We left the glitz 30 miles behind as we drove south west out into the desert to the campsite at Callville Bay Marina on Lake Mead. This lake was formed by the damming of the Colorado River in 1936. Before that time and before the railroads steamboats came upstream to the Mormon town of Callville. It was tough going in the rapids where the boats had to be winched upstream via hooks cemented in the rocks. This marina (see photo) is mostly rental houseboats. It has an enormous boat ramp and parking lot. The length of the boat ramp is made necessary by the extreme variations in the water level. Launching your boat is a major undertaking with long walks up and down the ramp. The season here runs from May to September. Today the park was virtually deserted. There is a good weather window through Flagstaff, AZ on Friday with no snow or freezing weather during the day so we will be leaving the Lake Mead area then.
We woke up to rain, high winds and cold 40 degree weather. In spite of this we took the free casino bus to Harrah’s on the Las Vegas strip. How wrong I was to think we would have the place to ourselves. The crowds were huge and everywhere. There must be direct flights from Japan to Las Vegas. The architecture of the strip is just a massive jumble of different styles, electronic signs, and fiberglass sculptures. It’s much worse than Disney World. We toured the fancy shops in Caesars Palace and the Bellagio. Sony had an exhibit of 3D TV that requires special electronic glasses to watch. That’s the next I got to get one. The casino floors are so large as you walk through you wonder if you will ever get to see the light of day again. The water show at the Bellagio is well worth a visit. The photo shows one of the buildings at Caesar’s Palace attempting to imitate the Louvre. The city has come a long way since my last visit around 1986.
We have returned to civilization and Internet access after 3 days in almost complete isolation. We now have 14 more days vacation to spend before our return to Nashville. Our strategy is to spend as much time in the warm parts of the west to allow the east to warm up so the probability of snow in the passes is reduced. We will tour Lake Mead, visit Sedona, and then head for Nashville. Today we are at staying at Sam’s Town Hotel, Gambling Hall & Bowling Center at their 500 site RV Park.
We splurged on breakfast today at the old Furnace Creek Inn. After all the money saved with our Golden Age Passport that gets you into the park free and discounts the campsite by 50% we could afford it. The Inn was opened in 1927 by the Pacific Borax Company which mined borax nearby. The adobe bricks that make up the mission-style architecture were created on site by Native Americans. Furnishings and decor in the lobby and bar draw upon the classic look of the 1930’s. The Inn is only open from mid-October through mid-May. Breakfast was magnificent and the service first class. Then we headed for Mosaic Canyon. It was a 2 mile gravel road climb up the alluvial plain to a spectacular smooth marble narrow canyon (see today’s photo). I have always thought Death Valley was a desert like the Sahara. There are a few areas of sand dunes but it is only a small percentage of the land area. We stopped at the Mesquite Flat Dunes and then drove 36 miles to Scotty’s Castle. This is a 1920’s Spanish style mansion built by Arthur and Bessie Johnson with Arthur’s friend Scotty. Scotty was a performer having worked with Wild Bill Cody’s touring show. He convinced Arthur there was gold in the hills and after seeing the area, Arthur decided to build a winter home. Frank Lloyd Wright prepared a set of plans for the home, but Arthur didn’t like the look and fired FLW. As an aside, our tour guide mentioned that Bessie went to Cornell with FLW. The tour was very interesting and ended with an impressive organ concert in the music room. (see tomorrow’s photo). We ended the day driving the Nevada route to Beatty. The sky was incredible with rainbows, rain showers, fluffy clouds, on a foundation of snow capped mountains and desert. We camped about 5 miles north of Beattie across the highway from Angel’s Ladies, a Nevada brothel, with free all night truck parking. This was our last night with Judith and Robert as they are heading back to Vancouver Island in the morning.
We went ahead of Robert & Judith and had breakfast at the Crowbar Café in Shoshone. We all got together and drove the 72 miles to Furnace Creek in the center of Death Valley. The Valley is roughly 100 miles long about 13 miles wide and runs north & south between two mountain ranges. The mountains on the west side were snow covered with the peak 11,300 ft above the Badwater Basin. The Basin (see photo) is 282 feet below sea level. As the water in the lake evaporates it leaves the rectangular pattern of sodium chloride crystals. We walked a mile out into the lake to get that photo. There was a huge 100 and 200 mile race of bicyclists today. We must have passed 500. At one point they had to ride up hill for 10 miles on a 5% grade, then turn around and head down hill. After Badwater we took the one way Artists Drive up to a canyon called Artists Palette. As you might have guessed the rocks here are all different colors. Vehicles over 25 feet are not allowed on this road because they would get stuck in the dips. We set up camp at Furnace Creek in a large new campsite. There is no power or water at the sites.
We all went in the View today. We stopped in Tecopa at the elementary school where there was a water tank. The pressure was so low it was hopeless trying to fill our tank, so we went on to China Ranch. There is steep canyon with sharp turns to get into the ranch. We made it through the canyon and I filled the tank with their hose. We had date milkshakes which were very good and toured the 25 acre date palm farm. We climbed back out of the China Ranch and went to Shoshone. Originally the town was built to serve the Tonopah and Tidewater railway line in 1908. Now it is one of the gateways to Death Valley. We had lunch at the Famous Crowbar Café & Saloon. We joined the motorcycle crowd and had a pretty good lunch there. Next door is the Shoshone Museum which had WiFi and I managed to get a couple of emails off. The service was too slow for access to the blog. After lunch we toured the caves built by talc miners in the area and headed back to the campsite. I was intrigued by the dunes in the area and hiked a mile along the road to see them (see photo). They are fragile mud hills according to a sign along the highway. Tonight we will take to the mineral water hot springs again. The water here is rated highly by spa lovers worldwide. The very high sodium content makes the water very smooth and it has no odor.
We took the Amboy Road from Twentynine Palms to Amboy. This was a famous stop on Route 66 in the Mohave Desert. Roy’s (see photo) was a restaurant, car repair, gas, and motel stop on this route from New York to LA and opened with the highway in1926. In 1973 the highway was bypassed with the completion of I-40. Today you can get gas, and bottled water, cold drinks, and snack. There is no brewed coffee as the health department won’t allow trucked in water. The restaurant was left as is with the lunch counter intact and and a stack of photo albums. A mile along Route 66 is the entrance to Amboy Crater. This volcano last erupted 10,000 years ago. We walked 3.1 miles to the cinder cone, climbed to the rim and toured the craters in the crater. It was my first time in a volcano. We continued driving north through desert, sand dunes at Kelso, to Baker. My last visit to Baker was July 2, 1950 with my family driving in our 1950 Studebaker from Toronto to Los Angeles. My father wrote in his blog which records that because the daytime temperature was 120 degrees, we drove through the desert at night and had breakfast at Baker. Another 51 miles and we arrived at the Tecopa Hot Springs and Campground which is operated by California Land Management. The rate is $19 with power, water, and use of the hot spring. For the first time on this trip there is no Verizon cell phone service here.
Judith planned the trip today which started with a visit to Coachella Valley Preserve where we hiked 2 miles to an oasis beside the San Andreas fault. There was a large pond in the Oasis surrounded by huge dense palms. We climbed up to 2500 ft and had lunch at Big Morongo Canyon Preserve. Then it was on to the town of Joshua Tree and one of the strangest sculpture gardens anywhere by artist Noah Purfoy. An African American growing up in Alabama he filled his 7 acre lot in the high desert with assemblage sculptures made from various scrapped items. Many pieces have a message based on his life experiences. The artist died in 2004 but a foundation was formed to try and preserve the works as best as possible. More on the web by googling Noah Purfoy. Today’s photo shows his “Kirby Express” named after the vacuum cleaners.
We left Rancho Santa Fe and headed northeast for the first time. I was surprised at the amount of traffic on the back roads. We climbed to 4,000 feet over a distance of 80 miles and then dropped south of Palm Desert to 40 feet in about 10 miles. The photo shows the severe switchbacks in US 74. We are camped now at the Lake Cahuilla Recreation Area where we met up with our friends from Saltspring Island, Judith and Robert. They have a motorhome similar to ours and we will be travelling together through the Mohave Desert for the next week.
Phil had told me about the Rotary Club of Rancho Santa Fe which meets Monday noon at the Rancho Santa Fe Inn. This is an old 1923, posh inn built to provide accommodations for prospective land buyers in the early days of Rancho Santa Fe’s development. It’s one the Historic Hotels of America and Conde Nast Johansens Recommended. The Rotary sign at the hotel is a modest bronze plaque. I arrived in suitable style having borrowed Gillian’s red Jaguar convertible. The meeting was very interesting with an author describing his book about how he escaped from the Nazis, and Russia during WWII, emigrated to America, and became an engineer with NASA developing the Apollo Simulator used to train Neil Armstrong. Our friends are building another home in Carmel with an ocean view. Lifelong golfers they will be close to Pebble Beach. That evening we spent several hours in the Theater showing slides. I was very gratified after showing 200 of my pictures, when Gillian asked “Is that all you are going to show.” Naturally I showed a bunch more. Today’s photo shows the view of the garden from the View.
It rained hard all night and by morning at high tide, the surf was huge and water was coming across the beach parking lots and US 101 road loaded with rocks. They had to use bulldozers to clear the roadway. We drove to our friends, Phil and Lee’s home in Del Mar and then went out for lunch at Jakes. This is a very good restaurant right on the beach. It was packed with people watching the surf. Phil having sold his business two years ago, has passed his real estate brokers exams and is ready to start work. Phil and I have been friends since Grade 2 in Toronto. After lunch we picked up the View and headed for Tony and Gillian’s home in Rancho Santa Fe. Tony and I worked together at Nortel. We were greeted by 5 dogs, 3 horses, a cat, and 2 very loud birds. Their home is a beautiful, sprawling, 50’s ranch with views over the orchards and hills. We spend a couple of hours touring the beautiful gardens and home. Gillian rides for miles on the horse trails in the area. For dinner a reservation had been made at, you guessed it, Jakes. That night we watched the Winter Olympics closing ceremony in Tony’s theater room on a 120” screen. The photo shows two of the dogs, left to right, Violet and Lincoln walking on water at the swimming pool. Lincoln is the alpha dog and is a rescue dog from Mexico that lived in the streets of Tijuana. He is very smart.
We spent the morning at Cabrillo National Monument on Point Loma. This is a long peninsula that protects the naval base in San Diego. Cabrillo was the first European Spanish explorer to discover California in the 1500s. It was great place to watch the surf from the high cliffs. At 12:02 the Chilean tsunami was scheduled to arrive and the beach road was shut down just in case. It was a non-event with one wave about the same as the next. There is a very handsome restored light house in the park that is well worth the visit. Then we drove north along the coast through the high end towns of La Jolla and Del Mar. We must have passed through 100 stop streets or lights. It was slow going but much more fun than the Interstate that our GPS tried to take us on. We had to fight the GPS all the way. We stopped at the San Elijo State Park at Cardiff by the Sea and got one of two remaining campsites. Things were tight because about 50 sites were shut down for maintenance. This park is right beside the ocean on top of a high bluff (see photo). This is the first night we haven’t had power. Tomorrow we are scheduled to visit with two friends that live near here.
We are just two miles east of the Pacific Ocean at the 40 year old “Campland on the Bay”, that’s Mission Bay. We crossed the Colorado River in Yuma and followed the All American Canal that irrigates a vast area of the Salton Sink, formerly a desert. At Ocotillo we left Interstate 8 and followed Historic Old US 80 almost to San Diego. US 80 was completed in 1927 and ran coast to coast from Savannah GA to San Diego. It was the route “that would never be snowbound”. Near Yuma and again along US 80 there is a black line that runs across the desert. Finally, we figured it out. It is the US-Mexico fence to reduce the number of illegal immigrants that cross the border. It’s not a solid fence but has gaps so wildlife can pass through (see photo). Tomorrow we have the day off and will tour the area.
We got away early and decided to visit National RV Central beside I-10 to try out their automated RV wash. It can handle up to 65 ft units and washes the top, bottom and all four sides. It did an amazing job. The wheel covers have never looked so good. The manager said he wanted to test something so we got the $95 wash for $35. He told me that 80% of the water is recycled and they only do RVs. There was a repair facility at the same location, so I decided to get them to look at the problem we are having with the power steps that have a safety feature that makes the steps retract if the engine is running and the doors are closed. The problem is the steps were not retracting. I got a real education from the mechanic, Denny, on trouble shooting this kind of problem. After $196 the problem turned out to be a faulty cable assembly. He bypassed the cable and everything is working again. I’ll replace the assembly when I can get a new part. The assembly is supposed to protect the step computer if there is a voltage spike. We finally left Tucson at 1:00PM and got to Yuma at 6:00PM. We are in Riverfront Park, which must be one of the oldest RV Parks in Yuma. It is decorated with old cars and gas station stuff (see photo of the laundry). There are a total of 170 RV parks in Yuma covering vast areas and occupied by retirees. These folks know where to go as this is the warmest place yet at 78 degrees.
This was shopping day, but started with attendance at the Tucson Rotary Club. The Tucson Chief of Police was the speaker. He talked about the drop in crime all over the US, which is a good thing of course, but also helps in the cost cutting made necessary by the recession. After that meeting I had another meeting in Nashville via teleconference. Then it was off to Costco, Lowes, and American Antiques. No one needs to see a photo of a Costco so today’s photo is from yesterday at Old Tucson Studios and shows the lawyer’s office with its interesting door and window. Tomorrow we leave for Yuma.
We arrived at the 1939 Old Tucson Studios at the 10:00AM opening time. We were soon on a guided tour with a guide that seemed to know every movie ever made at the studio and was on a first name basis with John Wayne, who was one of the owners in the studio. Over 300 films have been made here including A Star is Born (1976), Cannon Ball Run (1984) and Tombstone (1993). After the tour we attended Miss Kitty’s Can-Can Review, followed by a gun fight. I filmed the gun fight but it went on so long I had to quit and missed the gunslinger falling off the roof. This is a very interesting place and the staff tries hard to please. We had lunch at Big Jake’s BBQ and had some of the best bbq and ribs I have ever tasted. Mavis and I split a huge plate that cost just $13.50. Our next stop was Saguaro National Park. The saguaro cactus is the supreme symbol of the American Southwest according to the park’s brochure. The visitor center shows an excellent narrated slide show on a large screen. At the end the screen rises, the curtains open and you look out at a vast saguaro forest. We hiked part way up Apache Peak and took today’s photo that looks out over Tucson.
It seems like there are thousands of signs advertising “The Thing? What Is It?” for a hundred miles in all directions from Willcox, AZ. This was great advertising for years. How could you resist the pleas from your kids to stop, pay a buck, and see “The Thing?”. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your point of view, the Internet has made it possible to find the answer without having to stop. Mavis Googled it this morning and learned more than she wanted to know. I’ll leave it up to the reader to Google it yourself so we won’t spoil the mystery if you want to see it in person. Today was the day for rain and snow. The big sky was spectacular leaving Deming with broken clouds. We got lots of rain and arrived at noon at Gilbert Ray County Park, near Tucson beside the Saguaro National Park. This one of the best campsites in the country. It has mountain views and tall cactus all around our site. We’ll stay here for 3 nights, visit Old Tucson Studios, go shopping, wash the salt off the View and take it easy.
The plan changed today. The Weather Channel was forecasting snow in Southwest New Mexico for Monday night. I decided to skip Alamagordo and try and get to Tucson on Monday, hopefully past the storm. We want to spend 2-3 nights there, so even if it does snow we’ll be in a nice place at Gilbert Ray County Park. The Garmin GPS with its brand new update was picking strange routes when we left the Brantley Lake. It took us into a closed park road and we had to turn around and retrace several miles to get back to US 235. We headed north to Artesia which turned out to be the nicest looking town in NM so far. The Rotary Club there did a first with an electronic sign advertising the club and local businesses; a clever fund raiser and better than a wishing well. From Artesia I had to ignore the GPS so we could take US 82 west to Alamagordo. US 82 is a 1932 road from Brunswick GA to Alamagordo. It is a beautiful road climbing slowly 5,270 ft over 91 miles to 8,650 ft at Cloudcroft. There was lots of snow at the ski resort at Cloudcroft. Then the road drops 4,315 ft over a 16 mile stretch to Alamagordo. Why I thought this would be an interesting stop is because I got that town mixed up with Ruidoso. We continued on to White Sands National Monument and revisited this beautiful place. It was partly cloudy and the clouds’ shadows turned the sand different colors (see photo). Tonight we are staying at Deming, NM
By 3:00AM I had the 2 GB file downloaded. After a few error messages I finally got the file transfer to the GPS started and I went back to bed. By morning I was in business and plotted the route to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. The Caverns should be on everyone’s bucket list. As a child my family had a ViewMaster with 3D photos of the Cavern. However, those tiny 16mm photos don’t do justice to the colossal size of the cave’s rooms. We took the ranger guided Kings Palace tour and enjoyed the talk and walk. The photo was hand held using “natural light” and shows a large overhead drapery formation. While flash is permitted the results are flat. We finished the tour at 4:00pm and headed northeast from the Guadalupe Mountains through Carlsbad to Brantley Lake State Park in the Chihuahuan Desert. Tomorrow we plan to visit Alamagordo, a town that looked interesting last year but we didn’t tour.
We crossed some of the square Texas counties today. Each county is 30 miles on each side. The county seat is in the middle, so there is a town every 30 miles. Snyder was very grand including a courthouse square with a bronze very rare albino bison. The purpose of the sculpture is to honor the man, J. Wright Mooar, who shot more bison (about 22,000) than anyone else. Another town, Gail, was very poor, with nothing recognizable as even a courthouse. Route US 180 runs parallel 30 miles south of US380 the road we took last year. US 180 is a better road and the areas we passed through more devoted to agriculture than scrub brush. Hobbs is not very exciting but the RV Park is good. We celebrated Chinese New Year at the Mi Won restaurant beside the RV Park. Setting up tomorrows route to Carlsbad Caverns, I couldn’t get the GPS to find Carlsbad. Then I remembered in the last update Garmin couldn’t get all the maps into the StreetPilot so they split the maps into two or three parts. To show Newfoundland I had to eliminate the western USA. It seems Carlsbad is off the map. I forgot to bring the DVD that had the map files on it so I had to order the 2010 version and am now trying to download over 2GB of map files.
