​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.

​We left Mojave National Preserve and headed for the north entrance of Joshua Tree National Park.  We drove through a dry lake where they collect and process chloride, and pulled into the town of Twentynine Palms.  We decided to get fuel before heading into the park, so used Gas Buddy to find where it was the least expensive, and started following the directions.  We were a little surprised when we pulled up to a military checkpoint and were told we weren’t allowed to enter the base, but they had plenty of room for our rig to turn around and head out.  We headed for another road to get to the gas station, only to again find ourselves at a military checkpoint.  We turned around again and asked where civilians could get fuel, and were directed back into town where we found a gas station with more expensive fuel, but by that point we were happy to get whatever we could.

We then headed into the park to see the points of interest and see if we could find a campsite in one of the park’s first-come-first-served campgrounds.  Because we didn’t arrive until the afternoon, we thought we might want to spend a couple of days there.  However, we quickly realized that the entire park was crawling with people, and not only could we not find a campsite in the park, it was difficult to see the recommended sites because so many people were in so many cars that even if we could find a parking spot within walking distance of a site, when we got to the site it was difficult to even get a photo without random people posing for selfies or family portraits.  We abandoned the plan to spend significant time in the park and found a pull off near a random trailhead that wasn’t near a point of interest, and took an off the map hike through the desert and the Joshua Tree forest. ​

We got back in the truck and headed for BLM land just north of the park and the town of Joshua Tree.  Apple Maps took us in on a very bumpy OHV road, but we found the very large and very open BLM land at the end of the road - and also at the edge of the town with paved streets, which we used to exit in the morning.  We parked fairly close to the town rather than driving further out the bumpy road, and spent the night listening to baa-ing goats or sheep, which was far preferable to lots of cars and lots of people talking. ​

​In the morning, we used All Trails to find a hike in the Mission Creek Preserve, which was on the way to Huntington Beach.  The Preserve is about 2 miles up a very washed out gravel road, so we decided to park near the highway and walk to the Preserve rather than driving up there and walking in the park.  The gravel road wound up a wash through the desert, and at the top we found a beautiful picnic ground that looked like it used to be a fancy campground.  Shells of stone buildings were along the trail, and a small dry swimming pool was behind them, with a beautiful fireplace.  We poked around, and then headed back down the road to the camper to drive towards Huntington Beach.

​We arrived in Mojave before the wind and rain started, and barely got in a short hike on the Rings Loop Trail before the rain started.  It started raining just as we got to the climbing part of the trail, so the rocks weren’t too wet, and the rings made the steep climbs relatively easy.  The rock formations were beautiful, and we got an up close look at the namesakes of the Hole In The Wall Campground, although the rain started in earnest just as we got to the top so we were soaked by the time we returned to the camper.  We changed into dry clothes, had dinner, and by the time we went to bed the camper was rocking from the winds.

​The next day was still breezy but clear, so we did the six plus mile hike around the mountain behind the campground.  A ranger had warned us that the trail could be hard to follow because it wasn’t really a trail, just a series of washes, but in the open desert going around a mountain we didn’t have too many turning options and found the route fairly easy, whether or not we were on the actual trail.  We were amazed at how the landscape and rock formations changed as we did the loop, and my biggest challenge was watching where I put my feet since I was more interested in ogling the scenery.  We saw only one other couple hiking until we were within the last mile back to the Visitor Center, and heard nothing but the wind and occasional raven call.

​We got up and on the road early the next morning, heading for Joshua Tree National Park.

We took US60 west from Tonto National Forest into Phoenix.  When we had planned to meet Michele and Gino for dinner, we looked into urban camping options in Phoenix and found that one of the Gila River Casinos was probably our best bet.  We didn’t have much on the agenda for Phoenix other than visiting the Capitol, so we stopped at the Casino on our way into town to make sure it was okay.  We hadn’t realized that there are three Gila River Casinos, and we first went to the wrong one which has a hotel and doesn’t allow overnight RV parking, but the very friendly and helpful security guards we spoke with directed us to the right one, which was only about 5 minutes away.  We checked with security at that one to make sure it was okay, checked out the place where we were told to park, and then headed for the Capitol.

The Phoenix Capitol is a small but elegant building surrounded by a memorial park, with memorials to just about anything you could think of, including veterans, civic servants like firemen, and even K9 police dogs.  Our favorite feature of the entire complex is that all of the ground is covered with grass, which made our dogs really happy after over a month in the desert.  Kismet made a gigantic pain of herself because we couldn’t walk more than four or five steps without having her throw herself on her back in the grass for a good roll and rub.  But, we couldn’t really blame her since she loves to roll in the grass and she hasn’t had much opportunity lately.  We didn’t see too many people around, but the capitol complex gets points for an easily accessible free parking lot that had room for our camper, and an obvious effort to keep it clean and appealing.  We saw a few obviously homeless people but only a few, which surprised us until we drove out of the area and found a sprawling homeless encampment between the Capitol and downtown.  We wandered around and read many of the memorial plaques, and then headed back to the casino.

We found that a few more campers had pulled into the casino while we were gone, but we had no trouble tucking in next to a large class A.  The casino supposedly has a 24 hour parking limit, but it was pretty obvious that a number of the campers there were parked for the long haul.  But, it was a safe place to leave the dogs (& cat) while we went out to dinner, so I texted Michele and they came and picked us up and took us to one of their favorite Italian restaurants.  We had a delicious dinner, but mostly had fun catching up on all of our Rochester connections as we compared who keeps up with whom.  Between us, we *think* we now know what everybody who matters is doing.  We had an interesting discussion on our definitions of “home,” since Michele and Gino still call Rochester home, while Tom and I think about it every time we say the word.  Right now, we don’t really have a home, but Belize has been home for over 16 years, and Rochester will always be home since that’s where we spent most of our adult lives, and even New Jersey will always be home since that’s where we grew up.  

Michele and Gino delivered us back to the camper after dinner, and we decided during the night that we are going to try to avoid casino parking lots as camping places.  It was probably better than paying $100 to stay at a city “RV resort,” but between semis pulling in and out all night, and the Class A neighbor who thought it was a good idea to turn his generator on at 4:30AM, we didn’t have the best night’s sleep.  We packed up fairly early and headed west, with a planned stop at Quartzsite.

The planned stop at Quartzsite turned into a fairly rapid drive by.  Since Quartzsite is known as a mecca for the RV lifestyle, we wanted to see what it was about, and we weren’t impressed.  I know I’m going to sound snobby, but our view of the RV lifestyle is traveling in comfort to see a lot of different things.  Apparently others define the RV lifestyle as living as cheaply as possible and parking in one spot while your vehicle collapses around you, as the garbage piles build up around you.  I understand that many people aren’t fortunate enough to be able to do what we’re doing, but somehow I don’t think that a lack of funds justifies living in filth. It’s not that hard to find a dumpster for your bag of garbage, but apparently it’s not worth the effort for a lot of people and they just chuck it under their campers.  After this drive by, when we reached the Ehrlenberg BLM land where we decided to park for the night, we decided to watch the movie Nomadland, which is about this issue of people losing everything and living in their vehicle because it’s all they can afford.  The movie was great, and considered a lot of these issues, but still didn’t address how many people seem to have just given up caring about anything.

Ehrlenberg BLM land is wide open and starkly beautiful.  Tom didn’t really see the beauty and described it as a wasteland, and the thought did cross my mind that it was basically a gigantic gravel parking lot, but it’s surrounded by mountains, and anyone can park just about anywhere, so you needn’t be bothered by other people.  Some campers had parked in groups, which seems to be some people’s preference, but we had no trouble finding our very own gravel field with a remarkably level spot for the night.  I don’t know that I’d want to vacation there for a week, but for a quiet night’s sleep, it sure beat the casino.

In the morning, we packed up and headed west towards California, which was only about 2 miles away across the Colorado River.  We crossed into California and followed the river north towards the Mojave Desert Preserve.  We’d read the warnings that you should gas up before heading into the desert, and we were very lucky we decided to check gas prices in Needles, which turned out to be right on the Arizona/California border.  We headed back into Arizona to get diesel for $4.31/gallon, where if we had waited had had to buy it in California, it would have cost over $7/gallon.  We are now well into California in the middle of the Mojave Desert, so we’re probably going to have to suck it up and pay California prices from here on out.  In the meantime, we’re enjoying the beautiful desert and planning to get out for a hike if the wind ever stops rocking the camper.