When we went to Williams Hill, we intended to stay until the Monday after Easter, when we had reservations at an RV park in Larkspur, near the ferry to San Francisco.  However, we realized we were just killing time, so we decided to go back to the San Benito Fairgrounds on Sunday, and spend the $40 for water and sewer so we could catch up on laundry, and be about 2 hours closer to San Francisco on Monday. That plan worked perfectly, and we got the laundry all caught up and were on the road north before 9AM Monday morning.  We made a stop in Gilroy, the garlic capital of the world, and stocked up on all things garlic, as well as a replacement bottle of Marie Sharp’s Smokin’ Marie hot sauce.

From Gilroy, we drove through Oakland and into Richmond, where we visited the Rosie the Riveter National Historical Park.  The park office is located where the World War II shipyards were located, and the National Historical Park is dedicated to all of the laborers who kept things going stateside when most of the men were shipped off to war.  We didn’t plan to spend much time there, but it was more interesting than we expected, and is right next to the Bay Trail which we walked with the dogs to a sculpture park associated with the National Monument.

We left the Historical Park later than expected, and rather than do any more sightseeing, we drove directly to the Marin RV Park.  It was only about 8 miles away, but due to our lack of understanding of metropolitan traffic, it took us a couple of loops until we managed to get in the right lane to get off at the right exit while going the right way to get into the park.  When Tom finally checked in, the woman in the office laughed because she said she had seen us driving by and wondered how long it was going to take us to figure it out.  It wasn’t the best start to something we weren’t sure we wanted to do anyway, but we ended up liking the RV park far more than we expected, and were very glad we made the decision we did to stay there.  

We couldn’t find any free to cheap camp grounds near the city, so we had looked at some of the state and county parks, but most of them weren’t super cheap and were an hour or more out of San Francisco.  We had booked tickets for the ferry to Alcatraz, so we knew we had to get into the city and leave the dogs in the parked camper.  We read horrible reviews about parking in the city where people had their windows broken and cars robbed, so in addition to being basically shit at driving in city traffic, we had a lot of anxiety about leaving the dogs in the camper while we were out touring, not to mention even finding a parking space for our oversized vehicle.  So, we’d booked two nights at $100/night at Marin RV Park, with the justification that we’d probably pay at least half that for parking, plus the fuel and anxiety of driving in and out of the city and finding parking.  Marin RV Park is just a 10 minute pleasant walk to the Larkspur ferry, which is only $8.50 each way per person, and the dogs could stay in the camper in the relatively secure RV park.  And, the best part was that we didn’t hate it as much as we thought we would.  The people were all pleasant and friendly, it was far quieter than we expected (despite two men yelling loudly at each other at 2am the second night because one had taken himself to the hospital and not woken the other), and it even had a nice area to walk the dogs on some abandoned railroad tracks right behind the park.  It was perfect for the nights before and after our big day in San Francisco and Alcatraz.

While we were at Williams Hill, we thoroughly researched Pinnacles National Park.  We knew that the park has a west entrance and an east entrance, and to get from one to the other you have to drive around since no roads run through the park.  We knew that you have to go through King City to get to either entrance, but the west entrance is slightly closer, although the campground, where we had booked one night, is near the east entrance.  On Tuesday morning we left Williams Hill and stopped in King City to restock our groceries, then went to the west side since our plan was to head north the next day after camping in the park and we didn’t want to have to backtrack to see the west side of the park.

All went as planned, except that the last four or five miles of the road accessing the Visitor Center on the west side of the park is a steep and windy single lane road.  It’s just about wide enough for two pickup truck sized vehicles to pass, but it has neither a middle line nor shoulders.  We had our fingers crossed for the entire ride that we wouldn’t meet anything as big as we are, and we didn’t, although we did pass a couple of normal sized passenger cars without incident.  When we got to the gate, they informed us that they don’t recommend RVs to travel the road, and gave us the park brochure that said as much.  Did I already say that we had thoroughly researched the park?  Nothing on anything we found mentioned that larger vehicles weren’t recommended, and the signs at the civilized end of the road only stated that semis with more than 30’ between the king pin and the rear axle should avoid the road.  Since our entire vehicle is less than 30’, we didn’t even worry about it and were therefore more than a little surprised.  When we pulled into the parking lot we found that they do have two oversized vehicle parking spaces, and the other was already occupied by an RV larger than we are whose driver told us that he had also been surprised.  Because we were already there, we decided to talk to the rangers in the Visitor Center and see what we could see on that side of the park.  We ended up going on a short hike to get a good view of the high peaks of the Pinnacles because the ranger told us that the parking lots near the trail heads for the trails on that side of the park wouldn’t accommodate our vehicle, even if we chose to drive another mile or two down the one-lane road.

After our short hike, we got back in the truck and found out that while the campground was only 4.5 miles away as the crow flies, it was 55 miles and about 1.75 hours away by roads, going back through King City.  We took a deep breath and went back out the single lane road, where we met another RV coming into the park, but fortunately at a spot where the road was wide enough for each of us to hug the edge and pass.  We reached the campground around 5pm, and found it crawling with people and screaming children.  It’s laid out with distinct campsites around a few loop roads, but the campsites are very close together and not very big, and we could clearly hear our neighbors’ conversations when we were outside the camper, even over the screaming children.  We took the dogs for a walk around the campground, had dinner, and went to bed, not very impressed with this National Park.

The next morning, we planned to do a few camper chores requiring water and dumpsters before parking in the open lot for the day so we could hike the west side of the park.  We found a spigot with threading so we could fill our freshwater tank, got rid of the garbage we’d been collecting, and parked in the wide open lot behind the camp headquarters.  The trailhead for the trails we wanted to hike was about 2.5 miles from the campground, so we took the scooter off the back of the camper and used that to get to the Bear Gulch trailhead.  We were glad we hadn’t tried to drive the truck there, since all of the parking was filled with RVs, which barely fit, and I believe that if we had decided to drive the truck, we probably would have abandoned the idea of hiking in the park.  That would have been a big mistake, because once we started on the hike, we found that it is one of the nicest National Parks hikes we’ve taken.

After the hike, we scootered back to the truck, packed up, and headed for the Hollister Hills SVRA (State Vehicle Recreation Area), another government run OHV park with free (after you get a permit) campgrounds.  We were within a couple of miles of the park entrance when we were stopped by a road construction crew, directly in front of a large sign stating that the park was closed.  Tom got out and talked to the flag man, who informed Tom that the roads had washed out in the recent floods, and the gates were closed because the park is entirely inaccessible, with no known date for reopening.  We had noticed that the San Benito County Fairgrounds which we had passed about 15 miles back had an “Overnight RV Parking” sign out front, so we retraced our steps and stopped there.  We got there just after the office manager had left for the day, but another RVer parked there told us to just park, and talk to them in the morning.  Hookups were available, but we didn’t use them since we had left the National Park campground with the intention to boondock until after Easter weekend.  In the morning, we waited for the office manager, who told us that parking was free without hookups and wished us well on our travels.

While at the fairgrounds, we looked for someplace to go between where we were and Oakland/San Francisco.  We couldn’t find any government land that allowed camping, and all of the state and county parks were booked for the holiday weekend.  We could have stayed at an RV park, but those are really pricy and we don’t really like them because they are so crowded.  We also could have stayed at the fairground, but that was just a parking lot on a main road with lots of loud traffic.  So, we made the decision to head back to Williams Hill and sit tight for the weekend, and head for Oakland and San Francisco on Monday.  Site 7, which was the site at the end where we had been previously had campers in it, so we pulled into one of the sunset sites, which I really like.  We wordled with a view last night, and used the very good cell reception to make reservations at one of the expensive RV parks near San Francisco so we can spend two nights there and take the ferry into San Francisco on Tuesday.

​One other overlander vehicle was already at the campground when we arrived, but since it was late in the day we just took the dogs for a quick walk and got the camper set up.  In the morning, they were out of their camper, so Tom asked if they knew anything about road conditions towards Pinnacles.  They were also wondering about the road, so Tom decided he’d take his motorbike and investigate.  Tom and Austin started talking about it, and Tom invited Austin to ride my scooter, which was a huge win-win as far as I was concerned since Tom wouldn’t be going alone, and I wouldn’t have to go in the chilly weather, which was breezy with temperatures in the 40s.  On their ride, they discovered that the road might be passible, if you don’t mind driving through a 2-foot flood about 30 feet wide.  It started raining after the guys returned, and continued to rain - and snow! - off and on overnight and then into the morning, so we decided to go back the way we came and take the longer but more traveled route to Pinnacles when we left the campground.  We spent another day at Condon Peak catching up on computer work, blogging, and reading, and mostly staying warm in the camper with the Buddy heater running while we waited for the rain and snow to let up so we could get out for a walk and enjoy the scenery.

We took off the next morning with the plan to head to Pinnacles with a stop in Coalinga for propane.  Heading down the mountain from Condon Peak, we found that two days of rain had raised the creek levels, but the road was clear.  Our first stop was an Ace Hardware, but we found that they didn’t have propane, and they directed us to a U-Haul place a few blocks away.  Their propane tank was clearly placed at the edge of the street, so we pulled over and took the scooter off the back so Tom could get the tanks out for the shop owner to fill.  We’re getting good at that, so it didn’t take long, and as we stood on the street chatting with the shop owner, we heard a loud hissing.  Tom’s first thought was that the air bags on the suspension system were malfunctioning and deflating for some reason, so he ran around to the side to check that.  As he was doing that, he realized that the hissing was coming from the inside dually.  When we were in Huntington Beach, he had installed valve stem extensions so he didn’t have to take the outside tire off to do anything with the inside dually, and he realized that the air was leaking through a broken valve stem and the inside dually was flat.  So, he jacked up the truck, took the tire off, and went for a “test drive” in a U-Haul with the shop owner to a tire shop just down the alley.  They installed a new valve stem and pumped up the tire, and Tom came back and put it on the truck.  As he was doing that, it occurred to him that if one of the tires with the new valve stems had this problem, the other probably did as well.  So, after settling with the U-Haul guy for the propane, we drove the truck to the tire shop, where they removed the other inside dually and found that all the air had already leaked out of that tire.  This was scary because our rig is heavy, with 10,000 pounds rear axle weight. Each tire is rated for 2,910 pounds, which means that with the four tires, we’re good for 11,640 pounds, which is more than the rear axle weight.  But, when two of those tires are flat, the two remaining tires are only good for 5,820 pounds.  That means we drove through Death Valley and drove twice through the mountain passes on severely stressed tires.  We’re very lucky that we didn’t have a blowout on those roads, which is super scary because itty-bitty guardrails are all that keep you from going over a cliff.  We’re also lucky that the hissing tire decided to hiss while we were standing in the street chatting, because otherwise we wouldn’t have known that the inside tires were flat.  Tom does a pressure check once in a while, but not every time we drive, and since he’d done a pressure check when he installed the new valve stems in Huntington Beach, he hadn’t done it in Death Valley.  Pressure checking all six tires has now been added to the visual walk-around we do every time we move.​

With multiple hours spent diagnosing and fixing the tire problem, we abandoned plans to get to Pinnacles National Park.  The guys at the tire shop kindly let us fill our water tanks, so with full propane tanks, full water tanks, and a little extra produce in the fridge, we looked for another free dry camping spot.

All my apps recommended Williams Hill Recreation Area, which is about mid-way between Paso Robles and Pinnacles National Park.  It’s closer to the coast than Condon Peak, and about 1000 feet lower in elevation, so we figured we might expect a few days without snow.  Most of the reviews said the road in and out was a little rough, but a number of reviewers said they made it with rigs that were bigger than ours, not 4WD, and often towing trailers or cars, so we figured it was worth a try.   The road is in fact a little rough, and is just a bulldozer track carved around the mountain, but it is well traveled, well maintained, and has enough wide spots that if two big rigs met, one or the other would be able to reverse to a wide spot without too much trauma.  We didn’t meet anyone on the way up, and our truck had no trouble with the few minor washouts we encountered, and when we got to the top we were delighted to find a beautiful campground at the top of a hill, overlooking valleys on either side.  Williams Hill is built much like Condon Peak, with 7 campsites, each with a picnic table pavilion and fire ring.  Four of the sites overlook the valley on the sunset side, and two larger spots are at the end of the campground road and off to the side overlooking the valley on the sunrise side.  We initially pulled into one of the sunset view sites, but the neighboring site already had a camper with a dog, so we ended up moving to the larger site at the end of the road to avoid excessive barking.  Shortly after we moved, a car with tent campers pulled in, and they were delighted to take the sunset view site.  We took the dogs for a walk on the roads that wind around the mountains, and by the time we got back to the campground to make dinner, only one of the seven sites was still available.  Apparently lots of people know how nice this campground is, since it was 6/7ths full on a Thursday night in the winter. ​

​As expected, the campground filled to overflowing on Friday night.  Somebody pulled in next to us around 10:30pm, but apparently decided against it.  Nobody was near us in the morning, but when Tom took the dogs out he said that all the overflow sites had at least three vehicles parked.  The other thing the reviews had warned about is that there is a lot of shooting, which we weren’t sure whether or not to believe since we didn’t hear any shots on Thursday.  However, we walked past some sites where we saw lots and lots of shells and shot up targets, so we knew the warnings were real.  Sure enough, the pop-pop-popping started Friday afternoon, and picked up again in the morning.  We’re planning to stay here over the weekend, so we’ll see what happens.

​After restocking with groceries and filling with fuel, we didn’t get out of Huntington Beach until after 1pm.  Despite the fact that days are getting longer, we knew we wouldn’t make it all the way to Death Valley on Sunday afternoon.  I pulled out my trusty apps looking for a place to stay, and found BLM land in Jawbone Canyon, which is about 100 miles shy of Death Valley.  While Jawbone Canyon is not a favorite among RVers because the area is primarily for moto and OHV use, it was perfect for us.  Clearly marked campsites are spread out along the paved road, and no tricky driving is required.  A few remaining off-road riders were still in a few of the campsites, but we easily found an empty site.  We parked and took the dogs for a walk up the road, and enjoyed watching the moto riders use the park.  Many of the reviews on the apps complained about the off road use, but since that is the designated use for this area, I’m not sure why people would rather complain than enjoy watching people have fun.  We thought about some of our friends who enjoy riding like that, and how much they would like the place.  We’re impressed with how the government handles the land, offering free classes for minors, which not only teaches the kids how to ride safely and responsibly, but also encourages the adults to do so as well so they can set a good example for the kids.  We ended up spending another night in Jawbone Canyon on our way out of Death Valley, and had two moto riders pull up behind the camper and shut off their bikes.  Tom jumped out to talk to them (I was making dinner and couldn’t leave food out on the counter with the dogs) and found that they just wanted to tell us how much they liked the camper and to see if we really were from Belize.  Tom asked them about riding in the area, and by the time the guys set off and Tom came back in the camper, they were all laughing and doing fist bumps.  It occurred to us that a lot of RVers would have most likely locked their doors and yelled “Go Away” out the window, and would never have realized how easy it is to make friends.

​Before leaving Jawbone Canyon and heading towards Death Valley, we had to help jumpstart a car for a young couple who had been camping a few campsites down the road, so we didn’t get on the road until after 11.  Despite clear roads with high speed limits, we didn’t make great time because of the wind.  And, to get into the park, you have to go over two 4000+ foot passes, which makes for slow going with a top-heavy diesel truck.  Our original plan had been to go to one of the disbursed campsites in the park, but those require a permit, and the ranger stations were closed by the time we got there.  So, we spent our first night at the Stovepipe Wells campground, which is nothing more than a parking lot with RV-sized spaces.  But, it’s also only $7 with our America the Beautiful National Parks pass, and there’s a bar where we could get wifi to check in with friends who track us since our cell service had disappeared somewhere in the passes.

​The next morning, we went to the ranger station and got a pass for a disbursed campsite on the Echo Canyon Road.  We found that they assign you a specific space, which is free, and on a first come, first served basis.  We headed off in the general direction of Echo Canyon, with stops at the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes, the Harmony Borax Works, the Furnace Creek Visitor Center, and the Zabriskie Point overlook.  It was cold and rainy - not the normal Death Valley weather - so we didn’t spend much time at any of these places, and we found our campsite on Echo Canyon Road in time for lunch.  After lunch the weather cleared somewhat, so we took a walk up the road and found that the park service has spaced the campsites out at half mile intervals, so when you’re parked at one, you can’t even see any of the others.  We had chosen the first site on the road since we were unsure of road conditions, so the other campers had to pass us to get to their sites, but the road was still only minimally traveled and we thoroughly enjoyed three days and nights in the quiet of the desert.

​Before heading north, we went back to Stovepipe Wells for a hike in Mosaic Canyon, which was wonderful.  The rock formations are beautiful, and the hike is challenging as you have to climb up a number of small dry falls, but not scary, and a lot easier heading down.  We then headed north, and it was after 5 by the time we got to the Mesquite Springs Campground.  We had considered doing disbursed camping on the dirt road south of the Ubehebe Crater, but since it was getting late we decided to check out the campground, and were very glad we did.  It’s the same price as the Stovepipe Wells parking lot, so we were worried that it was going to be another campground like that, but it’s a very nicely laid out campground with large campsites with fire rings and picnic tables, and gorgeous views from every site.  It also has a dump station and fresh potable water, so it was well worth the $7 to be able to dump our gray water and fill our fresh tanks before heading to the crater in the morning.

​The Ubehebe Crater is a deep crater, and the park service has made trails which go around the big crater as well as a few smaller craters in the area, and down into the Ubehebe Crater.  Hiking is a little difficult since you have to slog through lava scree, but the views and the experience are well worth it.  We climbed over 1000 feet between going to the top to see the other craters, and going to the bottom just because we could, so we felt like we’d had a pretty good workout before lunch.

​One thing about Death Valley which was different for us than the other parks we’ve visited was that suddenly, everybody talked to us.  People haven’t been unfriendly or hostile so far on our trip, but very few people have actually stopped to have conversations.  In Death Valley, we talked to people at every stop, and we really appreciated all the information they shared, and only hope that we shared things that will help them as well.  One of the things that kept coming up was that we were told we had to go hike Titus Canyon, so that’s where we went after the crater even though that hadn’t been on our list of things to see.  After a bumpy three miles to the trailhead, we found that there were two hikes, with one being a 3-mile round trip into Titus Canyon, and the other being a 6-mile round trip into Fall Canyon.  When we got to the parking lot, we saw the RV of one of the people who had recommended the hike.  Since we knew they had hiked Titus Canyon the previous day, we decided to hike Fall Canyon so we would run into them.  As it turned out, they were hiking Titus Canyon so we didn’t see them, but they left a note and some snacks duct taped to our truck window.  Despite missing them, we were very glad to have hiked Fall Canyon since it ended at an actual waterfall.

Our original intention had been to head west towards Beatty after our hike, and then head north towards Reno the next day.  But, since we were again looking at the end of the day, we decided to head back to Stovepipe Wells and spend another night in the parking lot and use the bar’s wifi to check internet stuff, which we had not been able to do since Monday night.  We had wrongly assumed that we’d get cell reception somewhere in the park, and when we found that we didn’t, we didn’t think it was worth driving all the way back to Stovepipe Wells.  But, we figured we should at least check the weather before heading towards Reno since we also hadn’t looked at a weather report since Monday, and while the Death Valley weather had been very nice with nights in the 50s and days in the 70s, we knew that the below sea level weather wasn’t necessarily indicative of what the weather was like outside of the park.


That turned out to be a very good decision.  We got to the bar, ordered our beers, and turned on our phones.  The frantic dings after being off line for five days were a little distressing, and even more distressing when we started reading our messages.  We have friends in Belize who track us, and we’re usually pretty good about telling them when we’re heading into a no internet zone.  But, because we hadn’t realized that we wouldn’t be anywhere to get any reception for five days, we hadn’t said anything.  So, after trying various ways to reach us, they had called the park rangers and set them out to find us.  We never even knew it happened because the rangers looked up our back country permit, went to make sure our camper was where it was supposed to be when we were out, and reported back to our friends that we were fine and out on our motorbikes for the day.  We’re not quite sure how they knew that, unless they had noted the motorbikes on an earlier drive by and figured it out since both we and the motorbikes were gone, but it was enough information to set our friends’ minds at ease, at least until we checked in personally.  The rangers never talked to us, so we had no idea what was happening, and we hadn’t given our Belize friends’ number as the emergency contact because we used my California brother since if anything happened, he would have been in a better position to do something.  We’ve now promised to do better at letting people know when we’re going off-grid.


Once that confusion was processed, we got back to our original intent and checked the weather for Reno.  We were distressed to find that temperatures in Reno were predicted to be in the dangerously-cold-for-our-camper zone. We talked about heading to Las Vegas for a couple of days to see if it would warm up, but decided to check the weather again in the morning and make the decision then.  In the morning, nothing had magically changed, so we decided to abandon the plan to head to Nevada and go west again.  


We took our time getting out of the park, the same way we had entered it six days previously.  We didn’t exactly follow our route since we had to stop for groceries in Ridgecrest, but we did end up spending another night in Jawbone Canyon.  We left in the morning with Pinnacles National Park as our ultimate goal, knowing we probably wouldn’t get there in one day.  We saw a sign on US58 for the Cesar Chavez National Monument, which was just a half mile off the highway, so we stopped there for a walk around.  Unfortunately the Visitor Center and the garden were closed, but we were able to walk around the compound and see the first signs of spring with the flowering trees.  The Cesar Chavez National Monument was created as a monument to the farm workers’ labor movement, which was led by Cesar Chavez and his wife.  The property was a tuberculosis treatment center prior to the Chavezes purchasing it and moving there in 1971, where they made it their home and farm as well as a meeting place for the labor movement.  Helen Chavez lived in the small house on the property until she died in 2016, when she was buried next to her husband in the garden. ​

​We continued into Bakersfield with a stop for a few grocery items we’d forgotten the day before.  We realized we wouldn’t make it to Pinnacles National Park, so we started looking for places to camp between Bakersfield and the park.  FreeRoam and iOverlander let us down again since everyplace we found had some comment that discouraged us from heading in that direction, so I looked at Campendium, which again came through for us with the Condon Peak Recreation area.  We set the GPS systems and were on our way.

We planned to arrive on Monday, just as Tim got back into town from work.  As usual, our timing was perfect, and just as we pulled into the fairgrounds Tim texted to see where we were and tell us that he had just arrived home.  We had him give us a little while to get parked, which gave him a little while until Peter and Kelli got home from school, and then they came over to pick us up.  Tom and I piled in the car, and we went to pick up James from a swim team dinner, and had time to get some Mexican food at a restaurant on the beach before taking James to water polo practice.  That was our first view of the Pacific Ocean on this trip.


We spent the next couple of days at the fairground, with Tim or Kelli picking us up in the morning and dropping us back in the evening.  We ate lots of good food, visited their boat, and did a lot of riding around in the car which ultimately made us realize that Tim and Kelli really didn’t have time to add picking up and dropping off the visiting sister and husband to their already long list of taxi stops with Peter and James being involved in sports and music and a whole list of school activities.  So, on Thursday morning, we left the campground and drove to their house to say goodbye on our way out.  However, while we were there, their neighbor came over and told Tim that if he contacted the city he could get an oversized vehicle street parking permit for up to three days.  He looked it up online, we gave him our vehicle registration information, and we were good for three more nights in front of their house. ​

​It was great to have three nights just to visit.  We caught up a little on camper maintenance, added the map to show where we’ve been to the wall of the camper, and did a lot of riding around.  We took the scooter off the back of the truck and Tim taught Peter and James how to ride it, which not only made the boys happy, but gave the scooter a little exercise.  We took the e-bikes and rode to the beach for lunch.  We shopped for and cooked a yummy St. Patrick’s Day corned beef, and took photos of the dogs with green hats.  On Saturday, we took a sail in their boat which was great fun despite the lack of wind.  It was the first time we’ve ever been sailing where we were barefoot on the boat, looking at the snow covered mountains in the distance.

​We were tempted to stay another night or two, but since two or three nights had already turned into six, we decided to leave on Sunday.  The biggest problem with leaving was that we had no idea where we wanted to go.  Our original plan had been to head to Sequoia, Kings Canyon, and Death Valley National Parks, but with the extended winter, only Death Valley was open.  We considered driving up the coast, but camping up the coast presented the same problems as camping in Huntington Beach.  Finally, Tom talked to our friends Jon and Tatiana in Belize, who used to live in Oakland, and Jon told Tom we’d be foolish not to go to Death Valley in March, which is prime season to visit there.  We dithered because we wanted to do the three National Parks at the same time, but Jon convinced us that by the time Sequoia and Kings Canyon are open, Death Valley will be intolerably hot.  So, we packed up the truck and headed for Death Valley.