 8:30 AM with my first destination nearly 500 miles away in Idaho.

Snowbirding 2020: The Drive Plan

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Another trip down an all-too-familiar route.

Posts in this series:
– The Big Plan
– The Drive Plan

On Tuesday, I plan to start by drive to — of all places — Wickenburg, AZ. It’s a drive I’ve taken many times. After all, I started spending my summers up here in Washington in 2008, the year I got my first cherry drying gig. Back in those days, I’d make two drives north in the spring — one in my helicopter and a second in a truck pulling a trailer to live in. Then, at the end of the season, I’d make two drives home to get everything back to my Wickenburg hangar.

The Preferred Route

During those years, I tried all kinds of routes north or south and I discovered the one truth about the drive: the shortest route involves route 93 between Wickenburg and Twin Falls, ID and I-84 between Twin Falls and the Tri-Cities area of Washington. Ask Google Maps — it’ll tell you. And even if you don’t believe it, I can confirm in. I’ve driven just about every other possible route.

Map of Route
Google Maps knows the fastest routes. This map even shows the route 6 shortcut.

I-84 is a freeway that goes from Portland to Salt Lake City, leaving the relatively flat land of eastern Washington to climb the Green Mountains east of Pendleton, OR (of blanket fame) before descending southeast bound into the Boise, ID area and crossing rolling prairie land. The terrain climbs and descends again and again as I head south on the two-lane route 93 from Twin Falls, which I mostly stick to, taking advantage of a shortcut on route 6 between Ely and Crystal Springs, NV.

Route 93 is one of those remote roads that frighten city people. Towns aren’t much more than a handful of homes — if that. Gas stations are few and far between. If you miss a fuel stop you could be in serious trouble, waiting hours for the AAA guy to bring you five gallons. I’ve never run out of fuel on this route, but I’ve had more than a few close calls. If diesel wasn’t so damn stinky, I’d bring along a spare 5 gallons just in case.

Once I get to I-15, I’m back on the freeway and in very familiar area just outside of Las Vegas. Then, near Boulder City, NV, I leave freeways behind again for the long drive down route 93 to Kingman, a short stint on I-40, and more route 93 all the way down to Wickenburg. It’s 1,280 miles and should take about 20 hours with fuel stops if I stick to the speed limit — which I do when I’m towing these days. I used to be able to do it all in two days, with Jackpot, NV on Idaho’s border as my preferred overnight stop. That’s where I’d sleep in my RV in the truck parking lot outside of Cactus Pete’s casino. When the trip north stretched to three days due to weather or a late start or, in one case, illness, I’d try other overnight stops including a lakeside campsite at Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge just south of Alamo, NV; a casino parking lot in West Wendover, NV; a campsite at Farewell Bend State Recreation area near Huntington, OR; or a state park campground somewhere in the Green Mountains. I’m not opposed to overnighting in a Walmart parking lot, but I’d prefer not to.

The Challenge of Driving When Days are Short

Driving south in late autumn is a whole different story. I can’t do it in two days mostly because I prefer not to travel in the dark. That means it’s always three days and I need two stops along the way. So not only do I have to plan my route around the weather, but I should have a damn good idea of where I’m going to stop along the way to make cold weather camping bearable.

And that’s the challenge. My truck camper is not winterized and I don’t want its pipes to freeze. I also don’t want to worry about running out of battery power at night when the heater would likely run nonstop to keep the poorly insulated camper warm enough for me to sleep. The answer is to find a campground with a power hookup that’s right on my route, close enough to reach before it gets dark.

I found such a place last year: the tiny Three Island Crossing State Park in Glenns Ferry, ID. Although the water is turned off in this campground and the bathrooms are closed and locked, the power is still turned on and available. I can pull into a campsite, plug in, and use my quiet electric heater to keep the camper warm all night. I get the added benefit of being able to use my microwave to heat up some dinner and my electric coffee maker to make coffee in the morning. The forecast says Tuesday night’s low will be 25°F so I really will appreciate that electric hookup.

Three Island Crossing is 491 miles from Malaga and will take about 8 hours to get to with one fuel stop along the way. That means that if I leave here at 7 AM sharp, I’ll get there by 4 PM local time. Sunset there will be around 5 PM. I arrived after dark last year and left in the morning before sunrise so I never got a chance to actually see the place. It would be nice to see it this year. I plan on hitting the road long before the 8 AM sunrise the next morning.

The Las Vegas Stop

My next stop is a no-brainer of sorts: Las Vegas, NV. If you think it’s weird camping in Las Vegas, you’re right. It is.

I stay at the KOA at Sam’s Town. In general, I dislike KOAs — they’re glorified parking lots. But this isn’t a camping trip. It’s an overnight stop before I’ll be spending weeks off the grid. I found the KOA years ago and have been staying there every trip south since. I get a full hookup site, plug in, and get a good night’s sleep. In the morning, I use the clean, warm, completely underutilized shower facilities to get a good, long, hot shower. Then I top off my water tanks and dump my black and gray water. If I need propane, I buy it there and the attendant helps me load it back into the compartment where the tanks go. There’s Sam’s Town next door if I want a good dinner or breakfast that I don’t have to cook. There’s a Walmart across the street if I want to stock up on anything I might have trouble finding in the weeks to come. And if I get there early enough, I can take a free shuttle or an Uber out to the strip to see what’s changed since my last visit. I admit that the chances of that happening are minimal; the 555 mile drive will take about 9 hours with fuel stops and I’ll likely be exhausted after two full days on the road.

KOA Great Outdoors
This screenshot from an email confirmation is what prompted this blog post. I love the way KOA refers to a campground in Las Vegas as “the great outdoors.” 🙄

This particular stop — especially this year — will be my most expensive overnight stop this year, coming in at just about $55 for the night. Ouch. The reason it’s so costly: it’s not just my truck camper this year. I’ll be pulling my cargo trailer, which makes my rig a lot longer than it normally would be and really encourages me to find a pull-through spot. (Backing a trailer is hard enough when you can see it but it’s nearly impossible when a truck camper hides it from view.) Because most of the folks who stay at that KOA are driving big rigs — hence the underutilized shower facilities — all of the smaller pull-throughs are taken. The only one available was a 72-foot long spot. I shouldn’t have any trouble fitting my roughly 40-foot total length rig into it, but it’ll cost me. Big spots cost big money.

The high cost also encourages me to stay just one night when I might have stayed two. I haven’t really enjoyed a trip to Vegas in a while. I suppose I’ll have to wait for the next time HeliExpo comes to town.

The Home Stretch

The rest of the drive is very familiar. As I write this, I’m planning a stop in Wickenburg where I might be participating in a holiday art show. It’s still unclear on whether they have room for me; I applied late (as usual). If I’m in, I go to Wickenburg. If I’m not in, I might go straight down to our usual camping area on the Colorado River. That means taking route 95 south from Vegas, all the way into California at I-10 or possibly crossing the river at I-40 and heading south from Lake Havasu. I’ve gone both ways and they both work.

Either way, it’s a short travel day with less than 300 miles to cover so I’ll definitely get to my destination.

And by that time, I should be back in t-shirt weather with very few worries about keeping my camper from freezing overnight.

That’s the plan. Stay tuned to see if I stick to it.

Snowbirding 2020: The Big Plan

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I prepare for my annual migration south, this time with a mission.

Posts in this series:
– The Big Plan
– The Drive Plan

This week I’m busy packing for my annual 3-month journey to points south. That means not only packing my truck and camper for the 1200-mile drive to central Arizona, but prepping my new used 12-foot cargo trailer to haul gear and work as my mobile jewelry shop. If I do everything right — and can fit everything I need into my limited storage space — I’ll have a comfortable and productive trip where I can enjoy warm weather and abundant sunshine and get to see a lot of old friends.

Trailer Inside
Here’s the inside of my trailer as I pack it. The drawers will hold materials and tools for making jewelry. The shelves in back are for my display tables, solar panels, and other necessities.

This year is different from other years, though. This year I have a mission — I plan on seeing if I can do well enough selling my jewelry at art shows to continue doing art shows. It’s a sort of make-or-break run at what could be my fourth career.

And no — despite the rumors being spread around by one of my friends (who I really do need to talk to) — I have no intention of giving up flying any time soon. But let’s be real: I can’t fly forever. It would be nice to have another career to fall back on when the time comes that I can’t make a living as a pilot anymore. If you look back, you’ll realize that I set up my flying career long before my writing career faded — and that was a very fortunate thing for me. And I didn’t exactly dive into my writing career before setting the stage during my finance career.

The Shows

So my goal this winter is to see how many shows I can do and how much money I can net doing them.

That said, I applied for ten shows covering a total of 31 days from late November through February. I was accepted to eight of them covering a total of 28 days. Of those, I accepted seven for the same 28 days. (It’s pretty common to apply to multiple shows at the same time in case you don’t get into one; I actually got accepted to two on the same weekend.) Although most of the shows are on weekends, two of them are 10 days each; for one of those shows, I’ll actually be spending 3 days at another show. Sounds confusing? It is. You can see my schedule here.

I also applied for another show in February and two more in March; I haven’t heard whether I’m in or out of any of them. I’m hoping I get the two March shows, which are both in California. It’ll give me an excuse to visit some folks I know there on my way home. If I don’t get them, I’ll apply for another show in Washington, much closer to home.

My two long January shows are weird. They’re in Quartzsite at a venue where vendors camp with their booths. I have a tiny space there to keep my costs low and I’m not quite sure that everything will fit. But the benefit is that I won’t have to move for nearly four weeks and I’ll have a full hookup for my RV that whole time. I don’t expect to sell much there — did I mention that it was a weird venue? — but I’ll be staying near friends and close to where I can stock up on stones and other supplies. Oddly, I like Quartzsite in January.

Tyson Wells and RV Show
Here’s a 2018 drone shot of Tyson Wells and the RV show across the street. I’ll be one of the vendors camped out this year for about four weeks.

Some R&R

Of course, the first half of the trip will have lots of leisure time. Although I may start with a short show in Wickenburg, I’ll be heading out to the River after that. My friend Janet and I camp out there every December and it seems that we’re getting an earlier start every year. I’m hoping to get a good site where we can camp right on the river. My kayak and fishing pole are already packed.

Campsite
This is the campsite Janet and I shared in 2017 — the year I brought my boat with me. We were there just two weeks.

I do have a mid-December show in Phoenix to attend; I’m planning on leaving my rig at the campsite with Janet and spend the weekend at a friend’s place in Gilbert. I might even coax him out to the river for a few days. We’ll see.

And I have to admit that I’m not a 9 to 5 vendor in Quartzsite, either. Although I’m open on weekends, I tend to goof off during the week, going out on photo or shopping trips in the morning and opening my booth around lunchtime. I’m sure Janet and I will play hooky at least once for a trip out to the river, too.

The Tucson Trip

After January in Quartzsite — and another show in Gilbert that I might or might not get into — I’ll go down to Tucson for about a week. I’ve signed up for four jewelry making courses with Vivi Magoo. I’m very interested in learning new things that can expand my capabilities. The classes I signed up for should do that.

I was in Tucson for just three days last year and wound up parking with my camper in casino parking lots at night. This time, I booked a week in a campground in town. I’m looking forward to being able to drop my camper while I take my classes, check out the rock shows that will be all over the city, and maybe do one or two day trips to Saguaro National Monument and the Pima Air Museum.

This is the second vacation portion of my trip, but I plan to keep pretty darn busy.

Finishing Up

The second half of February has me in two weekend-long shows in the Phoenix area. I’ve done both shows before and they were both worthwhile for me.

And that’s all I’ve got booked.

I did apply for two California shows — one in Palm Springs and the other in Borrego Springs. I applied kind of late for the Borrego Spring show last year and didn’t get in. My friend Janet did, however, and since I’d promised her I’d go there with her, we spent a few days before the show hiking among the flowers in a truly amazing superbloom. This year, with luck, we’ll both participate in the show and then I’ll head home up California’s Central Valley.

If I don’t get into either of the California shows, I might make my way home by way of Salt Lake City where I have friends I’d like to visit. Or Reno where I have other friends to visit. I can always find someplace to go or someone to see on my way home.

Prepping for the Trip

So now I’m home with just a few days left to finish packing up for my long trip. I’ll be selling jewelry locally at Pybus Public Market this weekend, so I can’t pack everything yet. But I can pack what I don’t need for that show, which is quite a few things.

Meanwhile, I’m also cleaning my house. My house sitter will be here on Monday and I like to start him off with a sparkling clean place so he rewards me with a sparkling clean place on my return. Whether I return in the beginning of March or the middle of the month depends on whether I get into those two California shows and how much I goof off on my way home. He’s prepared to stay until March month-end if necessary.

And I think that’s what I like most about my life these days. With the exception of about three months in the summer when I’m stuck at home for cherry season, I can make up the rest of the year as I go along. What’s not to like about that?

Snowbirding 2019: The Long Drive

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About 1,253 miles in three days. But who’s counting?

Posts in this series:
• The Long Drive
• At the Backwaters Campsite
• In Mesa and Gilbert
• A Quick Stop in Wickenburg and Forepaugh
• Off Plomosa Road
• Camping at the Big RV Show
• A Trip to Organ Pipe with the WINs
• The Tucson Gem & Mineral Shows
• Wickenburg Gold Rush Days
• Constellation Park Interlude
• White Tank Mountain Park
• Bumming It in Phoenix and Apache Junction
• A Dose of Civilization
• Return to the Backwaters
•

Note: I haven’t been blogging nearly as often as I should and I do need to apologize for that. I have some excuses. Do you want to hear them?

  • My 8-year-old laptop is so damn slow that it’s frustrating to use it. I ought to have bought a new laptop this winter, but I bought a Hobie kayak and a cargo trailer instead. (More on both in a moment.)
  • I discovered that the charger for said laptop sucks power out of my RVs batteries faster than my solar panels can put it back in so I haven’t been charging it. The idea of running a generator to charge a laptop is distasteful to me (although I do admit that I used it to charge all my drone batteries the other day).
  • I had seriously sucky Internet service for the first two weeks of my trip. (Of course, that didn’t stop me from getting on Twitter every single day.)
  • I’ve been extremely busy doing things other than sitting in front of a computer. (And isn’t that a good thing?)

Anyway, let me fill you in — as briefly as possible for me — on what I’ve been up to since I left my home in the capable hands of the best house sitter in the world on December 18. I’ll do it in multiple blog posts so I can bang them out more quickly and (hopefully) not put readers to sleep with a very long post.

– Maria

I took the fastest route from Malaga to my first long term campsite on the Colorado River. In case you’re wondering, that’s route 84 to Twin Falls, ID and down Route 93 to Las Vegas, NV. Because I really don’t like to drive in unfamiliar areas at night, I broke the trip up into three days and squeezed it into a weather window that called for some rain and high winds but no snow.

Fastest Route
Google knows its stuff. I’ve tried a bunch of different routes and this one is definitely fastest.

Sinclair
For some reason, Sinclair gas stations really crack me up. Does anyone else remember the old sitcom “Dinosaurs”?

The first day was Malaga to a state park in Glenns Ferry. I drove in light rain for the first half of the day, hitting the forecasted high wind right around Pendleton, OR, where I stopped for fuel and a late breakfast. I’d been a little concerned about my high profile vehicle — I’m driving a pickup truck with a relatively large Lance truck camper on top — but it didn’t really affect me as much as I’d worried. The truck drove well at the speed limit, which was 75 in most of Washington, 65 in Oregon, and as high as 85 in Idaho. (70 mph seems to be the most fuel efficient speed.) I stopped for fuel in Mountain Home right around sunset, so it was pretty dark when I arrived at Three Island Crossing State Park. From what I could see, there was only one other camper — a pull trailer with its lights on. I picked a site on the other side of the campground and backed in. Although the water was turned off for the winter, the electricity was turned on, so I could run my electric heater and use my coffee maker in the morning.

I left before dawn for day two, which took me into Twin Falls and then down route 93. Although 93 is only one lane in each direction, the speed limit was 65 and there was no traffic. I fueled up in Wells, NV and probably should have fueled in Ely. That made things a little tense when my thirsty truck’s low fuel warning came on in the middle of nowhere, NV. Fortunately, I found fuel in Ash Springs, a tiny town that might exist primarily as a fuel stop. From there, it was down 93 to I-15 and I-15 into my next night’s stop, the KOA at Sam’s Town Casino in Las Vegas.

I picked that campground for a few reasons. First, I know it. Second, it’s reasonably priced. Third, it has great, underutilized showers, which is important when your shower stall is your bathroom and you know it’s the only shower stall you’ll have for the next two weeks. Fourth, when I’m getting ready to start two full weeks off the grid, I want a fully charged battery, empty waste tanks, and full fresh water tanks — all of which I could get at a full hookup campsite.

I had dinner at Sam’s Town: a half-dozen oysters on the half shell, an end cut of prime rib which was too big to finish and wound up being fed to dogs over the next week or so, and cheesecake. I stuffed myself, which was a big mistake. Honestly, the prime rib wasn’t even good. I could have spent the same on a much better and lighter meal at MGM Grand; one of their restaurants has an excellent steak tartare.

Oysters Prime Rib
The oysters were amazing. I probably should have had 2 dozen of those and skipped the rest of the meal. Or not?

In the morning, I had a long, hot shower, took care of the waste and fresh water in my rig, and headed out, stopping at Walmart for bottled spring water and Trader Joe’s for other goodies on my way out of town.

I didn’t take the quickest route from Vegas to my final destination. Instead, I took route 95 to I-40, crossed, the river, and drove south on the Arizona side through Lake Havasu.

Clouds
The clouds were amazing as I drove down route 95 south of Boulder City toward I-40.

London Bridge
While I was at Lake Havasu City, I stopped for fish and chips at a restaurant near London Bridge.

You see, I’d been thinking about a Hobie inflatable kayak for about a year. I’d left home without my kayak and I wanted another look at the Hobie. At the Hobie dealer in Lake Havasu, I took one for a test pedal/paddle — it has a pedal drive — and bought it. Somehow, we squeezed it into my camper, which was already full with all the additional crap I had to bring south with me to show my jewelry at shows in Arizona.

I arrived in Ehrenberg, AZ around 3:30 PM and stopped at the post office, where I retrieved my box key and collected the mail already waiting for me. (I rent a box there every winter.) Then I drove south on the unpaved Oxbow Road, my fingers crossed. There were three sites I was considering; last year we’d been stuck with the last choice. This year, luck was on my side — I was absolutely thrilled to find my first choice campsite unoccupied. After debating with myself on how I’d park my camper to get the best view of the backwater channel while not completely isolating myself from a friend who’d be joining me, I backed in, dropped the camper’s legs, and pulled my truck away. If my truck could sigh in relief, I think it would.

Camper View
Here’s the view from my camper’s back door. I always try, when parking out in the desert to put something I’d like to look at out my back door where I can see it from my dining table.

My 1250+ mile drive was over.