Blown Home by the Wind

The wind continued to roar around the van all night. We didn't actually have a lot of trouble getting to sleep - Hubby told us all to think we were on a boat rocking on the waves, which seemed to help some of the family - but the van was cold in the morning from the drafts finding their way through cracks and crevices. That said, we weren't as cold as the two guys who had pitched tent in the site next door after we'd gone to bed. It was a dad and his son and, boy, did they look cold and miserable putting the tent away at 7:00am. It was not a night (or a location) for tent camping.

Everyone got splendidly clean in the campground showers. It was a revelation. Deep Thought had a bit of a problem with her towel and robe becoming soaked because Dad didn't warn her that she had put them on a seat for disabled people in the shower, and not a bench, but apart from that all went swimmingly (if you'll excuse the pun).

We set off promptly for our longest drive, 322 miles north to Merced and the McConnell State Recreation Area.

The kids watched "Guys and Dolls" on the portable DVD player while we drove along I-15 away from Calico, through Barstow - another depressed town going nowhere - and back to Mojave. Our route traversed a stretch of the Mojave Desert. I am glad that I didn't make more effort to find places for us to camp in the Mojave Desert, as we now feel like we've seen enough of it. Dry and flat with a lot of rocks. Impressive for its scale, and the contrast between the desert plain and the mountains, but not a place you'd much want to hang out. Or live. I guess some people choose to, though I'm not sure why... It seems clear from the state of most of the little towns that the young people leave and never return. One day these small towns will fall into the desert like the mining towns that preceded them. Some of them are half way there already. Quite a spooky thought, really.

We backtracked along our earlier route from Mojave through Tehachapi to Bakersfield. The landscape around Tehachapi is appealing, with rolling hills, more greenery, and a winding road that meets and greets the long distance railway in numerous places.

Bakersfield was as lovely as we remembered. This time there were no diversions. We stopped for lunch at the China Town Buffet off I-99 just at the edge of Bakersfield, and it turned out to be just what we needed. Imagine a bland single story building filled with 150 diners of all shapes, sizes, colors, and ages. About 85% of the men have facial hair - something we noticed was a lot more prevalent in the central valley - and everyone has at least three plates of food in front of them. It was a help yourself to everything buffet for $10 each, and we sure did. Little Starlet focused heavily on the meat options. Deep Thought consumed mostly appetizers, though she also tucked into some teriyaki chicken. Hubby ate ribs and shrimps, while I focused on brightly colored food skewered on sticks. It went down very well in all senses.

By the time we'd finished gorging ourselves, the rain had started to fall in Bakersfield. We decided to out run it. The kids armed themselves with "Nanny McPhee", and we set out along the ever-so-slightly-dull I-99.

Reaching Fresno, the rain was really coming down hard. Hubby put forward the crazy idea of abandoning our last night of camping and driving home. We decided to have a family conference in Merced, just short of the McConnell Recreation Area. Fortunately we were able to hold it in a Starbucks! Nectar of the Gods! (Our first sighting of a Starbucks for several days was in Bakersfield, which is how we knew that Bakersfield counted as civilization, and that we'd been experiencing the wilderness before that.)

The vote was taken and the decision made to return home. So that is where I am writing now, in our family room with a cup of tea.

From Sand to Silver

Yesterday afternoon we went back to the sand dunes on Mesquite Flats, near Stovepipe Wells. It was a bit windy, which had obviously put people off because it was much quieter than the last time we’d visited. We walked out to the largest sand dune – according to the Park Service, over 700 feet high. Hubby and the kids walked across the top of the sand dune, a dramatic curve, while I remained on a peak below to take photos. Just like everything else in this area, the scale and colors were amazing. We spent about an hour and a half walking out and back, a distance of about two and a half miles. Going up and down the dunes, up and down, it was pretty good exercise for the old calf muscles.

Overnight it rained a bit. Not enough to make the campground significantly damp, but enough to wake up Deep Thought at 5:00am with the drops drumming on the roof of the cab. There was also a bit of additional dampness inside the tin can: Little Starlet peed in her bed for the second time on this trip. We couldn’t remedy the situation with her still asleep this time, but she is claiming that she had no recollection of us getting her up, fixing her bed, going to the toilet etc. I think the poor little thing was very tired again.

In the morning we saw another road runner scurrying over the sand in front of the RV. (This is the only photo we succeeded in taking of one.) They’re cute. We haven’t seen much other wildlife in Death Valley. A couple of little lizards, ravens at the campsite, hardly any insects (though we did see big black beetles at the sand dunes), an antelope ground squirrel, and we heard the coyotes yapping in the darkness.

We drove away from Death Valley along highway 190. At Death Valley Junction – a sad, derelict community steps away from becoming a ghost town – we turned south on highway 127.

This straight road took us through the bottom end of Death Valley and into Silurian Valley, back into the Mojave Desert. We didn’t see any Joshua trees in this part of Mojave. We did see some spectacular sand dunes in the distance at Dumont Dunes Natural Preserve. They looked even taller than the ones at Stovepipe Wells. We also passed many dry lakes.

The little town of Shoshone was in fairly good shape, with a health center, gas station, motel, café and several houses in good repair. At Baker, we turned west on interstate 15. Baker was most notable for having “the world’s largest thermometer” at the side of the road. It was a very easy drive from every perspective.

Calico Ghost Town is a few minutes from I-15. The campground at the Town is pleasantly laid out. We are in site A25, which has full hookups. This was essential as we ran out of water in the van this morning. Unfortunately it is incredibly windy. The van is rocking from side to side as the wind whistles through and up the canyons. It’s a whole new experience for us (and makes us very glad we aren’t in a tent). This will be the first evening that Hubby and I do not sit out by a campfire. It is just too darned cold – and we’re not even sure we’d be able to light a fire at all. Hubby tried parking the van to shield the fire pit, but there is simply too much wind for that strategy to work.

So here we sit. Deep Thought is writing something creative on one computer, I am blogging, Little Starlet is reading (and eating chocolate), and Hubby is in the RV shower! When he gets out, we’ll play a game.

Now to reflect on Calico Ghost Town. Calico was founded as a silver mining town in 1881. The boom years continued till the end of the 1890s when the price of silver fell dramatically and the population fell rapidly from its peak of twelve hundred (1887) to three hundred (1893) and down to only ten in 1951. During its active years, over $86 million of silver was extracted from the hills around here. The population also supported twenty-two saloons, a China Town (for washing and laundry), and a red light district. The town fell into decay until 1951 when Walter Knott, the founder of Knott’s Berry Farm near to Los Angele (a theme park precursor to Disneyland), decided to spend a bunch of money purchasing and “restoring” it. He donated the town to the County of Bernardino in 1966.

That’s the history lesson. The town today is basically a middle-grade tourist attraction. The entry fee is included in the camping charge, which was a good thing, or it might have offended Hubby’s Scottish sensibilities. The town consists of two main streets, with a short walk up to a school house, a mine, and a railway. The mine and the railway have separate charges.

The railway takes a short loop around the top of a hill, allowing a view of some derelict miners’ houses built into the rocks. (In its previous life the train hauled materials away from the mines.)

“Maggie’s Mine” is a genuine silver mine. Interestingly for those of us experienced in passing through mining exhibits in the UK, this one allows everyone to stand upright (and they didn’t insist on us wearing safety helmets, which they would have in the UK). It was fairly interesting to walk through the mine for a few minutes, though there was a minimum of interpretation – not even an arrow saying “Look, silver ore here”.

The kids wanted to pan for gold, but that exhibit was closed. We ate lunch in the Calico House Restaurant (burgers) and dessert in the Miners’ Café (ice cream). We also went into all the different shops, of which there were many, all selling the most bizarre things….like teddies with wings, cowboy statues, dream catchers labeled “Not an Indian Product”, a piggy bank dressed flamboyantly in feathers and sparkles, frilly toilet roll covers, scoop-your-own bath salts and, our absolutely favorite thing, a singing deer’s head which opened and closed its mouth and also told jokes. Honestly.

Deep Thought’s rating out of ten: five, because it was strange and it was a bit too touristy. She’d have liked it to look a bit more like a real ghost town. Little Starlet also rates it at five, because the stuff in the stores didn’t seem like it would ever have been in the town when people lived there. Hubby rates it more generously at six because all the effort at Disneyfication hadn’t completely hidden the mining town atmosphere. I’d rate it at seven, because I like the look of the rugged frontier town architecture (some of which was even real and not a 1950s pastiche).

Salt and Pupfish

This morning I woke up with a cold. I can’t quite understand how that happened.

We went out at 9:00am to the Salt Creek Interpretive Trail about half an hour up the road towards Stovepipe Wells. It’s a half mile loop on a boardwalk, around and across a salt water creek and marsh area. It is reached by another exciting mile of gravel road over which Hubby always enjoys driving the RV. The salt creek was not a knock out attraction, but it engaged the kids for an hour or so. Essentially it is the only habitat of a tiny brown endangered fish called the Pupfish, which breeds at this time of the year and then pretty much dies in the summer. Only the few that make it into the permanent pools survive. At the moment there is a lot of water, and the prickleweed is flourishing. We saw lots of fish and Deep Thought took lots of photos of them. I'm sure we'll post some of them in due course.

At the end of the boardwalk there is a trail heading over the salt flats. We walked out on that for about ten minutes before it became clear that we were going to be roasted. The salt radiates a bright glare equal to any snowdrift and it definitely felt hotter than it had on either of our morning walks in the past couple of days (despite there being a light wind today). We came back, admired the fish some more, then headed down the road to the Harmony Borax Works.

Apparently borax “harvesting” has historically been the most valuable kind of mining in Death Valley, far surpassing gold or silver. Thousands of Chinese workers were brought to Death Valley in the nineteenth century to work in the extractive industry. The Harmony Borax Works is one of the best preserved sites. It has the wagons from a Twenty Mule Train. In each of these trains, two large product wagons and a 1200 gallon water wagon were literally pulled by teams of twenty mules the 165 miles to Mojave. We looked out from the Harmony Borax Works over the white plain where the workers toiled to extract the mineral. It was hot, bleak and depressing. Imagine being the people who came here from San Francisco to do that work. It must have been grim.

This afternoon we are going back to the sand dunes at Stovepipe Wells because the kids fancy running barefoot on the sand (watch out for scorpions!) and tomorrow we head south out of Death Valley, to Calico Ghost Town.

In the absence of showers for four days, the family is becoming increasiyngly fragrant, and you should see Little Starlet's feet - !

Pismo Beach to Mojave Desert via Teletubbyland

We rose early and partook of the communal showers before anyone else was around. It was a blessing to see Little Starlet's feet change color under the water, to say nothing of the children's lovely fragrance... After getting away from Pismo at 9:30am, we made good progress north on highway 101, then east on highway 46 from Paso Robles, then highway 58. This was not the route we had imagined doing, but Hubby was not feeling up to the squiggley drive on the alternate route, so we opted for slightly longer but much straighter.

The landscape, ah, the landscape. It came at us in definite waves. First, east of Paso Robles, lots of vineyards. Large, wide fields of vines, punctuated now and again by small oil fields. (There seems to be a fair bit of oil extraction in this area.)

Following the vines came miles of soft, gentle rolling hills without any trees (though there also seemed to be very few animals, which would have been our guess for why it was treeless). At first it reminded us of Cumbria, but we soon came to realize that it most reminded us of Teletubbyland. Eh oh!

As we drove out of the hilly area into Antelope Valley, we entered a long patch of nothingness: Very flat, no animals or obvious agriculture, no towns, just the occasional house which would make the kids ask, "Why would anyone live here?" Eventually the nothingness gave way to nut orchards, mostly almonds we thought, which were just coming into bloom. In another week or so it would offer a very beautiful display.

More oilfields welcomed us into Bakersfield, and here we all found ourselves wondering why anyone would choose to live there. OK, we only saw part of the north of town, but it presented such an eloquent image of declining middle America that it would have had us emigrating back to the UK before agreeing to live there. Any place where the bill boards on the main highways are neglected is in a bad way. We stopped for lunch at Spencer's Diner, which was packed and hopping but offered only so-so food. Hubby did a spectacular piece of parking, diagonally across two spaces, without any assistance.

As we had made very speedy progress, I suggested a side trip to the Kern County Museum and Pioneer Town. I called their information line for hours etc, and we set off. After a twenty minute diversion we arrived - and it was shut for Presidents' Day. In the Bay Area, the attractions tend to open on the public holidays, including those that usually close on Mondays, so we were a bit surprised by that.

Since there was absolutely nowhere else to visit, we pushed on to our next campsite, Sierra Trails RV Park on Highway 14 just outside Mojave. There aren't many RV campgrounds in this area. I had read reviews of them all, and chose this one as the best of a bad bunch. In the event, we're quite happy with it. (Photo of our site, #19, at left.) You can hear the road noise, but the campground itself is very quiet with a mixture of visitors and long term residents. (And that presents another question: How do you end up living in an RV on a campground just outside Mojave, which is frankly in the middle of nowhere and has nothing much to offer except the desert?) For a mere $27.50 we have electricity and water hookups and access to a dump station if we wish. There isn't a fire pit, but Hubby has improvised with logs in the BBQ grill.

(Team G attaching the van to the hookups in photo at left.)

After arriving, we walked out behind the campground into the edge of the Mojave Desert. It is heavily populated with Joshua Trees, begging the question why you would need to go all the way to Joshua Tree National Park to see more?

Naturally Hubby took hundreds of photos, some of which he will post in due course.

A Typical Morning on a Driving Day

Little Starlet wakes up at 6:00am, reads her book, then wakes us up at 7:30am (though we’re usually already awake). She pulls back our privacy curtain with a big happy “Good Morning!” Deep Thought drags herself out of bed twenty minutes later: She stays behind her privacy curtain as long as she can.

Hubby collects our mugs, kettle and water from outside. Then he breaks Little Starlet’s bed, reconstructing the dinette. We collect our coins, towels and toiletries, and walk round to the campsite showers. Then we eat a breakfast of cereal. (It’s usually cooked food on a stay-put day.)

Everyone gets dressed, then Deep Thought and Little Starlet wash and dry the dishes while I put them away. We tidy everything that is left hanging around, e.g. clothes, shoes, books. We tidy up as we go along: It is very important to be super tidy in such a small space. As we are in bear country we are careful to make sure all food and anything that looks like it might be food (e.g. a mug) is put out of sight. Apparently the bears can try to get into your vehicle if they think they can see food. Hubby tidies up outside, again putting away anything that is or that looks like food. Visits to the campsite toilets, brushing teeth and hair, medicines, and a final sweep of the dusty floor (with the handy brush that collapses down into a very short length of handle, as provided by the RV company).

If we are moving on, Hubby checks the outside of the RV: storage cupboard locked, door step away, leveling blocks away, any hookup unplugged and the cord away. I check the interior: All cupboards securely closed, air vents closed, windows closed, curtains pinned back, nothing loose on any surfaces or on the floor to slide around, all appliances turned off, water pump off, toilet empty and closed, lights off.

And we’re away.

Success!!!!

He did it, he did it! No mistakes!

Time To Dump :-)

Now we can dump our Grey waste (from the sinks and shower) dad's giving it a try.

Moving on Day (Again)

Today we leave the delights of the Jackson Wellsprings behind us. We are taking a side trip to Jacksonville, said to be one of the best preserved Victorian gold rush towns in the nation (it was bypassed by the railroad in the 1880s), then it is up to Crater Lake. That should take us just over two hours. The campground we are headed to has over 200 campsites, so we don't have high expectations of "scenic", but there aren't many choices for us RV-ers around there.

Hubby has refilled the water tank again and is currently taking a shower, with the result that the RV stinks of rotten eggs. This place could be called Sulpher Springs, it really is very pungent. We tried brushing our teeth in the RV sink using the Wellsprings water, but when you get to the rinsing part it is actually a bit shocking. "GAK!" we all said, spitting it out.

Hubby's next adventure is to dump the grey water (which is full) and he may try to dump the black water (which still says it's empty).

In the Land of the Giants

And here’s our blog entry for Monday August 24….

The day started bright and chilly with the RV windows fogged with condensation and Little Starlet climbing into our bed complaining of cold toes. We spent 50c each on a shower in the campground facilities and it was money well spent (especially for Little Starlet’s feet).

Today was a hiking day. Over the course of five hours we walked a mile of the Bull Creek Flats Trail, then across the creek onto Mattole Road, up the Addie Johnson Trail (and back, as that isn’t a loop), and returned to Albee Creek campground via the Homestead Trail. Our route took us through silent groves of old growth redwood trees, where there were few birds or tourists to interrupt the solitude. We practically had the place to ourselves. Unfortunately, Little Starlet would not stop yakking, which really spoiled the almost creepy stillness of the forest; so Deep Thought and I pressed on ahead, leaving her with Hubby and his new camera to take many, many, many photos of tall trees.

Most overused sentence of the day: “Look, there’s a big tree.” It was one of those places that made you feel privileged to be there. There’s something about a tree that is so straight and tall that you can hardly see where the canopy begins that makes you feel insignificant. Some of these trees are 50+ feet in circumference, and 350+ feet tall. Some are thought to be well over 1,000 years old. It’s strange to think of a living thing that was already growing when the Vikings were looting and pillaging our Anglo-Saxon ancestors.

We were perhaps even more impressed by some of the fallen trees, many of which were real giants in their prime. When the trees fall, they pull up their root balls. They seem comparatively small for such large plants, but leave large holes in the ground, and tower above us like great tufts of ossified Medusa hair. Deep Thought was impressed from the start, and even Little Starlet stopped her chatting to focus on the incredible things around us.

Our walk up Addie Johnson Trail was a diversion, aiming to give us a bit more exercise. We climbed to the top of a steepish hill – Little Starlet shamelessly got her Dad to carry her part of the way on his back, while Deep Thought practically sprinted up in a display of Mom-shaming fitness – to arrive at a view and the grave of Addie Johnson. When she died in 1880 at age 27, she was the first white woman to do so in the area. We didn’t learn anything else about her, but an information board close to the Big Tree Area told us that pioneer homesteading began in this area in 1870. It’s amazing to think of European settlers coming to farm this land as recently as that.

By the time we got back to the campground, we were all quite exhausted and had a collection of over 200 photos of redwood trees between us. We finished the day with board games by the fire and some star-gazing. It’s been a perfect visit to a beautiful area. We would thoroughly recommend it.