Snowbirding 2021: Driving Home

Posted on February 23, 2021 by Maria Langer

The drive is longer than it needed to be but shorter than I expected.

Here’s my route from Death Valley through Nevada.

After too many days with bad Internet (in Tecopa) and no Internet (in Death Valley), I plotted my trip home on a paper map that I found in my truck. The map, an oldish AAA map of western states and provinces, showed just the level of detail I needed, with Arizona, California, and Nevada on one side and Oregon, Idaho, Washington, and British Columbia on the other. I had a highlighter in my “Office” box and used it to trace lines. My goal was to explore a mostly new route, trying to get on some roads I hadn’t driven on before. Eventually, however, I knew I’d have to end up on Route 97 in Oregon, which was least likely to be affected by snowfall. I did not want to get delayed by snow in mountain passes on the way to the Columbia River crossing as I had been the previous year.

In hindsight, I’m not sure why I bothered to explore new roads when I had no intention of stopping along the way. At this point in my winter travels, I’m in GO HOME mode and I pretty much motor along with the goal of getting home in the fewest number of days. I don’t regret the route I chose, but I wish I hadn’t selected it while in that mode. Hindsight = 20/20.

Plotting the Drive

Google Maps satellite view makes it look as if I camped in the middle of a dry lake bed. I didn’t. My site (marked with the X) was along a canal, surrounded by trees.

I started writing about my drive home in my previous blog post, where I considered Solo Travel. At the end of that post, I reported that I’d parked in a campsite in the Humboldt State Wildlife Management Area (WMA), which appears in the most recent iteration of Google Maps satellite view as a dry lake bed. It was not dry. Not only did I have to negotiate a single-lane road of mud with deep tire tracks from my predecessors — with a 3200 pound camper on the truck and at least 3000 pounds in a trailer behind me — but there was water on both sides of that road for the entire 2-mile distance. My campsite about a mile down another road was along a well-defined and full canal, complete with a boat ramp and water fowl.

I guess this proves that you really can’t trust satellite view for accurate information. (And yes, I brought some of that mud home on my truck.)

Not that it mattered anyway. I use an app called Ultimate CG which draws on a database of publicly owned, noncommercial campgrounds throughout the country to find potential campsites when I’m traveling with my camper. (My friend Bill, who travels a lot more than I do, uses a similar app called AllStays, which seems to draw on the same database but adds other confirmed overnight parking spots.) When I’m in transit — in other words, on my way from one point to another — and just need a place to stay for the night, I’m not too picky. Although I could stop at any truck stop for the night, a lot of truckers keep their rigs or attached refrigeration units on all night and it can be noisy. I prefer a quiet spot, especially one where I can let my pups out to do their business without worries about traffic. That’s how I wound up at Humboldt.

It was exactly what I wanted/needed for the night. Dead quiet after the wind died down and super dark. No one else came into the “campground,” which was really nothing more than a parking area by the boat ramp with a restroom (that I didn’t use). The weather forecast claimed I could get snow overnight, but in the morning, when it was light enough to see, I saw that the fresh snow had stopped about 500 to 1000 feet above my elevation.

I could see in the morning that the snow level had stopped 500 to 1000 feet above my elevation.

Saturday’s First Leg

My first order of business after securing the camper and loading my pups into my truck was getting fuel. According to my truck’s mileage computer, I had 62 miles left before empty. Another app showed me there was fuel in Lovelock, 11 miles away. I backtracked through the area, glad that the muddy part of the road seemed drier and a bit less slippery. I drove through farmland — mostly dormant alfalfa, I think — to town, navigated to a truck stop with the cheapest diesel, and filled up. The pump stopped at $75, which is relatively common, and I dutifully re-inserted my credit card to get the pump going again to top it off. (It would be a good thing that I did.)

I had plotted a route through Nevada and into Oregon that would take me on I-80 to Winnemucca and then on a series of smaller numbered routes through northwestern Nevada and into Oregon, meeting up with route 97 south of Bend. Easy enough to follow. I programmed it into Google Maps and got on my way.

The first hurdle to jump was the snowstorm. It started as flurries and got heavier as I went along. Soon, the road surface started to get covered. I passed a flashing light saying that I needed chains or snow tires to continue. I had neither; my truck has all-terrain tires and I’m not sure if that’s good enough to meet traction tire requirements. Visibility dropped. So when I saw an exit up ahead, I got off the freeway. I’d driven less than 20 miles.

There was a gas station at the exit but a sign for a restaurant at the end of the ramp pointed away from it. Maybe I could wait out the storm with some breakfast? I turned left, went under the freeway, and saw nothing but a road thick with snow going off into the distance.

Put yourself in my shoes. If you were driving a truck with camper weighing roughly 12,000 pounds and towing another 3,000 pounds in a snowstorm without snow tires or chains on any wheels, would you have driven down this country road?

I pulled over onto a snow-covered shoulder and consulted Google maps. The restaurant was up the road. I didn’t want to drive that far. I shut off the engine and went into the camper with my dogs.

It’s nearly impossible to see in this zoomed-in shot, but this guy was wearing shorts. His dog is hidden behind some of the weeds.

The nice thing about traveling with an RV is that you have all the conveniences of home with you wherever you go. I pulled out the kettle and made myself a cup of tea. I watched the traffic go by on the freeway, including snow plows that shot streams of wet snow high up and away from the road. I watched a few cars and trucks come down from the freeway, park for a moment alongside the ramp, and then continue on their way to either the gas station or back up to the freeway. One of these was a big semi. A guy in shorts got out with his dog. I watched him watch his dog scamper about alongside the road. Then they both got back into the cab and the truck drove away.

My pups were bored. They didn’t know what we were doing there and had no clue what that white stuff coming out of the sky was. (They have very limited experience with snow.) They looked out the window and bugged me a bit while we waited.

Rosie and Lily were bored while we waited.

The snow stopped rather suddenly and it got brighter out. I put away the kettle, transferred the remainder of my tea into a travel mug, and left the camper with my pups. They ran around a bit in the snow before letting me put them in the truck. I made a U-turn, got back on the freeway — which had been plowed and was completely free of snow or ice — and continued on my way.

From that point on, I started monitoring the outside temperature; I’d once hit ice unexpectedly on a mountain road and didn’t want that to happen when I was traveling at 65 mph with a load. But the temperature stayed above freezing — and even got into the 40s — for the rest of the day.

I got off the freeway in Winnemucca, a typical large Nevada town with plenty of casinos and other places to leave money. I would have stopped at the Pizza Hut — I’m a sucker for those meat lovers personal pan pizzas — but it was still closed at 10:05 AM. (Who knew?) So I just followed the signs for route 95 north and kept going.

I turned left onto route 140, which went due west straight as an arrow as far as the eye could see. A sign at the turn said something like “Next Services 66 miles” and if I’d been thinking clearer, I would have stopped for a photo. Folks back east have no idea how far apart some towns can be out west and are often amused by signs like that. The road cut straight across the flat desert, between a number of dry lake beds, reached a tiny rock outcropping, bent slightly to the right, and cut through more flat desert. The whole time I was driving, I could see weather up ahead: thick clouds that seemed to brush the desert floor. Rain? Snow? I had no idea. All I knew is that the wind was howling and my truck’s computer claimed I was getting less than 10 miles per gallon.

I passed alongside one of these weather squalls and some rain hit my windscreen. Then I was through it.

A few cars passed me during that 66 (or whatever) miles. I passed a few going the opposite direction. There were a handful of what looked like ranches along the way. Then the terrain started getting hillier as I approached the town of Denio and the left turn to stay on route 140. There was a sad little gas station at the intersection. I kept going. Another sign said something like “Next Services 75 miles.” The road here wasn’t flat and dull. It climbed into the hills.

I’d gone about 50 miles when I started wondering whether I’d have enough fuel to get to my planned fuel stop at Lakeview.

I watched my mileage rate decrease until it was less than 9 miles per gallon. The hills were really making the truck work and the curves made it nearly impossible to coast downhill safely. There were a few spots with very steep — think 8% and 9% — downhill grades where I needed to work not only the truck’s transmission — Tow mode automatically downshifts as needed for engine braking — but the brakes. Getting behind a very slow compact car in one of these areas prevented me from coasting down as fast as I might have. What looked like it might be a gas station in Adel didn’t have any signs for diesel.

To further stress me, I’d come into patches of weather like snow or rain. At one point, near the end of the leg, when my truck’s computer said I had less than 30 miles left until empty, I came upon a busy ski area with lots of traffic in the area. I was behind a huge truck bearing alfalfa that crawled along the road. I watched those miles tick down and wondered how long it would take Good Sam to bring me 5 gallons of diesel after I called.

I reached the intersection of 395 and turned left, toward town, behind that hay truck. I’d asked Google where the nearest diesel was and it told me I’d need to go 5 more miles — exactly what my truck said it could do before empty.

Can you read it? 2 miles left!

Then I saw the green numbers lit up on a gas station’s fuel price sign in the distance. Diesel! I pulled in behind another vehicle at the pump. At least if I ran out of fuel it would be easy enough to get it into my tank. My truck’s computer said I had 2 miles left until empty. Whew!

In my defense, when I got off the freeway in Winnemucca, my truck’s computer had told me I had almost 100 miles more range than Google told me I needed to drive. But the headwinds and the windy mountain roads really increased my fuel consumption. So even with my rule of making sure there’s 100 miles of wiggle room between distance and calculated range, I almost didn’t have enough fuel for the drive. Lesson learned. I guess.

Lakeview into Oregon

After fueling up, I immediately made a wrong turn. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize it until I’d gone about 10 miles.

You see, for some reason my phone decided that even though it had a 4-bar LTE connection, it wasn’t going to connect me to the Internet. So instead of programming the next leg into Google, I had rely on signs — imagine that — to point me in the right direction. I should have realized that something was up when my next destination — the relatively big town of Bend — did not appear on any sign. But Klamath Falls, also on route 97, did appear so I turned that way.

But as you might have surmised, I like being able to keep track of how far it is to my next destination. So I pulled over and fiddled with my phone, trying to get it to connect to the Internet. When that didn’t work, I took out my marked-up map, flipped to the correct side, and took a close look. That’s when I realized I was on the wrong road. I was on Route 140 heading west. I should have been on Route 395 heading north.

To be fair, either one would have taken me where I needed to go. But the correct route would have dumped me much farther north on Route 97, saving time.

I made a U-turn. My phone came out of its stupor a short while later and I was able to program Google Maps for Bend via routes 395 and 31. I continued on my way.

With the stress of a nearly empty fuel tank gone, the drive was much more pleasant. Route 395 wound through a hilly area before forking off to the right at the junction of Route 31. I went left and found myself driving on a very pleasant road that soon dropped me into a lake-filled valley. The mid afternoon sun lit the countryside with a gorgeous glow as I motored along a cliff face along the bank of Summer Lake. I had passed up the Summer Lake hot springs — along with others along the way — and I started thinking how nice it might be to do a road trip bouncing from one hot spring to another on a long, circuitous route.

Eventually, the road climbed up into the mountains and entered a national forest. I had plenty of fuel, but it was starting to get near time to find a place to park for the night. The national forest would be perfect, but the roads were snow covered and each turn into the forest had a yellow Area Closed sign. COVID? Seriously, I don’t understand the logic of closing outdoor recreation areas when being outdoors is so much safer than being indoors in close contact with others.

About 10 miles short of La Pine, I found a slush-covered forest road without a sign, drove in, and eventually found a spot where I could back my trailer into a cleared area (in the snow) with my truck’s nose pointing out toward the road. I shut down, let my pups run around for a while in the snow, and then went in for the night.

The view out my dining area window just before sunset.

My campsite had internet access via cell phone and I caught up on email and texts with various friends. I updated my house sitter with my estimated time home: Monday instead of Sunday. I watched a few videos on YouTube and Disney Plus. (I’m still not sure about WandaVision.) I was in bed before 9.

The road had some traffic that seemed alarmingly close to my rig. I was startled by the sound of a train’s horn that seemed so close I honestly expected the train to be visible from my window. (The crossing was less than 1/4 mile away; I passed it on my way out the next day.) But by 9 PM, it had pretty much settled down. I worried about my 1/2 filled propane tank having enough gas and my batteries having enough power to keep my heater going overnight; I expected it to get down into the 20s. I put an extra blanket on the bed. I slept as good as usual.

The Last Leg

In the morning, while I sipped my coffee at 5:30 AM, I plotted my route to my next expected overnight stop: Maryhill State Park in Washington. It was only 3 1/2 hours away.

What? That close? How long to get home?

Google told me I could be home in 6 1/2 hours. I did some math. If I got on the road by 6 AM, and had two fuel stops, I could be home before 2 PM.

To say I hustled to get out of there is an understatement. My bed, my shower, and my dishwasher were calling me while the rest of the amenities of my home were waving encouragingly in the background. I had my pups fed and in the truck by 5:50 AM.

The slushy ground that had been so easy to back into the night before was gone, replaced with a hard icy surface that had no desire to let its trespasser go easily. I spun wheels in 2WD and 4WD. Crap. How embarrassing would it be to call Good Sam for a 10-foot tow?

You know the Girl Scout motto, right? Be prepared.

But no call would be necessary because I was now prepared. After an incident in sand back in late November, I’d bought a pair of heavy duty plastic traction plates. They were in the back seat area of the truck. I grabbed a lantern from the camper and deployed the orange plastic devices in front of each of my back wheels. Then, for good measure, I locked the front hubs and put the truck in 4L.

12,000 pounds of truck pulling 3,000 pounds of cargo trailer out of an icy patch of ground at 30°F? No problem. The truck immediately started moving, crawling out of the crunchy ground as if to say, “What the hell are those orange things for? I don’t need that shit.” I pulled onto the road, put my flashers on, and retrieved the traction plates. Then I unlocked the hubs, got back into the truck, shifted into 4H, and got on my way.

The rest of the drive was uneventful. I passed through one deserted looking town after another. It was early on a Sunday and I couldn’t even find a Starbucks in Bend that was open. I drove at the speed limit as the sun came up on a cloudy day. I was on Route 97 by now — a road I’ve been on many times before. (It was my primary route when driving from home to the Sacramento area of California during my frost control days.) As usual, I passed one point of interest after another without stopping. (Maybe I can visit them on my hot springs road trip?)

I found a great price on fuel in Madras, where I’d planned to stop anyway, and topped off the tank. Again, it took two credit card inserts because the fuel pump stopped at $75 the first time. I let the girls out to do their business.

I’d seen a sign for Black Bear Diner in Madras and even found a parking space on the road near it when I got there, but I decided that I didn’t want to spend time eating in a restaurant — or even going into a restaurant in an area that was still showing so many Trump signs — so I opted to stop at a Starbucks up ahead. (I’m a real sucker for their Double Smoked Bacon breakfast sandwich.) But that Starbucks was in a Safeway supermarket and it didn’t have breakfast sandwiches. I wound up getting a breakfast burrito at the deli counter.

I went back to the truck and ate in the parking lot while using the Fred Meyer app to place a grocery order that I could pick up on my way home. I was 262 miles away. Technology for the win!

More driving, more miles put behind me. Route 97 in northern Oregon winds through a number of small farming communities but not much else. The terrain is a combination of rocky formations from Oregon’s volcanic past and grass-swept plateaus, some of which still had some snow on them. When I saw the wind turbines in the distance, I knew I was getting close to the river. A long, downhill glide down a canyon deposited me in Biggs Junction, where I normally buy fuel on my way south. I didn’t need fuel yet so I didn’t stop.

I did stop on the other side of the river, in Maryhill State Park. They had a nice wide parking area with grass where I let my pups out for a quick run and pee. We stayed less than 10 minutes before getting back on the road and climbing up out of the Columbia River Valley toward Yakima.

I tried calling my sister and actually managed to talk to her for a short while before I lost the signal in some hilly, forested terrain on the Yakama reservation.

More driving. I’d finished the recorded book I’d been listening to since leaving Tecopa and listened to a few podcasts.

As I descended down into the Kititas Valley, I started thinking about ice cream. I turned east on the Interstate, not interested in braving Blewett Pass with my rig. In Vantage, I exited the freeway and stopped at Blustery’s for a chocolate banana milk shake. It cost me more than $8 (!) with tax but was exactly what I needed. I sipped it all the way to Quincy.

I stopped at Fred Meyer for my groceries. It was a real pleasure to restock for the week without having to go into the store. Does Fred Meyer realize that we actually buy less — thus saving money — when we don’t go into the store?

Meanwhile, I’d updated my housekeeper and others about my revised return date and time. A neighbor suggested that I stop at her house before going home so I could scout my driveway entrance. I drove down my road, which was remarkably clear of snow and ice, and drove up to her house. She greeted me with a container of soup so I wouldn’t have to cook that night. Her husband loaded me up into his new 4WD truck and drove down to my house for a look at the road conditions. I immediately noticed that the road got worse right after the winery, which was about a half mile from my home.

My driveway is about halfway down a pretty steep hill. It’s a left turn that starts with a little downhill part and then curves to the left before straightening out. To make the turn with my trailer, I’d have to go wide. The snow was on half the road — the left half. It was also on my driveway. That meant I’d have to drive slowly down the hill, come to a stop (or near stop) before my driveway, and make a very controlled left hand turn into my driveway, crawling down the snowy slope until I got onto the straight part.

I told him I could do it and we went back so I could give it a try.

Back behind the wheel, I took the downhill part of my road in 1st gear with 4WD turned on. I successfully came to a stop just short of my driveway, but then my truck started to slide. I stopped again, it slid again. One more time. Each time this happened, I got a little further down the road, ever closer to my driveway entrance.

I realized I had a choice: I could continue down the road, make a U-turn somewhere, and then approach from downhill. I’d done this successfully before with bad road conditions. Or I could take my foot off the brake and keep it off and let first gear roll me into my driveway.

I opted for the second plan. Mentally crossing my fingers, I released the brake and guided 15,000 pounds of truck and trailer into my narrow, snow-covered driveway. The ice crunched under my big wheels. My truck stayed on course without slipping. A look in a side mirror showed my trailer following it in faithfully. Then I was in the straight, flat part, heading for the concrete pad in front of my big garage door.

I was home!

Happy Ending

I got home this year a whole month earlier than last year. A lot of people are surprised by that, mostly because I came home when it was still cold and snowy.

What most folks don’t seem to understand is that I don’t stay away in the winter because of the cold or snow. I stay away because of the darkness.

The days this far north are short. There’s a whole 6-week period where the sun doesn’t clear the cliffs near my home and I get absolutely no direct sunlight. I left home roughly six weeks before the winter solstice, when the days are shortest. Doesn’t it make sense for me to return home six weeks after it?

Here’s the view out my kitchen window this morning as I was writing this. We had fresh snow at higher elevations (including my home) overnight.

And, for the record, I like snow. (Cold, not so much.)

I might even get some cross-country skiing in — if I can finally get the new top on my Jeep.

On Solo Travel

Posted on February 20, 2021 by Maria Langer

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I reflect on traveling alone after two weeks traveling with a companion.

After traveling with my friend Bill for two weeks and finding myself on my own again, I started thinking about traveling alone vs. traveling with a companion. I began by tracing back the time when I had begun doing the majority of my travel alone.

My History of Solo Travel

My first instinct was to place my solo travel start date in 2012, when my crazy divorce began, but that wasn’t right. I’d been traveling alone to Washington state for work every summer since 2008. I’d even gone to Alaska for a few days in early 2008 for a pair of job interviews. I’d also made plenty of work-related trips to Ventura, CA, and Boulder, CO, in the years leading up to the inevitable split.

And what about the 19-day road trip I took alone in 2005? What a trip! I piloted my then-nearly-new Honda S2000 (which is sitting in my garage at this moment) through Arizona, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Utah with no plans or reservations — just a bunch of AAA maps and a credit card.

And how about the weeks I’d gone alone to northern Arizona in 2004 when I worked as a tour pilot at the Grand Canyon? Or the dozens of solo cross-country flights with overnight stays that I’d taken alone in my R22 and later my R44 to points as far away from my Arizona base as northern California and the western slopes of the Rockies in Colorado?

And during the rise of my writing career, when I’d traveled to work for training gigs, editor meetings, conferences, and speaking engagements? Heck, I still remember the month when I traveled to six or seven different cities, often bouncing from one to another on airlines before spending a few days at home. Ten airline legs and a round-trip train ride.

And before that, when I worked in corporate America and spent at least 40% of my time traveling to company offices all over the country for work?

Here’s the Panamint Springs Campground from my camper just before dawn.

As I sit here in my camper in a very dark, sparsely populated campground in Panamint Springs, CA, I remember that very first solo business trip, which may have been the first time I ever traveled on my own by airliner for more than a night away from home. I’d gone to Lenexa, KS. I’d packed my brand new and very unpractical (as I’d learn) luggage and had been subjected to a number of airline delays to Kansas City that put me in the hotel parking lot sometime after midnight. I was on the second floor of a hotel that apparently didn’t have an elevator and I struggled to get my bag up the stairs. In the morning, I couldn’t remember what my rental car looked like or where I’d parked it. I don’t remember much of the trip after that, aside from finding some excellent barbecue (the real deal) and bringing a bunch of sauce home. Could that really have been my first solo trip? Seems like it to me.

Admittedly, not all of these trips were 100% solo. My early work-related travel was sometimes shared with a coworker who would travel with me to the destination and hang out with me after work. I remember one particular trip where I went with two other female coworkers to the Buena Park, CA, location of our company for a three-week audit. On one of the off weekends, we hopped on a plane and went to Tahoe for two nights so they could get some skiing in. On another trip to the same California office, my coworker and I drove down to La Jolla for the weekend. Still, it’s not quite the same as sharing a trip with a life partner.

Of course, I first realized that much of the travel in my life has been alone years ago when I wrote a blog post titled “About the Header Images.” In that post, I go through the exercise of reviewing every single image that appears in the random rotation atop the pages of this blog, providing a short summary of what each one is about. While I may have added and removed a few images since then, there are plenty in that blog post that still appear here; if you’ve ever wondered what a specific shot is, grab a cup of your favorite beverage and scroll through that post. You might catch something in the tone of my comments; I suspect I wrote it when I was still bitter about how my divorce played out and before I realized what a great gift my wasband had given me by leaving.

The Pros and Cons of Shared Memories

Early on in my friendship with Bill, I mentioned that the thing that bugged me most about being completely estranged from a person I’d had a very long relationship with — in this case, my wasband — was that I couldn’t discuss shared memories with him.

You know what I mean. You go someplace or do something especially memorable with a person and you say to that person “remember when we…” and follow that up with a nice chat or maybe even a good laugh about the experience.

In these cases, the experience is usually shared by just the two of you. The memory doesn’t require any backstory to share together, as it might when sharing it with someone who wasn’t there.

For example, I could remind my wasband of the time we managed to get the two drive wheels of our rental car off the ground when he drove off the road and hit a cattle guard post. If I told you about it, I’d have to tell you about the dirt road out in desert between Tombstone and Tubac, about how he was probably driving too fast, about how the road looked like it curved one way but actually curved the other, about how he tried to correct the turn and the car went out of control. I’d have to tell you about the comedy of me holding the equivalent of a 7/11 Big Gulp and having it fly up into the air and soak into my clothes and the car seat. About getting out of the compact car and finding it teetering on the mostly rotted, broken 4×4 post. About trying a variety of things to get it off until he finally stood behind the car and held the tail end in the up position, like Superman, while I got enough traction on the front wheels to drive it off the post. About how we started laughing about five minutes after we resumed travel and didn’t stop for quite a while.

All I have to say is “Remember when we got the rental car stuck on a cattle guard leaving Tombstone?” And then we could laugh over the details of the memory.

That’s the kind of thing I miss.

Of course, I didn’t only travel with my wasband over the years. I’ve got some good trips in with my friend Janet — especially the one where we helped out a friend with a motorcycle camping business in the southwest and followed him around with my Jeep, doing a good amount of exploring in our off hours. (Yes, I’ve done some rock crawling in a stock Jeep in Moab. It’s all about tire placement.) I’ve done trips with my sister and my brother. I can even still recall memorable experiences of early family vacations — especially the time in Maine when I got my first helicopter ride or the trips to Virginia when I learned to catch blue claw crabs with a piece of sting, a chicken bone, and a net.

So yes, I do have plenty of travel experiences to recall with other people who aren’t as pigheadedly stupid as my wasband is.

I think the ability to share and recall experiences with other people help keep relationships and memories alive. I think they’re important parts of our mental well-being, especially as we age and memory starts failing.

As you might imagine, I’m very glad to have “remember when…?” experiences with someone new.

The Benefits of Solo Travel

My friend Bill travels alone just about all of the time. He likes it. And by talking with him about it, I realized that I like it, too.

If you can put aside any desire to create “remember when…?” experiences or unfounded fears of being by yourself — seriously, get over that shit — the benefits of traveling alone are easy to see.

The main benefit, of course, is decision making. When you travel alone, you make all of the decisions — and have the freedom to change your mind as often as you like. Want to turn left enroute because the sign you didn’t expect to see says there’s a waterfall down that road? Do it. Want to spend three nights instead of one at a lakeside campsite you’ve found because it’s way better than you expected it to be? No problem. Want to completely skip that side trip to the coast because you’ve heard about an interesting spot inland with dark night skies and miles of hiking trails through forests? Go for it!

(My biggest pet peeve of traveling with my wasband was trying to make a plan change and hearing him say, “But I thought we were going to…” Pardon me, but fuck that bullshit. I’m so glad I never need to hear those words again.)

Another benefit that not many take advantage of is the opportunity to talk to strangers. I’m not sure why it’s so easy for me to strike up a conversation with someone I don’t know — maybe my background growing up in the New York metro area? Maybe I inherited it from my grandmother, who talked to everyone? — but it serves me well to this day. I talk to strangers all the time, whether I’m waiting in line at the check out counter of a supermarket, standing at a trailhead map, or passing someone in a campground with an usually cool camper.

My favorite story of the benefit of talking to strangers is from 1995, when I was spending the winter (mostly alone) in Yarnell, AZ, trying to escape the winter cold of my New Jersey home. (I guess I forgot to mention that solo three-month trip in my list above or the 10-day trip a few months before it when I searched for and found my winter lodging. I really have done most traveling alone for most of my life.) My brother had flown out for a visit and we decided to take a trip up to the Grand Canyon for a few days. We were waiting in line for breakfast at El Tovar, the historic hotel at the South Rim, which used to have a really excellent restaurant. A guy traveling alone was standing in line behind us. We struck up a conversation and eventually asked him to join us so he didn’t have to eat alone. He did. During our breakfast conversation, we talked about places we’d traveled to and he mentioned a hot spring at the very south end of Big Bend National Park in Texas. The way he described it, it sounded really nice. A month or so later, when my future wasband joined me for the drive back to New Jersey, we detoured down there to check it out. It was everything he’d told me and so much more. It created yet another “Remember when…?” experience for us.

It’s by talking to others that we learn about new things and places that they have experienced and some of those things and places might be things we want to experience, too. Why consult a guidebook about tourist-worn destinations when you can chat up someone camping a half mile away from you while on a morning walk and learn about other campsites in remote areas of the desert southwest? Why search the web for the same old crowded hot springs options when you can pick the brains of a couple from Canada at a hot spring in Holtville, CA to learn about a remote spring along the Colorado River in western Arizona? Why, for Pete’s sake, would you even consider consulting Yelp to get the real low-down on a restaurant or shop when you can ask someone who’s actually been there and can give you his take on it?

I learned about the petroglyphs at Grimes Point by talking to a stranger yesterday.

And yes, I know you can talk to strangers when you’re traveling with someone else. I usually do. But I’ve also found that your opportunities to talk to strangers may seem limited when you are already talking to the person standing next to you. It’s the alone time that makes it easy to strike up a conversation with someone else. And the freedom to talk for as long as you like — without a companion reminding you of your next destination — that makes it so much more beneficial.

Oddly, Bill makes this moot. Like me, he also likes to talk to strangers and does it whether i’m standing next to him or not. (Like I did at the Grand Canyon 26 years ago with my brother standing next to me.) And because we weren’t joined at the hip during the two weeks we traveled together, we both had plenty of opportunities to chat with others — and learn new things.

Back to Solo Travel

It’s the day after I began writing this blog post at near the western edge of Death Valley National Park. Since then, I’ve descended down into the Owens Lake area, stopped for an Internet fix, and uploaded my blog post about traveling with my new friend, Bill. And I made a series of solo decisions for a three-day drive the rest of the way home.

Here’s a view of the Sierra Nevada Mountains from the intersection of Route 136 (out of Death Valley) and Route 395. I watched those mountains grow ever closer as I descended out of the park.

What did I do? Well, I followed a series of numbered routes from Panamint Springs, CA to my eventual overnight camp near Lovelock, NV: 136, 395, 6, 360 (which I have dubbed Wild Burro Way), 95, and I-80. All of these roads were either one or two lanes in each direction with speed limits ranging from 55 to 70 and only the last one was an interstate highway with a speed limit of 80. There’s no reason to hurtle down the blacktop to your next destination when you can take back roads that move you along at a decent pace and give you something more interesting to look at than the occasional truck stop. (While I don’t mind getting on an interstate highway once in a while, Bill absolutely abhors them. I know other drivers who never take the back roads; they have no idea what they’re missing.)

Early morning light in Rainbow Canyon from Father Crowley View Point. Can you imagine being here when a fighter jet screams through? I witnessed it once years ago.

Along the way, I stopped to make breakfast at Father Crowley View Point, a scenic view on the west side of Death Valley that’s known for the low-flying fighter jets that practice there; i was disappointed that none appeared early that morning — it was about 7:30 AM, after all — while I made and ate a hot breakfast in my camper, did the dishes, and took my pups for a walk. Once I was within a cell signal reception area near Owens Lake, I stopped to check email, Twitter, texts, and phone messages and to upload the blog post I’d finished the day before. Then I stopped for gas in Lone Pine, for early lunch at a place Bill recommended in Bishop, and a Ford dealer in Bishop where I had some annoying warning lights turned off. (When I got my oil changed earlier in the month, the guys who had done it had failed to reset the reminder and it was also nagging me about a fuel filter.) I had plotted my route north to stop at rock shops along the way and, after passing two that looked permanently closed, found one that answered my phone call and let me in. I bought 6 pounds of Fallon Wonderstone rough — exactly what I had been hoping for since seeing some near Tecopa — for a lot less than I thought I’d have to spend. The woman who sold them to me told me about where she and her husband had dug them up, not far from an archeological park called Grimes Point. I headed there next and took a short walk with my pups to look at the petroglyphs. (Sorry, I can’t recommend this sone when I’ve seen so many others that are so much better.) I almost parked for the night in the desert near there — I’d actually stopped the truck and climbed into the camper with the girls — but it was only 3:30 PM and I was getting bad vibes about the place. So I consulted an app I have that lists various camping areas and found Humboldt WMA near Lovelock; about an hour and a half later, I was navigating down a muddy road to a nice campsite on what looks like a canal. I had the whole place to myself; it was dead quiet and dark overnight.

It was cold and windy when I parked for the night at the Humboldt Wildlife Management Area, but I did get to see the sun set.

I admit that I drove by at least two places I would have turned in if I weren’t so focused on getting home. I don’t know why it’s pulling me forward the way it is, but I suspect it has a lot to do with being away for three months and just wanting to enjoy the conveniences of living in a house instead of a truck camper.

After being with a travel companion for two weeks, it did feel a bit weird, at first, to continue traveling on my own. But I got over that quickly. After all, so much of the traveling in my life has been solo, so it really is second nature at this point.

And I do enjoy it.

Snowbirding 2021: My Travels with Bill

Posted on February 19, 2021 by Maria Langer

I make a new friend who is a real pleasure to travel with.

How many people have told me that I’ll meet someone interesting when I least expect it? Too many to count. And all of them were right.

I was camped along the Colorado River south of Ehrenberg, AZ, with my friend Janet in November when an ATV with two men on it rolled into camp. They asked who owned the truck — pointing at my truck — and I stepped forward. It seemed that one of them had gotten his Mercedes Sprinter van stuck in the sand not far from our site. Could I use my 4WD pickup to pull him out?

And that’s how I met Bill, a retired pilot who spends much of his time bumming around the west in his van. He climbed into my truck and rode back to his van with me, where I surveyed the situation. One of his back wheels was deep in the sand.

We chatted, unable to do anything without a tow strap or chain. (I’ve since bought one.) That’s when I learned he was a pilot and, like me, had his eye on a tug-style boat for cruising Puget Sound and beyond. Those were only two of many similarities between us, as I’d learn in the weeks and months to come.

The owner of the ATV, Dean, camps frequently along the river. While we were chatting, he drove around some more until he found someone with a tow chain. He brought a few supervisors with a long, thick chain back to where Bill’s van was stuck. I put my truck into 4L, locked the hubs, and backed into where he was stuck, stopping when I was close enough for the guys to hook up the chains. Bill climbed into his van and backed up out of the sand with my truck tugging him most of the way. Mission accomplished.

I waited while they loosened the chain, invited Bill to join us for our nightly campfire, and climbed back into my truck for a return to camp.

-o-

Bill didn’t show up for the campfire, but he did stop by in the morning. We chatted for a while. He kept saying he was on his way to Los Angeles and couldn’t stay long, but we kept chatting. Finally, he left us for his trip west, telling me that he’d try to come back in December, after taking care of an early Christmas and a bunch of family stuff in Oregon.

Over the next month or so, we occasionally exchanged texts.

He returned to my camp the day after Christmas. Janet had left that morning and I’d reconfigured my camp to bring my mobile workshop closer to my camper. Bill pulled in late in the afternoon, with groceries for dinner. We chatted the rest of the afternoon, though dinner, and then around the campfire.

In the morning, he joined me and my pups for our morning walk. We chatted the rest of the day away. I was floored by how much we had in common. Hell, he even had the same immersion coffee maker I have and use for camping. I don’t know anyone else who has one of those.

We walked again the next morning. And then he left.

-o-

About a week later, after exchanging a few text messages, I met up with him in California for a day trip to Salton Sea and Slab City in my truck.

How can I not like someone who will accompany me to a weird place like Bombay Beach on the Salton Sea?

The following week, he was back in my camp for two more nights. The first day, we drove out in my truck to a campground he likes in California and did some hiking out there. On the way back, we stopped so I could capture some video footage of a helicopter delivering men and equipment to power line towers; it was a real pleasure not to be rushed. The second day, we went to Cibola National Wildlife Preserve so I could show him the sandhill cranes out there. Along the way, we explored some potential camping areas.

We did some hiking out by Cottonwood Springs, a campground he likes south of Desert Center, CA. Along the way, we found this deserted cabin which was obviously being maintained by a local group of people who care about historic buildings.

Then he was gone again.

-o-

Around the end of January, I finally packed up my campsite and headed out. I had some visiting to do before I made my way back home.

Up until that point, it had been a remarkably mild winter at home and, with my only scheduled art show cancelled due to COVID, I didn’t have much of a reason to stay in Arizona. After two and a half months living in a dusty environment, hauling my own water, and having to drive on 8 miles of gravel to buy a quart of milk, I was starting to think long and hard about a soak in my bathtub and the luxury of my dishwasher, washer, and dryer — none of which required a water transfer pump to use.

Here’s my traveling rig, emerging from the truck wash where I got everything washed before hitting the road.

I spent one night in a 55+ RV park in Brenda, AZ, mostly so I could dump my tanks, fill up with fresh water, do some laundry, and take a good, hot shower. Then I dropped off my utility trailer with a friend in Wickenburg and headed south to Laveen to visit some friends there. From there, I went to Gilbert to stay with some other friends, enjoying the luxury of a king size bed and super fast Internet in their guest room. I’d had plans to try to find new wholesale accounts for my jewelry in the Phoenix area, but didn’t do any of that. Instead, I hung out with my friends, got my pups groomed, dyed my hair, did some shopping, and relaxed.

On Thursday, February 4, I had my annual flight physical and eye exam scheduled in North Phoenix. I said goodbye to my friends in Gilbert and headed north for those appointments. I spent that night in the desert just north of Lake Pleasant.

Here’s the view from my camper for the one night I spent north of Lake Pleasant.

I thought long and hard about my travel plans there. The weather at home was turning cold with snow in the forecast. I wasn’t in a hurry to get home anymore, but I didn’t feel like going up to Sedona and Prescott as I’d originally planned. I decided to go back to Wickenburg, fetch my utility trailer, spend a few days at Vulture Peak, and then head north. Death Valley might make a good interim destination.

-o-

But while I’d been traveling around, I’d also been texting back and forth with Bill. I’d told him about the hot spring north of Willow Beach on the Colorado River and he was interested in going to see it with me. We’d meet up somewhere, camp overnight at Willow Beach, and split the cost of a boat rental for a day at the hot springs.

The plan came together quickly after that.

He showed up at Vulture Peak. We spent two nights there, hiking part of Vulture Peak Trail in the middle day and enjoying campfires at night.

I got my usual campsite at Vulture Peak and Bill pulled in right behind my trailer for the two nights we were there. For some reason, however — maybe the weekend? — the campsite had a lot of foot traffic wandering through, which made it a lot less pleasant than usual. I was glad to leave on Sunday.

We left Wickenburg on Super Bowl Sunday, heading north to Kingman for the night so Bill could lock in some fast Internet for the game. We spent the night parked side-by-side in a Cracker Barrel parking lot. (Beats Walmart.)

On Monday, morning, we left Kingman with a stop at the Kingman Turquoise shop along the way. I went in and spent way too much money on way more turquoise stones and beads than I should have. I have a design idea for a really interesting piece…

The Kingman Turquoise shop just north of Kingman, AZ, is like a candy store for jewelry makers who use turquoise. Bring your credit card.

He followed me from there to Willow Beach on the Colorado River, where we parked my trailer in a lot and then squeezed into a shared campsite, taking advantage of the discount he got with his lifetime National Parks pass.

Willow Beach’s sunset did not disappoint us.

Tuesday morning at the hot spring. It was more crowded later in the day. I blogged about this hot spring here.

In the morning, we picked up a small motorboat and, with my pups, headed up the river. We spent at least four hours at the hot springs, dipping and soaking in the various tubs while other hikers came and went.

That evening, Bill led the way to a campsite he knew of up in the Eldorado Mountains south of Boulder City. It was a cool spot off a seldom-used road. I had great views down at the lights in Boulder City and Railroad Pass, with the glow of Las Vegas far in the distance.

In the morning, we climbed into his van for a trip farther down the road to visit the ghost town of Nelson. The two of us spent nearly an hour walking around the remains of old cars and equipment in the desert, snapping pictures everywhere.

Here’s the museum/gift shop in the ghost town of Nelson. For just $1/person, you can wander around and shoot photos of the multitude of old cars and equipment parked around the yard.

On Wednesday, we went into Las Vegas to visit an old friend of mine from Wickenburg. I was glad to see Jim as active as ever at age 81, still working at the company he built years ago when I first met him, still coming up with unique solutions for new customers. Jim and Bill really hit it off; Bill grilled him about batteries and Jim had all the answers.

From Vegas, we continued on to Tecopa, where Bill wanted to show me a hot springs resort he knew. We originally signed up for two campsites for two nights but wound up taking advantage of a couple’s special that gave us sites for two for a week for only $250. We stayed six nights. I slid my camper off my truck while we were there so we could get around without taking one of our “houses” with us.

It was a great week. On most days, we soaked in a private tub in the morning before breakfast, then again in the afternoon before dinner and again in the evening before bed. The water was hot and soft and made my skin feel great. During the day, we’d choose a destination: Ibex Dunes and Sarasota Springs in Death Valley for two hikes, Shohone for a hike, China Date Ranch (twice) for hikes, Pahrump for a propane refill and some shopping. We spent one windy day in my rig just taking it easy, enjoying each other’s company.

The Amaragosa Trail hike from China Date Ranch takes you into the riverbed, where you can still see traces of the railroad that ran there years ago.

Here’s a real tourist shot at Badwater; Bill pointed out the Sea Level sign high on the cliff face beyond my rig.

From Tecopa, we headed into Death Valley, coming in through the Shoshone entrance and driving up the length of the park from the Ashford Mills ruins — which I’d last seen surrounded by yellow wildflowers during a super bloom a few years ago — and past Badwater, with a quick stop in Furnace Creek before driving the rest of the way up to Mesquite Springs. Bill had never been that far north in the park and was pleased by the dark, quiet night sky and uncrowded campground.

The next morning, Wednesday, we hiked around Ubehebe Crater in a howling wind. It was only a mile and a half, but there was a considerable climb early in the hike and lots of places to stop and look into smaller craters nearby. Back at camp, we took the rest of the day off.

Here’s a shot of Ubehebe Crater from the highest point on its rim. Normally, this hike might be very pleasant, but with a stiff wind, I was glad I’d bundled up.

On Thursday, the day I’m writing this, we decided to move on. Bill wanted to visit some friends in Los Angeles before he headed back to Oregon to take care of some family things. I had developed a sore toe that made long hikes painful. And although I had no idea what the weather was at home, I knew I should be on my way.

Darwin Falls is a surprising sight in the desert — and just a mile from the trailhead on a relatively easy path.

But rather than just part company, we decided on one more hike: a walk to Darwin Falls, a little-known spring-fed waterfall in Death Valley. I parked my rig at the Panamint Springs campground and he drove us to the trailhead in his van. We did the two-mile round-trip hike in about 90 minutes, stopping for about 20 minutes in the cool shade of the slot canyon at the falls before coming back.

Afterward, Bill drove me back to Panamint Springs and spent a little more time with me and my pups before saying goodbye and heading out. I was sad to see him go — I really had enjoyed our time together — but he’s already promised to come visit me at home. I’m looking forward to that.

-o-

Throughout all of our time together, I continued to be amazed at how much we thought alike and how compatible we were. I suspect he was, too.

We talked about everything — and I really do mean everything — and pretty much agreed on most of it. Better yet, he treated me like an intelligent adult. He was kind and generous and really seemed to want to hear my opinion of the things we talked about. It was a real intellectual treat for me. Like me, he knows a little about a lot of things and a lot about a few. Like me, he has a natural curiosity about things he hears about. I could — and did! — learn from him and he could — and did? — learn from me.

There’s more, but I won’t go into it here. After all, I don’t share every aspect of my life, despite what readers may think.

Anyway, the two weeks I spent with Bill will give me plenty to think about as I begin to gear up for the upcoming cherry season and start to plan my retirement. I’ve had other plans in the works for a while and he’s given me the push I need to start making things happen to reach new goals.

Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to more travels with Bill in the future.

Snowbirding 2021: The Drive South

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Maria Langer

A longer than usual drive made tolerable by recorded books.

Posts in this series:
– The Drive South
– Life at the Backwaters Camp
– Drone Footage of Our Backwaters Camp
– A Visit to Slab City

As usual, I went south for the winter this year. And as of this week, I’ve already been away from home for a full month. I thought I’d write a few blog posts to catch you up on this year’s trip, starting with the drive south.

My Departure: Early on the Calendar, Late on the Clock

I left earlier than usual this year: Sunday, November 15. Earlier in the month, I’d made the decision to go — I’d been on the fence about it for months — and as the days got ever shorter I found myself eager to go. We’d already had some snow at home and I dreaded the thought of dealing with more on my trip. I was driving with my truck, truck camper, and 12-foot cargo trailer outfitted as a jewelry studio and had no desire to deal with slippery road conditions along the way.

The goal was to get deep into Oregon on that first day, but I had too much last-minute packing to do. By the time my rigs were packed, the camper was on the truck, and the trailer was hooked up, it was after 2 PM. Since I prefer not to drive in the dark these days, I knew I wouldn’t get far. I considered waiting until the next morning to depart, but my house-sitter was already installed and did not relish sleeping on the sofa while he slept in my bed. So I loaded up my pups, turned on the heated seat, and headed out.

I snapped this photo before leaving on Sunday afternoon. My house sitter was watching from the deck, which is hidden from view in this shot.

I needed 4WD to get out of my driveway. There was just enough ice at the top of the little hill there to almost send me sliding backwards.

Although I’d skipped lunch and was really hungry, I didn’t stop until we reached my first overnight spot: Marysville State Park on the Columbia River at Route 97. Regular readers of my blog know that this is one of my preferred stops for winter driving with the camper. It’s cheap, there are pull-through spots, and the power is turned on (although not the water) at campsites. It was full dark when I arrived after 6 PM and I nearly missed the turn. I pulled in and slipped into a nice spot along the river. After a quick dinner of reheated leftovers, I took the girls for a walk through the fallen leaves to get a registration envelope. I’d pay on the way out.

You might be wondering why I was taking a route that would bring me through central Oregon rather that the much fast route through Idaho and down through Nevada. Two things. First, I had hopes of visiting a friend in the Sacramento area who is moving to Texas in the spring. Second, I wanted to visit a business where I was considering trying to get a job — remote, of course — in south central California. Route 97, which I’d taken many time when I worked in Central California in the spring, was not only a good direct route to both places, but it avoided the high elevation areas where it would be super cold and possibly snowy. I’ve had to stop for fuel in Jackpot, NV when it was -19°F and it wasn’t fun. Neither is dealing with frozen pipes in a camper.

Day 2: Oregon into California

We left just after dawn on Monday morning. I made one stop on the way out to pay the overnight fee and to use the central “winter water” spigot to top off my fresh water tanks.

This gas station looked brand new but wasn’t very busy at 7:30 AM.

Across the river, in Biggs Junction, I fueled up at what I think was a brand new fuel station. Fuel was much cheaper there than in Washington. I grabbed a McDonald’s breakfast at that truck stop town and got back on Route 97 south.

It rained.

There was fog.

The road was mostly empty, as it usually is, getting busy only by big towns like Redmond and Bend. I made a stop in a shopping center parking lot with some grassy islands and took my pups for a quick walk. Then back on the road.

The drive would have been boring if I wasn’t listening to an audiobook. I was working my way though Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, which I had been getting as audio books from the library. There’s nothing that makes a drive go faster than having something good to listen to. These books took a turn for the weird — even by King’s standards — in volume 5 or 6 but I did listen to them all by the time I got into Arizona.

I stopped for fuel just north of Klamath Falls. My pups walked a bit on a leash but didn’t do any business. I got back on the road. I figured I’d stop at a rest area I knew farther up where I could let them run off-leash. But when I asked about it at the agricultural inspection stop at the California border, they told me that rest area was closed. (And, fortunately, they didn’t take the 40-pounds of Honeycrisp apples I’d bought in Wenatchee to eat and give as gifts to friends.)

I passed a closed Forest Service Ranger Station with a big empty parking lot bordering on empty land and made a U-turn to go back to it. I let the girls have a run and do their business. I cut up one of those apples for a snack. We got back into the truck and continued on our way.

We eventually drove through Weed, CA and got onto the I-5 freeway. We’d been getting great views of Mt. Shasta for miles and miles and remembered a view area along the way. I found one — probably not the one I was thinking of, though — and pulled off, despite the NO RVS sign. It was empty. I parked where I could easily turn around and got out with the girls. On the way to the interpretive sign, I found traces of party gear: hypodermic needles, empty beer cans, and broken liquor bottles. We didn’t stay long.

My girls had plenty to sniff when we stopped at the lookout area for Mt. Shasta.

It was around 4 PM in the Redding, CA area that I decided I’d better find a place to stay. I’d covered more miles than I expected to, but not nearly as many as I needed to reach the possible overnight destination near Woodland I’d been thinking of. I saw a sign for a casino and got off the freeway. Casinos often allow free overnight RV parking and they have the added bonus of good security.

This casino had overnight parking, but it wasn’t free. Part of their lot had been set up with drive-through RV spaces, each equipped with water, power, and sewer hookups. The fee was $30 — not much more than I’d paid the night before for power only. There was an exercise trail, a golf cart shuttle to the casino (which had a restaurant), and good security I decided to stay.

I had to go into the casino to register and pay. That was an odd experience. Inside the door, I had to stop and stand at a sort of test station. An automatic system took my temperature while I pulled off my mask and got my picture taken. Inside, the place was packed and rules said you didn’t have to wear a mask if you were sitting down. All the slots were filled with unmasked people, half of whom were smoking. I made a bee-line to the registration desk and paid up, eager to be out of there. Even my idea of getting a meal to go from the restaurant evaporated. I wanted out.

That evening, after walking the dogs, I heard some guy walking around the parking area loudly calling out a woman’s name. When it didn’t stop after 20 minutes, I called the casino front desk and told them what was going on and that I was a little freaked out. (Honestly, I wasn’t frightened but it was annoying.) In less than 5 minutes, security arrived and the shouting guy was gone.

I took advantage of the hookups to use my microwave, wash all accumulated dishes, take a shower, and then dump both tanks before departing in the morning. My pups and I also took advantage of a nice trail that wound through the woods around the property, including down by a stream that feeds the Sacramento River.

Then it was back on the road.

Day 3: California All Day

By this time, my Sacramento friend had cancelled. She was feeling under the weather and at high risk for COVID. Although I’d suggested we get food to go somewhere and eat outdoors, she just wasn’t feeling up to it. That was fine. I had a lot of miles to cover anyway.

I’d originally considered stopping at an Apple store to buy a new iPad — mine has definitely seen better days — and a Trader Joe’s to stock up on some staples I wanted over the winter, but I decided against both things. I was planning to go to the Phoenix area over the weekend and could do both then. Instead, I just got on I-5 and headed south.

I tried to stop for fuel and a bite to eat in Woodland but couldn’t seem to find an easy-access fuel station that sold diesel. So I continued through the Sacramento area as my truck’s computer ticked down the miles until empty. I think I was on 12 when I finally found a truck stop in Lodi, CA. I fueled up, parked away from the pumps, and went inside to use the bathroom and get something to eat. I was on line at a Subway inside the truck stop when I realized that the food prep person wasn’t wearing a mask. I wound up getting lunch at another fast food place across the road.

I need to make it clear here that I really don’t like fast food and normally don’t eat it. But when you’re on the road, eager to put miles behind you, you take whatever you can get that’s quick and easy. So I ate a lot of crap on my trip south.

I continued down I-5 through California’s Central Valley. The freeway was in rough condition in some places — it’s such a shame we can’t take care of our infrastructure — and there was mostly farmland on both sides. Boring. I don’t like freeway driving, but it is usually the fastest way to travel. And by that time, I just wanted to be there.

But I did have one more stop: that business I mentioned earlier. I don’t want to go into details here. I’ll just say that I needed to visit the factory for a company I thought was up-and-coming based on information I’d gotten from an insider. I was hoping for a job doing communications work, including making videos of their products in production and use. I was thinking that a salaried job that paid me for getting work done (instead of punching a clock) and included benefits like a healthcare plan would be a good thing to transition into over time.

All that changed when I arrived at the factory. It wasn’t at all what I expected. And as the manager gave me a tour of the place and I realized how far behind they were in production, any thoughts I had of joining the team vanished. There was no place for me there. I wondered about my insider friend and how he could possibly believe the overly optimistic things he’d told me.

Crop-dusters in southern California fly after dark. This plane had FOUR headlights.

Anyway, I got permission to camp in the parking lot overnight, so I did. It was in a weird industrial place near an airport. I got to watch a crop-duster come and go until long after sunset. Otherwise, it was pretty quiet. I slept well and as soon as the manager opened the gate and came into work, I pulled out of the lot and continued my drive.

Day 4: Arizona, Finally!

It rained on me as I drove east along the farm roads to Route 99. I was planning on crossing the mountains at Tehachapi, not wanting to deal with the Freeway traffic of southern California. The rain stopped before I’d reach the pass. I stopped for gas and a pee at an absolutely disgusting gas station in Tehachapi before getting back on the road. GoogleMaps took me on a detour I don’t think I needed to take, then dumped me in a desert city, putting me on roads with traffic lights and suburban stop-and-go traffic. After a half hour of that, I left the traffic behind me and headed east on Pearblossom Highway. Eventually, I hit I-15 and took that to I-10. We continued through the Palm Springs area and climbed up from sea level toward Arizona.

It had been a long time since I’d driven on most of those roads and I don’t think I would have chosen them myself. But I was so disillusioned about my factory visit the day before that all I could think about was ending the drive and starting my winter vacation. I was tired of driving. I just wanted to be there already. So I let GoogleMaps pick the route and went with it. Other than the unnecessary detour, it was pretty direct.

I was down to 60 miles left on my truck’s computer when I crossed the Colorado River on I-10 and took Exit 1. I had two different campsites in mind: the one we’d occupied the year before and another one about 5 miles south. Timing was everything, I knew, and I’d take the first one I found open. That was the one we’d been in the year before. I backed the trailer in, unhooked it, and repositioned my truck for the night, relieved to be done driving.

The Campsite

I didn’t drop the camper off the truck. Why? Well, my friend Janet would be joining me for part of my stay and she didn’t want to camp in that site. There wasn’t enough sun for her; although my solar panels are on my camper’s roof, she uses a portable solar panel that she puts on the ground. That site is surrounded by tall reeds so the sun doesn’t hit her panel until after 9 AM. She had no interest in putting her panel on her camper’s roof, even though that had worked for her the previous year.

The site I was parked on was one of a pair separated from each other by a boat ramp. Friends of ours had occupied that site the previous year. The other spot was larger and a bit sunnier. But it was also occupied. I figured I could keep the camper on the truck and slip into the other spot when the folks in it left.

Here I am after landing at the first campsite and finally disconnecting the trailer. I was glad to be done driving.

But, at the same time, I’d just driven 1,300 miles in four days, much of it through rain, and I wasn’t interested in searching for another campsite. So I spent the night there, with my camper still atop my rig.

In the morning, I felt rested and ready to stock up on a few supplies. I didn’t mind driving with the camper on my truck — hell, I’d just spent the past four days doing it. But, at the same time, I wondered whether the other site I’d been interested was available and, if so, what kind of condition it was in. The area was heavily used during the summer and some of the sites accumulated a lot of trash. It wasn’t uncommon for us to spend a bunch of time cleaning up after others when we camped. The site I was interested in had had a car wreck in the middle of it the last time I’d visited. I could only imagine what else was there.

But I didn’t need to imagine. I got into my truck and, leaving the trailer behind to hold the campsite for me, headed south on the gravel road.

Most of the campsites along the way were occupied and looked as if they had been for some time. One site along the road was available, but I knew how dusty it could get. I drove for miles along the river. The road was in dismal condition, with washboarding and potholes. I bounced along at 20 miles per hour, wondering how much cleaning up I’d have to do in my camper when I parked. Finally, I reached the turn for the site I liked. I peeked down its road before turning in. Nothing. I turned and drove to the end.

It was empty. It was even clean. Even the wrecked car had been moved.

I called Janet and asked if that site would work for her, knowing it would. It was a lot sunnier. Like the other site, it had a boat ramp that led down to a backwater channel where we could paddle our boats and fish. This channel didn’t exit to the river — it was fed from culvert pipes that ran between it and the river and another channel — but it was about a mile long. I’d camped there in the past with her once and I think she’d camped there several times.

She gave me the green light. I chose a spot for my camper and backed in. 15 minutes later, it was parked on its legs in a level spot and my truck was free of its burden.

I drove back up the road to fetch my trailer and parked it a short distance away in the new campsite. Then, making sure everything was locked up, I drove back up the road and into Blythe for some groceries.

I got back to my new camp just after 2 PM and spent the rest of the day setting up camp. It was great to be done driving.

The view of sunset across the Colorado River from the main road a few hundred yards from camp. Arizona has been treating us to quite a few magnificent sunrises and sunsets since we’ve been here.

Janet would join me with her rigs four days later.

Western Washington Wander 2020: Dungeness Recreation Area

Posted on September 16, 2020 by Maria Langer

I spend two nights in a pleasant campground, recovering from a weekend of hard work and bad air.

Posts in this series:
• Red Top Lookout
• American River Campsite
• Mt Rainier and the Buck Creek Campsite
• A Driving Day with a Crappy Campsite
• The Blacksmithing Weekend
• Dungeness Recreation Area

Last year, I spent a weekend in Port Angeles, WA, on the Olympic Peninsula, selling my jewelry — or at least trying to — at a rock show there. I had done very well in January at a rock show in Mesa, AZ, and figured that might just be my niche. It wasn’t. I barely made enough to make the trip all the way out there worthwhile.

While I was at the show, I camped out in a corner of the municipal parking lot. It was surprisingly pleasant — heck, deer came out of the woods right there to nibble on the blackberries that grew beside the spaces — but I knew damn well that I’d be overstaying my welcome if I spent the night after the show there. So I whipped out my public lands campground app, Ultimate CG, and found Dungeness Recreation Area, a county park just down the road in Sequim.

It was raining gently when I arrived just before dark and I found a campsite in one of the loops. It was surprisingly large and private, as were most of the other sites. Very pleasant. And I had the added bonus of finding a few very healthy lobster mushrooms at the back of my site in the woods.

Settling in at Dungeness

All that was on my mind when I left Eatonville and headed west. It was a 2-1/2 hour drive and I arrived at least a half hour after dark. With those lobster mushrooms in my mind, I tried to remember what site I’d been in. I wound up in the site right next to it.

Here’s a photo I shot in the morning of my truck backed into our campsite. There was lots of privacy with dense vegetation on either side of us.

The campsite was spacious with a picnic table, fire pit (just out of the shot), and enough space to erect multiple tents. Because there was no campsite behind ours, we had the illusion of woods going on forever.

I was dead tired and tightly wound when I backed into the spot, using a lantern as a parking guide. It was darker than I thought possible for a county campground. I absolutely hate driving at night in an unfamiliar area and the last 45 minutes had been stressful for me. I was glad to get in. I had just enough energy left to take the girls for a quick business walk, make us all dinner, and then take one more short walk for good luck. I had the pay envelope, but it didn’t give a rate anywhere on it and I certainly wasn’t going to walk all the way back to the pay station in complete darkness anyway. I’d pay in the morning.

I slept surprisingly well. Well, maybe not so surprising when I think about how tired I was. I made my coffee while the girls were still asleep and managed to finish half of it before they woke up. Then it was time to take them for a walk.

And that was the drawback of staying at a real campground: I couldn’t just open the door and let them out to pee. I had to put them on leashes and take them for a walk.

I got dressed, grabbed the campground registration form I’d filled out the night before, put some money in my pocket, and leashed up the girls. Then we set out toward the pay station.

There were fires burning throughout Washington, Oregon, and California (not shown on this map). The smoke in the west had become “hazardous.”

It was a pleasant walk despite the foglike smoke that had settled over the area. Visibility couldn’t have been more than a half mile, but since we were walking in the damp forest, it didn’t really matter. We cut through the campground on a path I’d remembered from the previous year. The girls sniffed and did their business along the way.

At the pay station, I put $26 in the envelope and noted the 12 noon checkout time. I grabbed a park map and we headed back to the camper. I finished my coffee and made us all breakfast.

Full Day at Dungeness

The plan that day was to hike out on a path along the ocean known as “the Spit.” There was a lighthouse at the end that I’d never seen. So after breakfast I packed up a small daypack with rain gear — there was rain in the forecast — bottled water, and some snacks. I almost put the binoculars in there but then wondered what I expected to look at with visibility so low and put them away.

We cut out along another path through the woods that took us toward the Spit trailhead. I really love the forest in that park. It was dense and damp but somehow still bright. The forest floor was thick with pine needles and branches and leafy undergrowth. In wetter conditions, it would likely be full of all kinds of mushrooms. It had a sort of atmosphere that seemed to absorb sound, or at least make it quieter.

We emerged at the end of the trail at a parking area and crossed it to the trailhead. I looked at the signs to learn more about the hike. Of course, the one I noticed first was the one that said “No Pets.”

Okay, to be fair it was a wildlife refuge. And yes, I do get the fact that park managers don’t want big bumbling dogs — or even small ones, for that matter — chasing wildlife. But I was still disappointed. I was really looking forward to a walk on the beach with my pups.

Fortunately, Dungeness has many trails. Without wasting anymore time there, I headed off on the one that went along the bluffs with my two little dogs in tow.

The orange line marks our hike route. You can see it on GaiaGPS, along with the one crappy photo I took.

We spent the next hour or so meandering on trails throughout the park, passing a handful of mostly masked hikers along the way. (I’m sorry, but although I do believe that masks help prevent the spread of the virus, I don’t believe they’re necessary when hiking outdoors, especially in places where the chances of passing another person are slim. I should add here that all the people I saw wearing masks along the trails were seniors so maybe they felt more at risk? I kept my distance from them.) The only wildlife I saw were squirrels, birds, and a single deer.

At one point, a woman with two medium sized dogs warned me that her dogs weren’t friendly; as if to prove her point, the two dogs strained at their leashes, growling and barking as they tried to get at my pups. To their credit, my girls hurried past them on short leashes. (Poor Lily looked absolutely terrified.) But it makes me wonder why someone wouldn’t better socialize their dogs before taking them out in public where there might be other dogs. Seriously folks: either you’re going to make your dog a part of your life and train it appropriately or you’re not. There’s very little middle ground.

One thing I noticed along the walk was that I was getting tired a lot more quickly than I should have been. The trails were relatively flat and very easy walking, yet I felt exhausted and had a headache within the first mile and a half. My left knee was aching. I definitely did not feel like hitting the road again to places unknown. I felt like taking a nap. And it wasn’t even 11 AM.

So we stopped at the pay station on the way back to camp. I filled out another envelope and stuck another $26 into it. I’d spend the day there at the park, just taking it easy, and head out the next day.

To my credit, I did hike about 2-1/4 miles that morning — basically the same walk I do three times a week with a neighbor at home.

A Lazy Afternoon

The bench seat on my RV’s dinette is small, but both pups managed to squeeze in a nap sitting next to me sometime during our stay at the park.

After a satisfactory visit to one of the campground’s coin-op showers, I reheated the previous night’s leftovers for lunch and did a little work on my blog outside at the picnic table. I tried leaving my pups off-leash at the campsite, but they invariably got “the zoomies” and chased each other out of the campsite boundaries, winding up at someone else’s site where Rosie went in for pets and Lily played keep-away. Around 2 PM, I went in for a nap with the girls. They’d skipped breakfast — sometimes they’re finicky — but wound up eating most of their food for lunch. We all climbed up on the bed together. I read for a while and then fell asleep.

I had begun wondering whether my spent feeling was due to the bad air or possible COVID exposure during my travels. I’d been with two other people, all of us maskless in a large open indoor area, all weekend. As I’ve been doing occasionally since the virus has begun spreading, I cataloged my symptoms: mild cough, mild sore throat, headache, general feeling of fatigue. I managed to get a good enough Internet connection to check the air quality in my area and saw that it was over 300: Hazardous. Maybe breathing bad air was making me sick? Whodathunkit?

I used aluminum foil to protect the meat from the flames I knew would start up when fat hit the burners. My portable BBQ grill is very temperamental, but keeping it set to low and closing the lid gave me the ovenlike cooking I wanted.

I started dinner at 5 PM. I’d defrosted a rack of lamb and had decided to cook it on my grill instead of coating my camper’s tiny oven with spattered lamb fat. I’d never cooked rack of lamb on the grill before. I also didn’t have a meat thermometer with me. Amazingly, however, I managed to pull it off, ending up with a perfectly cooked rack that I served up with pan-fried garden potatoes and the last of my garden scallions. I had sliced figs on the side. I put half the rack in the fridge for lunch the next day.

A Feeling of Malaise

We went for two more short walks before bedtime. The nap had really helped me. I think that just taking it easy and breathing less of that bad air is what really helped me.

But I had also begun feeling as if I’d fallen into a sort of mental funk. Was I depressed? Maybe.

The situation in this country is really out of control. Between the virus and the wildfires (and their smoke) and the bullshit politics, I really don’t know how anyone can remain upbeat. There’s just too much stupidity, hate, and anger in this country these days.

I’m looking forward to a Biden presidency, but if it’s stolen from him (as it was stolen from Clinton in 2016) by foreign players and Electoral College inequities, I don’t know what I will do. I know I can’t live through four more years of what we have now but I don’t want to abandon the life I’ve built for myself and become an expat. I can’t see a compromise without putting on blinders and ignoring the damage being done to our country, its reputation in the world, and its people.

And even if Biden does win, I have worry that wacko Trump supporters — and I do mean wacko — will try to start a civil war, spurred on by Trump and Fox News. They’ve been fed a steady diet of lies about Biden and the democratic party and they honestly fear for their way of life. How can we hope to undo the damage of those lies? How can we help them see reason? I think it’s impossible.

Every day more negative stories about Trump are emerging — even stories with him on tape admitting that he misled the American people! Yet none of these stories are penetrating the thick skulls of his supporters to help them see reason. They truly are cult members. Cult members with guns who don’t think twice about ending another person’s life.

Anyway, I’ve been avoiding talking politics in my blog because, honestly, I’m sick of it. But I needed to get this off my chest, to explain the general feeling of malaise that has come over me. I think that it’s a combination of these things: COVID, smoke/fires, and politics. I suspect that if COVID and the smoke weren’t part of the big picture in my life, I’d be able to better deal with the politics. But I can’t.

[And if you’re a Trump supporter reading this, FUCK YOU. I have zero tolerance these days for people STUPID and UNPATRIOTIC enough to support the greedy, racist, narcissistic conman in the White House. I hope someday you WAKE THE FUCK UP and realize how much damage he’s done to this country. In the meantime, please leave a big, long comment on this blog post so I can have the pleasure of marking it as spam without even reading it. I want you to waste your time trying unsuccessfully to share your bullshit with my blog readers. You might want to read this if you’re worried about your First Amendment rights.]

A Peaceful, Restful Night

Sometime during the afternoon, a light rain started up. I love the sound of rain on the roof of my camper and that cheered me considerably. It was the first rain I’d experienced since June 28 and I was ready for it.

The campground was amazingly quiet; no generators, no barking dogs, no screaming kids. I think that’s what I liked most about the campground — large private sites, sparsely populated on weeknights, with very little camper noise. It gave me the illusion of staying someplace like Buck Creek Camp with the benefit of toilets, showers, and garbage receptacles.

Throughout the night, the rain came and went. Even when it wasn’t raining, I could hear big drops from the trees on top of the camper. It was like music to my ears. I slept well and woke refreshed.

The afternoon before, I’d booked a campsite at one of the coastal campgrounds in Olympic National Park. Although I had my doubts about the campground, I was able to get a site right on the ocean. It was 2-1/2 hours away. After breakfast and two dog walks, I packed up my grill, neatened up the camper, and pulled out for a leisurely drive west.

I would definitely get my walk on the beach that day.

An Eclectic Mind

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

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