Day 2 - Snakes in the shower

Needed a shower after a day of wandering around Joshua Tree and sitting in the car with the sun always on my side of the car. It was 102!!
As I am finishing up, another gal comes into the common area asking me - "Did you see it?"
"The Snake!!" Of course, I had to scream because I scream when a green beetle flies past me, so a snake at my feet brings that scream to a whole 'nother level!!!
We (she) wrangled it out of the common area and into the hallway. It then hid behind a trashcan, and I left using the flashlight on my phone to watch for critters on the way back to our site. UGH!! I hate reptiles of any kind!!

Day 2

Day 2 – April 24, 2018

This was a long driving day. We left Ryan Campground at 9:00am and got back to I-10 via the road through Cottonwood, which is the south entrance. Our first stop was at the Skull Rock Trailhead. Karen was a little leery of the trail when, at about ¾ of a mile we still had not seen Skull Rock. It was getting hot already, so she turned around to go back to the car. I went ahead a short distance and found the end of the trail – it emptied into the Jumbo Rocks Campground. I turned around and jogged back to the start of the trail where we saw a group of Slovenian tourists dressed in Harley Davidson biker garb and taking selfies next to Skull Rock –right next to the roadway where we started our hike. Karen was not amused when I pointed this out, especially since she had earlier told me she thought Skull Rock was probably close to the trailhead!

As we dropped in elevation from +4000 feet, the Joshua Trees faded away and we drove through a large ‘forest’ of Cholla cactus that looked like it was glowing in the morning sunlight. We also went past a large grove of Ocotillo trees in full bloom.

By the time we got to I-10 it was close to 11:00am so we headed off to Quartzite for gas. We decided to bypass Phoenix by taking Highway 85 to I-8 and catching I-10 at Gila Bend. It probably didn’t save us much time, but we were able to keep moving at highway speed the entire time.

We pulled into Pichaco Peak State Park a little after 5:00pm. The rangers were gone and it was about 96 degrees and we couldn’t determine if there were electrical sites at the campground. So we went down the road to the Pichaco RV Resort (Good Sam) and checked in. This was the first time we’ve used the air conditioner in the Aliner and it works great. Tomorrow we plan to drive down to both the east and west districts of the Saguaro Cactus National Park and do some sightseeing. We may also stop in Tucson. We’ve booked three nights at Kartchner Caverns State Park (with electrical) and this should allow us time to visit the caverns, along with Tombstone and Bisbee before we head off to New Mexico.

Great Transcontinental Circuit Day 1 April 23, 2018

Great Transcontinental Circuit – Day 1 – April 23, 2018

After much thought, but not a lot of specific planning, we pulled out of town for the first leg of our trip. Our goal:  Joshua Tree National Park, about 150 miles away. It’s funny how the normal points of friction between the two of us seemed to fade away as the miles began to pile up. Example: we had some disagreements as to the best way to pull out of the driveway to start our trip. By the time we were backing the Aliner into our campsite, we were well on our way to being in synch with regard to how best to back a trailer. We have about another 9500 miles to go on this trip, so it will be interesting to watch (and more importantly, to experience) how our teamwork develops.

There was lots of traffic on I-10 coming in west from Palm Springs. Karen thought it was because the two week long Coachella Music Festival was ending today and it turned out she was correct (as usual). The park ranger at the West Entrance to Joshua Tree told us we were likely to get a campsite at the Ryan Campground and after a trip around the loop, we got one of the last remaining sites. After getting set up, we went back out of the park to visit Betty and John’s sister, Bonny.

Bonnie lives on a couple of acres in the hills above the town of Joshua Tree. She wasn’t home when we got there, so we headed into town for some lunch. On the way, we stopped at a small artist’s enclave right on Highway 62, where Karen toured the ‘World Famous Crochet Museum’. 

 I don’t know how the rest of the trip will be able to live up to the thrill we got here on our first day! We found some food at the Joshua Tree Saloon, where we were served by a bartender who looked just like Robert Downey, Jr/Tony Stark (he told us he actually has an agent who gets him some types of gigs that rely on this resemblance).

After lunch, we had a nice visit with Bonny, who showed us her home and let us visit with her three horses. We’re glad we got the chance to see her.

Back at the campsite we ate some leftover pizza and salad, photographed the sunset, did a quick hike to the ruins of the Ryan Ranch Adobe, and played a little uke and guitar.

Tomorrow:  a little morning hike, then exit to the south through the park and back to I-10 toward Pichaco Peak State park near Tucson,

The Great Transcontinental Circuit Begins

Stay tuned. The journey starts tomorrow...

Getting out of Town

Got the itch to take the trailer out midweek on Oct. 10th. Apparently, it was a wise choice because the temperatures soared that week. We had wanted to head further south but couldn't get in to the beach sites in South County, so we ended up at our stand-by beach campground - San Clemente State Beach.
I had received a hammock as a birthday gift, which was the first thing we set up after the trailer, of course. The hammock was soon occupied by some "homeless man".

Don't let this pic fool you tho - Steve's idea of fun always includes some kind of exercise: a walk, a hike, a bike ride. Me, I'm happy just plopping down in a beach chair. We had the whole beach to ourselves.

Evening sunsets were memorable.

Nature Encounter

and a stroll to the pier.
Came home and the heat wave was over. We started preparing for our DC/NYC trip and got out of town just in time to beat the next heat wave.

Adults Only Week-End 2017

Couple quick outings before our Visit with the Girls back East ...

The week-end of Sept. 21 we headed out to the river with our former co-workers at Disneyland from oh, maybe 40 years ago. How great is that to have friends hanging around so long?!
Two couples share a house along the river and have all the toys that go along with that lifestyle. We were able to ride Sea-dos, float on giant rafts and take a boat ride up to the river bar that provides boat parking right outside the bar. We had an entertaining afternoon taking the boat out to the sandbar and watching the guys attempt stand-up paddle board. Lost a hat and sunglasses in the process.
Bar B Q in the evening along with corn-hole and card games. I need a refresher on the new version of Golf that was called Baseball by this bunch. Lots of fun, food and fraternity!

 

This is the life!

 Windom had to sleep on the porch because he snores so loudly. Here is his alarm clock coming by to wake him up.

 Luke kept getting all the jokers; he will deny it, tho.

 What we mostly did....

San Francisco Sept. 2017 - Karen's Post

We have been planning this trip for years; well, maybe not planning, but certainly talking about and imagining it. My friend Betty, who is born and raised in So. Cal just like myself, had never been to San Francisco. Both our 40th wedding anniversaries were this year so we made the decision that this would be the excuse to finally get her there.
Betty, her husband John, Steve and I sat around one afternoon and booked our flights and hotel rooms. That, in and of itself, was an experience. Prices for rooms in SF are very expensive. We sat on all the sites like Trip Advisor, Kayak, etc. watching rooms get reserved right out from under us because we couldn't make a decision in time. We found a room in an old boutique hotel that was in our price range and seemed centrally located for us to play tourist.

One thing I don't like is when a group gets together and asks - 'what do you want to do?' with the response always ' I don't know, what do you want to do?' Hoping to prevent that scenario, I pulled out the map of the City and divided it into quadrants and listed possible things to see and do on each day. We prebooked a tour of Alcatraz and knew we wanted to ride bikes over the Golden Gate Bridge. Two days covered without even trying!
We arrived early Tuesday morning at SFO and took BART into town, dropped our bags at the hotel and hopped on a cable car to Chinatown.

We wandered around Chinatown, found lunch at one of the many restaurants then decided we had it in us to make our way to the top of Coit Tower.

If you have never been to Coit Tower, let me tell you, there are A Lot of steps and stairs involved! The view from the top was well worth the slog to the tower itself from the street and then the many steps to the top.

 We were pooped so we went back to the room for R and R. Dinner was Taco Tuesday at a neighborhood bar. The drinks were cheap and the food was good.

Wednesday was reserved for our ferry ride over to Alcatraz Island.

The tour is self-guided and we were able to wander around at our leisure. After the tour, we hoofed it to Fisherman's Wharf in search of clam chowder in a bread bowl. Betty found bread, that's for sure!

We Ubered back to the room before worrying about what we would do for dinner. Steve took a walk around the Marina district and checked out the Palace of Fine Arts. We would be going that way tomorrow.

Thursday was the day we were all looking forward to. We got up early for breakfast at the Buena Vista, famous for their Irish Coffee.While we were waiting for the Buena Vista to open, we popped next door to rent our bikes and it was a good thing we did that early because after breakfast there was a huge line that we avoided.

After a false start, that I am not allowed to elaborate on, we headed out to the bridge.
The weather was perfect, the sun was out and not too warm.

That's the scarf i bought for 3 Bucks in Chinatown!

Here I am reenacting a scene from the movie Vertigo. Great classic with Jimmy Stewart.

The bridge was more crowded than we had anticipated. People were walking on the wrong side of the bike path and not paying attention. We had to be very careful...

I love this picture of Betty! Makes me laugh every time! Sorry, Betty!
We got over to Sausalito without incident. Had lunch and rode around a little, checking out the million dollar homes and the houseboats that didn't quite look a million bucks. Time to hop on the ferry back to SF. We loaded the bikes on to the ferry and enjoyed another spectacular bay view.

That night we payed a visit to Betty's relative by marriage who bartends at a Japanese restaurant downtown in the financial district. The generosity of the staff overwhelmed us! First off, we were treated to our own specially concocted drink and then the food just kept on coming compliments of the house!

I ate sooo much! I was sooo full! It was wonderful!
This was our last night in SF and what a way to cap it off!
We never made it over to Golden Gate Park, but we all agreed we will save it for next time. Because, surely, there will be a next time! Betty and John were excellent traveling companions and we were all left wondering why we hadn't done this trip sooner!