02/11 and 02/12 Meandering Arizona, family, Prescott, and Jerome

Ahh. from this -----

to this -----

After the open spaces of the desert at Quartzsite and traveling east along Interstate 10, we dropped into the greater Phoenix area and one night at a well located RV park.  Phoenix Metro RV Park was a good place to land, north of the city near I-17 and Highway 101, out of the main city and yet easily accessible to Mo’s cousin . Jim Ross and lovely wife Linda live in Phoenix during the winter and we sere surprised to realize that it has been 9 years since we last visited in 2011.

When we arrived at their charming home Linda was at an educational class on “creative reading”.  We were given a lesson by Jim on “creative remembering” as he took us to halls and rooms lined with literally dozens of photos of children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.  I have already forgotten how many there are in total, but something in the 40’s. 

When Linda returned home, we laughed and chatted as Mo and Jim reminisced about old family stories.  Jim is an avid genealogy buff and has tracked the family back through many generations.  He loves to tell the story of the distant uncle who was hanged in North Dakota for something or other.  Always have to find a black sheep somewhere to keep it interesting.

With their home in a lovely resort area, it was an easy walk to a nearby restaurant for supper.  Aunt Chilada’s Restaurant is located in a lovely hacienda like space that has been around since the 1800’s and is family owned.  Last time we visited in 2011, it was much warmer and we enjoyed dinner on the patio. This time it was too chilly to eat outside, and the hostess who knew Jim and Linda very well took us to the back of the restaurant to the best table in the house, right in front of the huge blazing and warm fire.  Perfect.  Our dinner was perfect as well, and we had delightful leftovers to carry us through the next day at our next boondock site.

It was dark when we returned to our home in the RV park, a perfectly decent place to land for just one night, but there were many people who obviously lived there for long periods. The homes were reasonably spaced, and you could tell who was permanent by the large pots of cactus and palms in their tiny yards.  There was a small dog park for Mattie, filled with logs and rocks and dirt piles, which kept her quite happy.

As we drove into town the previous day, we saw a thick blanket of snow on the mountains to the north.  UhOh.  Our original plan was to drive north on 17 toward Flagstaff, and find someplace to boondock as we continued west on I-40.  The snow scared us a bit and when it came time to leave the next morning, we started west on the 303 thinking we would return to Quartzsite.  North of us, however, the brilliant sun beckoned, and the snow seemed to have completely melted except for the highest elevations.

At Peoria, we turned back east toward I-17 and followed our original destination north.  Perusing our memories as we traveled, it was clear that Mo had never been to either Prescott or Sedona.  She did have some vague memories of visiting Jerome.  We decided it was time to meander north and figure out where we might stay as we traveled.

With AllStays, we found the possible boondocking site at the Cliff Castle Casino in Camp Verde, and decided that it would be a great place to park and then take the Tracker to explore Jerome and Sedona.  On the way, though, we traveled back west over the hills into the Prescott area. 

I had memories of the beautiful Courthouse Plaza in Prescott and knew that Mo would love the historical cowboy vibe there.  As we drove the 6 lane traffic filled roads through Prescott Valley into Prescott, I was aghast as how much the area has changed since I last visited in 2004.  Goodness!

We meandered all the way into Prescott, past huge shopping malls and every box store that exists, into the lovely historical area that is bisected by very narrow streets all jammed with angled parking.  It was a bit scary for the MoHo mirrors as we tried to find someplace to park where we could walk the inviting downtown area.

It was not to be.  There was no place to park anywhere that we could find, and if there was any kind of city parking lot for large vehicles, we never saw it.  Instead we traveled north toward Watson Lake County Park, where I hoped there would be some kind of turnaround for the MoHo.

There was still a bit of snow on the roadsides as we entered the park, declined to pay the day fee of $3.00 because we weren’t even sure we would stop, and continued up to a large parking area where there was enough room for the MoHo to turn around.  whew. 

Watson Lake was beautiful in the morning light, reflecting the magnificent weathered granite boulders that are the hallmark of the area.  March or April would be a great time to visit, perhaps a bit warmer and yet still enough water in the dammed lake to launch our kayaks.  It looked like just the kind of place we love to kayak.

We continued back north on 89A, which routes over the very steep and curvy Mingus Mountain road down into Jerome and on toward Camp Verde.  Mo was a bit frustrated with me because I resisted taking that road and instead routed us back to I-17, a few miles farther than route 89 would have been.  For only a moment, I thought about all the driving we have completed safely on Highway 1 on the California Coast, and yet still my memories of 89A into Jerome were ringing very loud warning bells.  Later, as we traveled through the town of Jerome, Mo was more than happy that we hadn’t made the attempt to do that road in the MoHo.

Once we arrived at Camp Verde and the casino, we settled into a lovely spot on the hill behind the parking garage, helped by the friendly guy in a little cart that showed us where to park.  We decided that it was cool enough that we could take Mattie with us on our visit to Jerome, so locked up the rig and took off west toward the tiny mining town.

Jerome is fun to visit, if you are prepared to walk steep streets and don’t have a problem with heights or vertigo.  The history of the  famous copper mining town built on a sliding hill is long and complex, too much to write here.  If you have visited, you know it, if not you can read about it here.

We found a parking place, cool enough for Mattie to wait for us, and started walking.  There are some amazing galleries and gift shops, a beautiful hotel high on the hill, and lots of things to see.  Two sticks served me well, and I managed to get up the steep streets for the art and the views. 

We had arrived late enough in the day that many of the shops and coffee shops were closed, but one beautiful gallery filled with a great variety of local art was still open.  We asked the owner about someplace to get a coffee, and she suggested that we have a cocktail with a view at the historic hotel at the top of the hill.  On the way back to the car however, we were seduced by Paul and Jerry’s Saloon.  One of the oldest family owned bars in Arizona, it was funky and fun, with a great old wooden bar with marble counters, and a bartender in white shirt, vest, and sleeve garters.

We ordered Irish coffees with Baileys and Jamison and lots of whipped cream.  Yummy.  And strong.  A bit shocked at the ten dollar price for each drink, we laughed, listened to the great music coming from the speakers above us, and talked with the bartender and other locals who had some fun stories. We had a great time, and the drinks were less than we would have spent if we had decided to entertain ourselves at the Casino in Camp Verde.

Returning home just before dark, we heated up our yummy Mexican leftovers from the previous day and settled in for an early night.  Sometime around 8, with us in pajamas, there was a knock at our door.  A security person said we had to move down the hill to the lower parking lot.  Really?  Mo, in her most kind voice said, “Oh, that nice man in the cart told us we could park here and even helped us park.”  The guard relented almost immediately, “Oh OK,” he said.  yay.  We didn’t have to put on clothes and pack everything up to move a few hundred yards. 

The night was lovely and quiet if very bright, although the brightness didn’t bother us.  We have enough protective shades in the MoHo that we were able to travel weeks in Alaska with midnight daylight, so a night at a brightly lit casino was a piece of cake.

02-11-2020 Visiting Quartzsite

It feels wonderful to wake to the morning light here in Quartzsite. We don’t come here all that often. The lure of the extensive shopping tents and booths, and the thousands of RV’s scattered across the desert is less than alluring to us. Been here a few times, just to experience the Big Tent, to connect with other RV bloggers at Bloggerfest a time or two, and to overnight rarely when we are passing through the area.

In spite of all the things about Quartzsite that don’t excite us, it is undeniable that the desert here is gorgeous. A few saguaros punctuating the skyline like exclamation marks with arms, deep shadows on the surrounding mountains, and wide open skies. With the main event for the season over, the rigs are scattered widely here in La Posa South LTA. It’s good to know there is always a place to land here if you need it.

There was an almost full moon last night that appeared sometime in between the heavy rain that thundered on the roof as we retired for the night. I watched through the open windows in the bedroom portion of the MoHo. With a good distance between RV’s, there was no need to cover any of the windows for the night. What a treat to have all that open sky all around us. I woke a few times and watched the moon, and as morning approached I watched the rain clouds mask what attempted to be a bit of a sunrise. No color, but also no rain and some faint blue skies between the clouds. Lovely.

Taking Mattie for a walk was a bit colder than it looked, with the wind whipping around. She wasn’t all that excited about being outside. We are parked near a small wash with a bit of green grass, but she wasn’t interested in that either, wanting to walk on the moderately smooth road that didn’t have sharp rocks. I do know that if we were to spend any extended time in the desert, we would need to get her some of those little booties. I found a patch of what looked like miniature cholla plants, tiny things that were less than an inch high and even smaller in diameter that had long thorns as big as the almost invisible plants. Doggie damage was avoided, thank goodness, as we backed away from that area and returned to the road for the rest of our walk.

We left Catalina Spa yesterday morning under moderately cloudy skies, traveling east along Dillon Road for a nice long distance before intercepting I-10 in Indio for the rest of the journey. Most of the time the journey was uneventful, in spite of some heavy rain that we traveled through somewhere near Blythe.

We decided to fuel up just east of the State Line at the Flying J. There is a Love’s and a Pilot at Quartzsite, but in our experience, they are often incredibly crowded. The fuel at the Flying J was the same price, only 17 miles west of Quartzsite, and the station wasn’t terribly crowded. It even had a nice big RV pump area with both diesel and gasoline pumps.

By the time we got to Quartzsite, the skies were overcast but nicely for us, the rain held off till later in the evening. We had arranged to meet Gaelyn at her park for a visit, and emptied out a portion of the very full back area of the tracker to accommodate a third person. We had never been to Silly Al’s, a Quartzsite tradition I had read about for years. It was a good day to take a friend for pizza and lots of talk and laughter.

Gaelyn is every bit as much fun as I knew she would be, if a bit more lively and animated than shows from her photos. I would love to listen to some of her interpretive stories that she gives in the National Parks. What a hoot! She did tell us some inside stories about being a park ranger that I won’t repeat here, but oh so entertaining.

It was a short visit, but great to finally meet in person and meet Sierra the traveling kitty as well. The pizza was outstanding, too! All the reviews and conversation about Silly Al’s are not exaggerated. One of the best pizzas we have enjoyed anywhere…except maybe for our favorite wood fired pizza at our home town winery.

Today we will continue east toward Phoenix, meeting later this afternoon with Mo’s cousin Jim after we settle in to the Phoenix Metro RV Park. It has been a few years since we visited Jim and family in Phoenix and we are looking forward to it.

02-03-2020 to 02-08-2020 Desert Days

                 Unedited phone shot from a moving vehicle on HWY 58 for you, Erin.

Following our usual route from Orange Grove RV Park to Desert Hot Springs was uneventful.  The California foothills at the southern edge of the Sierra Nevada range were greening up, but as yet the flowers hadn’t appeared.  We have traveled this route over Highway 58 often enough that it ceases to hold any surprises for us, and I spent some of the time talking on the phone with some family and friends.  Mo drove and I didn’t even notice the long steep hills with slow trucks that are sometimes an issue on this popular route.

We purchased fuel south of Barstow at the Pilot on I-15, for 3.17 per gallon, and then continued back north to the Highway 247 exit that is our favorite approach to Desert Hot Springs.  Google Girl has no clue about this route, choosing instead to send people down the busy interstate into an even busier connection with I-10 and then east toward Palm Springs.  Yuk.

Our route is much more lovely, with wide open desert most of the way, and only a few steep hills as it approaches Yucca Valley.  One more big long hill can be a bit intimidating, from the Morongo Valley down to the left turn signal at Indian Canyon Road.  Indian Canyon is the main route through Palm Springs, but here in the northern edge of the Coachella Valley it is a long straight track across the desert, with views of Desert Hot Springs to the east and the big windmills of Palm Springs to the west.

Today the windmills were turning furiously, and we knew to expect high winds as we settled into our campsite at Catalina Spa and RV Resort.  After so many years returning to this favorite little winter spot, it is always a bit nerve wracking in the beginning as we approach.  Will it be the same?  How much has changed since last year?  Will they still keep the pools open all night?  That is always the biggest question, but thank goodness there was only one year where the powers that be decided that the pools had to close between 10PM and 6AM.  I am a rare person that loves swimming in the dark rather than being blinded by the sun while I am swimming. 

Without a hitch, we settled into site 90 in what is called the Lower Park.  We get what we feel is the luxury of the lower park because we only need 30amp.  The Upper Park is where big rigs that require 50 amp service must park.  The lower park still feels just a little bit funky, something we love, in spite of new work being done on the park, and all the building and remodeling going on. 

Site 90 is directly across from the dog park, where I can check out what dogs are there before taking Mattie over for some doggie play time.  Again, we are just steps away from the pool and spa, and have made good use of the location for our early morning, pre-sunrise swims.

I have written about our times at Catalina so many times that there isn’t much new to say.  We spend our days enjoying the sun, both inside the rig while catching up on computer business, and outside when we take Mattie for her walks.  Sometimes we will walk in the open desert area north of the park where Mattie can run off-leash.

desert sand verbena is just beginning to bloom

In the past we have hiked many fun trails in the Coachella Valley, some of which are dog friendly, and others not.  This year, our main entertainment of hiking has been reduced considerably due to this “thing”.  I have no clue how to talk about the thing, except to say that it makes my legs completely unreliable.  I can stumble easily, and the muscles of my thighs feel as though I have weights attached to them.  So far, it has been determined to be some kind of myopathy of the muscles, a myositis in the family of muscular dystrophies, but not hereditary. It can take months and even years to get a full diagnosis, and I am currently waiting for scheduling for diagnosis and treatment at Oregon Health Services Institute in Portland, Oregon.  There are not enough neuromuscular specialists  to handle these complex and rare diseases, so the waiting period for my next round of diagnostic tests is a long time.  Electromyography tests are scheduled for July.

I am coming to terms with it, grateful for the nearly 75 years I had to hike and work and be strong and active.  I am trying to adjust to the loss of my identity in this process, and remember that I am still me as I lose my ability to get out there and see the world on my own two feet.

Having explained more about this than I have on the blog until now, I want to brag about our walk yesterday.  There is a new trail in the Northern Coachella Valley, just dedicated last year, that is just a mile south of the park.  It is even dog friendly.  With the warm morning sunshine and no wind to contend with, we took off hiking around 11AM.  The Kim Nichol Trail is a 5.5 mile loop, however we planned to walk only as far as I knew I could manage and then turn around.

Only a few creosote shrubs were beginning to bloom

It was a lovely hike, and choosing to stay in the wash rather than climbing the steep hills was perfect.  We had a bit of shade to protect us from the hot desert sun and Mattie had a great time.  After an hour in the pool at dawn I felt pretty good about managing a 2.5 mile hike on the trail. I use two walking sticks now to keep upright properly and avoid steep stuff and steps.  Ah well, at least I can still walk!

Other important activities while in the Coachella Valley include visiting quilt shops, Quilter’s Faire and Monica’s Quilt and Bead Shop, and eating.  We went to the quilt shops our second day here, and I had an amazing time finding fabrics for the next big quilt I am making for one of my daughters.  Quilt fabric is crazy that way, with colors and styles coming and going faster than you can keep up.  I bought the original fabrics a couple of years ago, and now they are already out of date and I  am having a terrible time finding others to coordinate for the big queen sized quilt. 

Quilters know, if you love it, buy enough of it NOW, because otherwise it will disappear.  I found fabrics for Deb’s quilt and then some others that I have no idea what I will make with them.  I bought 2 yards each of the new fabrics, hoping that I have something to coordinate in that closet full of quilting fabrics at home.  No matter, I can just look at them and be happy.

The eating part of visiting the valley has been somewhat traditional for us as well.  We often make it down to Sherman’s Deli for their famous sandwiches, and spend Thursday evenings at the street fair in Palm Springs accompanied by a great Mexican meal.  Somehow neither of us wanted to repeat those experiences, no matter how great they were.  As we ate dinner in the MoHo on the evening that we would have been dining in Palm Springs, Mo asked, “Why in the world would be eat in restaurants when we have such great food at home?”

Still, it is nice to take a break now and then, and we decided that a nice breakfast out would be a treat and a change of pace.  I researched some breakfast restaurants in the valley and settled on a little place called Cups Cafe.

On Thursday, we planned to drive south to Anza Borrego to get some quality desert time and to visit an old/new friend.  The little cafe in Palm Desert was on our route and we looked forward to an interesting breakfast.  I think I was in the mood for something with lots of gravy, but this charming little place had only béarnaise sauce on the menu.  I ordered an interesting omelet, with brie, apples, mushrooms, onions, and cilantro. 

Sounded fun at the time, but even with the side of béarnaise, it was a bit weird.  The potatoes were good, and Mo’s regular breakfast with eggs and chorizo sausage was excellent.  Nice little extra for both of us was the perfectly balanced mimosas, just the right ratio of champagne and orange juice. The service was also excellent.

Notched Leaf Phaecelia or Sagebud

On our way by 9, we continued south along Highway 11 intercepting Highway 86 along the western edge of the Salton Sea toward Borrego Springs. That early in the morning, the skies were beautifully clear, but we could see the pall of smoggy air creeping north from the Imperial Valley.

No matter, heading west toward the state park on the western edge of the valley, we stopped for photos of the Salton Sea in the distance and the wild no man’s land of canyons and gullies that draw 4 wheelers like flies to honey.

Our new/old friend at Anza Borrego State Park is Kathie Overman Maxwell, a delightful lady that has been around awhile, both on my blog and on facebook.  Although we hadn’t met in the past, Kathie and I know many of the same people; some we have both met in person including Nina Fussing, and others that Kathie knows in person but I only know through the blog and facebook.  Hi, Lynda!

Kathie is working as a camp host, but was able to get a bit of time off for our visit and made arrangements with her supervisor to allow us to enter the campground without a fee and to park at her site.  Over a glass of something truly sparkly and delicious, we visited in the lovely sunshine. 

It is always a treat to meet someone in the flesh that you have only known through blogging, and the conversations are so satisfying.  Somehow you know enough about each other ahead of time that nothing feels contrived or awkward.  Thank you, Kathie, for your time and hospitality!

Sadly, Palm Canyon at Anza Borrego is closed due to a recent fire that destroyed the beautiful native palms that were the high point of a canyon hike.  We haven’t hiked that canyon in the past because we had Abby with us the last time we were here, and dogs are not allowed due to the stress they can create for the native animals, even with their scent. 

We stopped for a short visit at the wonderfully informative visitor center, and Mo stayed in the car with Mattie so I could check it out a bit.  Having been there before, I wasn’t too terribly disappointed when I found the place completely overrun by a busload of school kids. So nice that they can have day trips like this, but so nice that I could back out slowly and skip whatever I thought I needed at the center!

One score I made before I left was a map and directions to the Slot Canyon.  I have read about other bloggers visiting this canyon, and knowing I might not be able to manage the hike, I wanted to at least see where the trailhead was located for a maybe visit in the future.  Optimism reigns!

I so love the open desert, and this particular piece of desert was thick with ocotillo plants just ready to burst into bloom.  Most of them were thick with green leaves from the recent rains, but only a very few had an actual blossom. 

Ocotillo bloom

The views in all directions from the upland area near the canyon are gorgeous, wide open spaces without a sign of telephone poles or fences.  My kind of desert. We explored the trailhead, and watched people down in the canyon below, tracking their ascent as they returned to the parking area.  The trail is only a bit over a mile, and if Mattie hadn’t been with us I might have managed it. 

In all honesty, it didn’t look that great to me.  The ranger said in places it was narrow enough that a backpack would be too wide to fit.  Still, in my preconceived notions of slot canyons, colored by years traveling in Southern Utah, they need to have smooth walls.  This particular canyon is created in the highly erodible sandstones and mudstones of the Anza Borrego badlands, not a sign of anything even remotely approaching my beloved slickrock.

It seems that the biggest draw of Anza Borrego for me is the wide open space and the flowers.  We were just a bit early for the flowers, but there was plenty of wide open desert space to fill my heart with delight. 

As we drove north and then west back toward Desert Hot Springs, the clear skies were dimmed by a low smog bank approaching from the west, mixing with the Imperial Valley pollution coming up from the south.  It was as defined as a fogbank on the ocean, but more brown.  By the time we got back to the rig at Catalina, it seemed to be still a bit distant from us to the west, and the skies were still blue in Desert Hot Springs.

On this, our sixth day in the park, the skies are blue, the air is warm, the winds are gone.  The only little difference I have noticed  is that the stars are quite a bit dimmer than I remember in the past, perhaps from the smog layer that is blocking some of the light.

However, we did have a particularly magical moment in the pool on Thursday morning when we suddenly saw 13 bright lights flying over us as we swam.  The lights looked at first like airplanes flying in formation, but there was no sound, and they were so perfectly spaced that it seemed impossible they were planes.  A bit of research yielded some rather incredible information about the StarzX satellites that are being launched at lower altitudes than regular satellites in groups of 60.  Elon Musk is setting up a system of satellites that will eventually provide broadband internet access to people in every corner of the world.  As Sherry said, not a particularly nice thing for our night skies.  Astronomers are a bit disturbed about the satellites as well, worrying about their interference with their observations and photographs of the night sky.

In spite of the controversy, it was still rather amazing to see the bright train of perfectly spaced satellites moving slowly overhead as we did our backstroke laps in the pool .  Might not have even seen them otherwise.

02-01-2020 to 02-02-2020 Big Sur to Bakersfield

February 1 Big Sur to Camp San Luis Obispo

The drive from our campsite at Big Sur south toward Morro Bay and San Luis Obispo is a big blur in my mind. Until this day, I managed to keep a decent journal and after miles and miles of narrow, winding roads with magnificent ocean views around every curve, my journaling ability came to a screeching halt. Mo drove this last leg of the coastal highway so that I could relax and take as many photos as I wanted.

We pulled over a few times, but with weekend traffic beginning to build the turnouts were often full and there was no room for our rig. Instead we parked a bit distant from the “vista point” and I walked back up the highway to try to get the iconic photo. I was taking my life in my hands, as people were prone to cutting off the curve and driving on the shoulder, the very narrow shoulder where I was walking. I did manage to cross the highway, but that was a bit scary as well, with motorcycles roaring around the curve at the last minute and nearly mowing me down.

After this last set of photos, I decided we had enough photos of ocean and cliffs and settled in to simply enjoy the ride. This last section was still curvy and narrow, but the cliffs weren’t nearly as high and I was quite used to it by this time in our journey.

A stop at the elephant seal overlook was impossible. Cars were lined up along the highway both before and after the overlook and there wasn’t a speck of space. To our surprise, less than a mile south was another overlook, with cliffs and a walkway and elephant seals. The parking lot was nearly empty, and while there weren’t nearly as many seals as the official viewpoint, there were enough to see them up close and take a bit of a walk in the warming sunshine.

Mattie loved the walk and was very interested in the huge blobs down on the beach that had eyes and moved. We kept her from barking, but her tail was high and she was so very excited trying to figure out what in the world she was seeing.

We continued south toward Morro Bay, another place that I have wanted to spend time, but we were ready to turn east toward the desert. Morro Bay kayaking will have to wait for another trip.

By early afternoon we pulled into our campsite at Camp San Luis Obispo, just 5 miles or so west of the town of San Luis Obispo. A small army camp with a decent campground with only 12 sites, I am surprised that I was able to get reservations for this time of year only a couple of months in advance.

Camp San Luis Obispo has a fascinating history. Initially a California National Guard facility in 1850, it changed hands between the state and the US Army several times, before and after World War II and after the Korean War. Now again owned by the state of California, it is still used by the National Guard, and the Army for training and several notable military exercises.

We were settled in by 2:30 and asked ourselves…what to do? San Luis Obispo is a lovely small city of around 50 thousand people, with a charming downtown and the ambience that often comes with a university town. San Luis Obispo is home to California Polytechnic State University, and has one of the finest soils programs in the United States. Many of my co workers at NRCS are graduates of Cal Poly SLO.

Neither of us felt like shopping, I didn’t feel like hiking, and after reviewing the “things to do in SLO” we decided that visiting the local mission would be something different for us.

For the first time on the trip, the temperatures were in the low 80’s with clear sunny skies. Heaven! We let Mattie rest in the cool MoHo and headed toward downtown where the beautiful mission dominates an entire city block.

The history of the California missions is something taught in California schools, and the story of Father Junipero Serra’s journey to build missions and convert the ‘heathens’ to Christianity was considered a wonderful thing back in the 50’s when I was growing up in California. That history has more blemishes now that our culture looks a bit differently at what was done to the Native Americans, and the stories of the missions have changed a bit with more awareness.

Even though the cultural legacy is sometimes questioned, the architectural legacy is unmistakable. Whitewashed adobe walls, huge wooden beams, red tile roofs, arched colonnades, and bell towers are classic expressions of the Spanish style of California before it was part of the United States.

A story that is specific to the San Luis Obispo Mission is that Native Americans shot flaming arrows into what at the time was a thatched roof, prompting the missionaries to make clay roof tiles. After that, red tile roofs became the mission standard. The mission is now surrounded by a bustling downtown plaza and lush gardens, and the walls are adorned with art.

We enjoyed the main sanctuary of the mission and then entered the adjacent museum. We were surprised to find that the museum, once the residences of the friars and bishops, included room after room of displays and history. I especially enjoyed the display of the family trees of the prominent families that established the city of San Luis Obispo in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. Many of the families overlapped, and intermarried, and we had fun hunting for names in the family trees from other trees.

The mission was beautiful, and a perfect way to entertain ourselves for almost nothing. We did have to pay $1.50 for metered parking. Isn’t it amazing how parking meters now take credit cards?

February 2 Camp San Luis Obispo to Orange Grove RV Park

One of my favorite things to do when in San Luis Obispo is to visit the Apple Farm for a great meal in a beautiful restaurant. I made online reservations the night before, knowing that Sunday would be a busy morning. Unsure of the parking situation, we would drive to town in the Tracker and return after breakfast to pack up the MoHo.

We had a great breakfast at the Apple Farm in January of 2012

Sunday morning we looked at each other and said, Nah, a fancy breakfast was an expensive waste of time, and dealing with the crowds didn’t sound like fun. I canceled the reservation with a couple of clicks and we were on our way. We drove south of town to gas up at Costco for 3.11 a gallon and headed back north on Highway 101 toward Santa Marguerita.

Google Maps refused to listen to my desire to travel over the coast range on Highway 58, so I simply ignored her dire warnings as we exited the freeway. A bit north of the little town of Santa Marguerita there were big signs warning of a narrow winding road and a limit of 30 foot length. I ignored the signs, after all, we had just traveled several hundred miles with those same warnings.

Within a few minutes, however, I realized that I shouldn’t have turned off the noisy google girl. I somehow managed to miss the Highway 58 turn where the signs were located and had continued north on the side road that paralleled Highway 101 to Atascadero. I realized the mistake when I saw signs for Highway 41, one of the routes Google had suggested.

It didn’t help that the fog was thick all the way from San Luis Obispo. I wasn’t paying attention enough to notice that we were still traveling north instead of east. In Atascadero, as we passed through town returning to Highway 41, we passed an incredible building. It was too early to visit, and we didn’t stop to take photos, but with a bit of research I found information about the truly incredible historic Atascadero City Hall. On a slower day, without a destination in mind, it would be worth stopping for a visit and taking a tour. The building was so impressive! I was driving, so once again didn’t manage a photo. Sadly, all the photos on the internet are privately owned stock images, but I would highly recommend taking a moment to check out this link to the historic building.

Continuing east on 41, we passed through rolling coastal hills, almost completely obscured by the heavy fog. Once we reached Highway 46 the fog lifted a bit, but there was still a dim haze over the sun as we approached the Great San Joaquin Valley west of Bakersfield.

We have driven to Orange Grove RV Park on Highway 58 dozens of times, but this time decided to take Google Girl’s advice and rather than going south on I-5, we continued east on Highway 33 all the way to 99. Perfect choice. No traffic, very few signals through the small town of Shafter, the location of Mattie’s first rescue at Shafter Critters. There was an easy interchange with Highway 58 toward Tehachapi. Once again, we navigated the construction that has been ongoing at this portion of Highway 58 for as many years as we can remember doing the route. It never ends, but it does look like it might be coming to a close.

We arrived at the park mid-afternoon, in time to secure our spot and then take each vehicle over to the free car wash area for a good cleaning. After all the miles, the rain, and the sandy mud, the MoHo and the Tracker were embarrassing. The car wash area is a nice amenity for the park, as are the free donuts and coffee in the morning and the excellent cable TV. We got set up in time to relax and watch the Super Bowl.

This is what we are used to seeing at Orange Grove but not this time

Another amenity of Orange Grove RV Park are the oranges. Built in an orange grove, campers are given bags and long orange pickers to gather fresh ripe oranges from the surrounding trees. Something didn’t look quite right this time. The trees were very nearly barren of oranges. The girl at the desk gave me some kind of story about how campers came through with trucks, loading oranges into boxes to take away and sell. I asked if they did it under cover of darkness, and she said that it happened during the day as well.

Another shot from 2015 with orange on the trees.

Then a bit later, she mentioned that the park had been sold the previous October. Mo and I both think that the entire story is very fishy, and the new owner probably sold the oranges and left a few for the campers. I managed to find enough to fill a small bag, but they weren’t in very good shape, with some of them quite sour. Not what we are used to at Orange Grove. The park fee is now $50.00 per night with the AAA discount. When we first started camping here it was $28.00. We justified the high price in the past because of the lovely oranges and the free car wash. Now it will be mostly the car wash that keeps us coming here, maybe. I can buy a bag of sweet good oranges nearby for only ten bucks.

Tomorrow, after a week on the road, we will head east toward Desert Hot Springs. It has been an amazing slow journey instead of our usual 3 day, 2 night run to get to the desert sunshine. I have loved most every single minute, an especially beautiful healing trip for me at a time when I needed it most.