Thursday, March 30, 2017

Ordinary life


Soledad Canyon RV Resort Thousand Trails
March 3 - March 17, 2017

The view behind us was glorious!
This park is HUGE and actually has pretty nice spots in a picturesque area.  You can definitely get side by side RV park style spots but there were several to choose from where you didn't feel quite so close.

We chose a spot up on the hill overlooking the "mountains" where we got better Verizon cell service and 4G.  When our new monthly data allotment started on the 8th, we switched to unlimited on our Verizon plan.  It was hard to do because it was another $35-40 more a month but we're really tired of running out data at the end of the month and we really depend on it!  We don't seem to have wifi as much as we thought we would (boondocking in the desert kind of does that to you!).

Got to sit out several nights with the campfire.  Note RV's in
the view in front of us!  THAT's the more typical "RV Park"!
This was a rare 2 week stay which felt like ordinary life.  Laundry, TV binge watching (at times!), church, shopping, more tax research (we got 1099DIV and 1099R and 1099S for the first time - another set of learning curves!),  Amazon ordering (magic creeper , OBDII reader, batteries for the TMPS tire monitors, fumoto oil valve).  We'll have to tell you how we like these products after we try them out!  As an aside on Amazon ordering - with one of our packages, they said it was undeliverable (we sent it General Delivery Acton with the zip code) but they handed it off to the post office who delivered it to the Acton post office that same day.  With another, they said it was undeliverableand we tried to add the street address to Amazon and it said it wasn't valid.  So we called UPS.  They finally got it to us days later.  Not sure what the lesson is here but we'll be more leery about sending things to General Delivery although from everything we've read, this should not have been a problem.  We'll try to add the street and see if Amazon will take it.  I've read that there is only one post office in each city that handles General Delivery and that's how it's supposed to be addressed (General Delivery, City, Zip).

We attended Valencia UMC two Sundays in a row.  The first was at their 9:00 "Classic" service and the 2nd was their 10:30 Praise service.  It was wonderful to feel somewhat "like home" attending a United Methodist Church.  The music was wonderful with choir, handbells, and excellent praise band.  The sermons and worship services were excellent and meaningful.

Coming back on the trail at Vasquez Rocks

We did visit a few places around the area.  We especially enjoyed Vasquez Rocks - we even went twice because we went on a Monday and the interpretive center was closed so we came back later to go through that.  We also "got outta town" during this hot spell (mid 80's) and headed up to the mountains at Wrightwood to get our ideal 70 degrees.  It was a great drive, short hike (eventually had to stop because there was too much snow and couldn't see the trail!).  Otherwise we just enjoyed reading, campfires, hikes, bike rides, and walks.  Tried a few farmers markets but they were pretty small.


Most of our pics of Vasquez Rocks
were pretty lame.  It was very striking!
Highlights:  Seeing former co-workers of Ellen's, meeting new folks at the campground (something we don't do when we're boondocking since there aren't usually a lot of folks around!).

Lowlights:  Pretty upset about the scratches all along the passenger side from the attack bush at Sawtooth Canyon as we were leaving.  They are like 10 giant  finger-nail scratches the whole length of the passenger side from the bottom up to about halfway.  Polishing with two different products did make them less noticeable but did not remove them.  We also added  a new huge gnarly scratch (through the paint this time) on one of the bay doors (opened the door and it bumped into the propane tank which was set nearby).  Luckily its closer to the bottom of the door on a down slope  (not in the middle!) so not readily noticeable!

Things we're wondering:  Will we stop feeling heartsick over the scratches, will we figure out how to get rid of them or will we re-paint or will we learn to accept them?!

Things we've decided:  We think we've learned all we can at this point on these batteries and we believe that they are indeed "ruined" (lost capacity) so we've decided to purchase the Costco 6 volt batteries to continue our boondocking testing and experience before we buy more expensive batteries.   We'll do this toward the end of the month when we'll be back into boondocking country.

We eventually gave up on the trail near Wrightwood.  It was a
great temp but we couldn't find the trail with all the snow
still on the ground!

Sunday, March 26, 2017

Shaded by a Monolith


February 28 - March 3, 2017
Sawtooth Campground, CA

We left our abandoned RV park in Death Valley and headed south through the hills tp Barstow California.  Ellen had found a possible boondocking spot on Allstays just south of there, but as always, you don't drive your RV someplace you're not sure you can't escape from without checking it out first.

I stayed at a Walmart in Barstow while she drove about twenty miles to Sawtooth Canyon.  She called the OK and away I went…   There were no signs on the main road telling me where to turn off, but Ellen had directed me where to turn, and that I would be going about one mile down a washboard road to find the area.  She had a spot picked out, but was worried a huge boulder would shade us too much to make our solar panels effective.  When she said "washboard" it didn't really prepare me for the bouncy experience that followed.  Dished rattled, but cupboard doors stayed closed and nothing was shaken up too badly except my nerves.


Climbed on the rock to look down on the RV
I think Sawtooth Canyon may have been a regular campground at one point in it's history.  The boondocking site all had shelters and site numbers.  And there was a camp host site.  A sign next to it proclaimed "Volunteer Camp Host Wanted".  A phone number was given. While the hiking was good, it appeared to be a rock climbing campground.  There were spikes in the tops of some of the monolithic rocks to attach climbing ropes.


We did get good sunshine to refill our batteries, but not enough to completely fill them.  The system would recover all but about ten to fifteen amp hours per day and then go into float mode, saying we were full.  So after three days we ended up about thirty five amp hours down.  We think it's a battery issue and not a charging issue, but we'll keep looking at this and soldier on.



Oh, and on the way out we avoided a ditch on one side of the road only to scratch the other side of our coach on a bush.  We will be researching Gel Coat scratch removal soon!

Twins in our new sun hats!



Wednesday, March 1, 2017

From the highest high to the lowest low!

February 23-26, 2017
Lakeside RV resort (and Casino) Pahrump, NV

February 26-28, 2017
Boondocking outside Death Valley NP


Hard to tell from this pic but that's a playground
right behind us!  Lakeside RV Resort, Pahrump
We were so happy to leave Las Vegas (the city) and had hoped we'd back to "camping" but not for our first stop at least!  While Lakeside RV resort is much better than where we were in terms of space and greenery and water and paths to walk, it's still an RV Park where that's all you see from all our windows!  We backed up to a playground which saw mostly teen antics and noises!!  It was quite loud at times but we were there over the weekend.

Balloon "glow" in Pahrump
We chose Pahrump and this park because they were having a hot air balloon festival over the weekend and this park was Passport America (so 50% off!) and had wifi.  I think we could have found boondocking  spots nearby but we wanted to try out a 10 out of 10 rated park with wifi to continue with taxes and other internet stuff.

On the exploring front:  We froze ourselves going to the evening hot air balloon "glow" but it was GREAT!  We had coffee and gyros and funnel cake and visited the vendor booths.  Loved the small town feel and festivities!

It was cold in our boondocking spot at 3000+ elevation
but down here in Death Valley NP - NICE!
We took a day trip from Pahrump to Death Valley NP to see if we wanted to stay in the park or elsewhere.  We scouted road conditions and campground cost/quality.  We were disappointed that we finally were going to stay in a National Park and one campground was full, the second one was basically a parking lot (not even hookups) and the third was only slightly better than the parking lot (with fire rings) but generators aren't allowed which wouldn't be a problem with our solar but it's so cold we need to run the furnace quite a lot.  Basically, we decided it wasn't worth the extra miles into the park to turn around and go back to head south later.  So we tried a boondocking site near the top of the rim before descending into the park.

We look so tiny (and alone!) down there!
Boondocking outside Death Valley NP
The boondocking spot was great - nice roads going in and apparently it was going to be an RV park so it had concrete pads and level places to park and really spread out.  There were 3-4 others there during our stay.  Very quiet and dark and great night viewing of stars since the moon wasn't out!

As usual these pics don't do the park justice!  But try we do!
We took many more pictures but since we're on limited data
plan, we'll forgo posting them here!
Death Valley NP:  I'm not sure how these parks can be so much the same (here in the desert SW) and yet be so different but always WONDERFUL!   I'm going to have to work on my words and try to come up with adjectives that can convey the feelings you have when visiting such larger-than-life places.  It's the combination of fresh air, sunshine (and not hot!), exercise and such different  landscape and geology.  We are learning so much at the visitor centers and museums along the way - it almost feels like being back at school but on a field trip!

So funny because this looks like
a typical Oregon coast pic but that's
salt way down below which we later
walked on.  View from Dante's View.


Highlights:  Night time hot air balloon "glow", Death Valley NP, Pahrump museum (Nuclear testing section especially), wine tasting and lunch!  I (Ellen) bought a yoga mat and am slowly starting that up as a daily practice and it feels great!

Lowlights:  Figuring out propane for our small BBQ.  [We later determined our BBQ regulator was clogged - back in business!]

Things we didn't do this time:  We wanted to join the star gazing Saturday night nearby but it was cloudy (and far away).  It also didn't work out to see the hot air balloons  early in the morning (except from a distance) but we were ok with that having seen them late in the day/evening on Friday night.  So many things in Death Valley NP were closed - super disappointing.   Especially wanted to see Devil's Golf Course and Salt Creek trail which had pupfish(?!).

Things we've (re)learned:  Did I say Casino's are awful mainly because of the smoke?

Things we're (still) wondering:  Now that we have full batteries (for real this time - we think!), how much capacity do they really have and will we be able to keep the volts above the 50% AND will the trimetric readings and the volts align?!   Stay tuned - we should be able to answer this in the next blog!