JJDreamweaver: California Is The Place You Aught To Be

Blog No 3

We must have been drawn to this location in Flagstaff, our free camp is located on the Naval Observatory Road just off the old Route 66 and down the road from the Lowell Observatory which discovered the planet Pluto back in the 1930’s. A great camp amongst the glistening stars, and the Ponderosa pine trees, warm during the day and cool at night. All day there is a scurry of activity with our little squirrel friends looking for food to fatten up before winter returns.

Home among the pine trees, no fires this time due to a burn ban

All’s good with our RV rego, we sent the documents away on the Wednesday and we collected the plates on the Friday morning, now officially registered in Montana and ready to roll, great service couldn’t ask for better. Each year our agent collects all the paperwork necessary for registration and insurance renewals, all we do is pay via the internet and access the paperwork via a website portal.

Cotton Socks filling his belly on our vegi scraps

Struggling to get home after a big feed

A ground squirrel takes over but missed out on the carrot

While in Flagstaff we set up an additional 12 volt power system to provide power from our house battery directly to charge our computers and camera battery. This will supplement the inverter we installed back in Cedar City a week ago which has been running off our main engine battery. The inverter is fine while the engine is running but too big a power drain when we are idle.

A team of Giant Tortoises in a huddle to see who's going to kick off

Now that all was in order we decided to head west towards California hoping to make our fortune like all the old pilgrims in the 1800’s. First stop is a town called Kingston, Arizona which like all American towns has to have its own claim to fame. This town’s claim is that it was home to a person called Andy Devine. Sam informed us of this because every second street is something or other ending in Andy Devine. Totally ignorant we head for the visitors centre, which just happened to have a museum honouring, yes you guessed it A.D. If you’re currently in your 90’s you might recall a silent movie star called Andy Devine who played a cowboy, other than that it’s just a yawn!!

Arizona gives us the finger just before crossing the Nevada border

We move on quickly before we die of boredom and head down our first of many canyons to the Colorado River which is the border between Arizona and Nevada, it’s a playground in the desert and probably the only place in the world where jet-skis are the best suited marine craft. The river flows so fast you can’t swim against it and any journey downstream other than in a motorised craft would require a tow back. So if your jet ski breaks down you end up in the Gulf of California, 500mile away, ahh who cares!! The water is cool and the desert wind is stifling, we dip our toes and decide to move on. The Colorado elevation here is about 500ft, well below the 2,300ft within the Grand Canyon, thanks to a couple of dams in between.

The fast flowing Colorado River is a playground in the desert for many

We parked up for a warm night at a turnout along the Joshua Tree Hwy on the edge of the Mojave Indian Reserve in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in southern Nevada, we saw the glow of Las Vegas in the distance and listened to the coyote’s calling each other during the night. Felt just like the old timers camping out, but a whole lot safer inside a locked RV. The desert flowers and cactus are just beginning to bloom and make a lovely sight amongst the weird looking Joshua Trees.

Our camp for the night during our brief Nevada stay

Joshua trees scattered all over the desert, but only in some areas, their seeds used to be spread by giant sloths, but since its extinction and climate change the tree numbers are dwindling

The Joshua tree is a member of the Yucca tree family and seems to be a cross between a pine and a cactus, quite strange looking and very slow growing, less than 100mm per year which for desert standards is quite fast apparently

The next day was a big one, we’d made the choice to head northwest for our entry into California rather than southwest through the deserts and this meant we would need to cross “DEATH VALLEY” in the middle of summer, OUCH!! Hey, could it be any worse than Phoenix?? Our aim was to endure the heat during the day and then hopefully find a cooler place close to the Sierra Nevada mountain range by evening.

Baker's claim to fame was that the Mars Curiosity Rover Robot was tested here prior to it's space journey thus making everything ALIEN. Now that takes the cake, or jerky in this case.

First we skirt around the northern side of the Mojave Indian Reserve then heads north along a lonely road to Shoshone, a town named after the local Indians that lived in the area. Next it’s onwards towards Death Valley, but the southern access road is closed unbeknown to Sam so we have to continue North to the Eastern access road.

This guy refused to pay first for his gas

Death Valley was amazing and thanks to a cloudy day meant the temperatures were about the same as Phoenix 45C. The world record is 57C at Furnace Creek in the middle of the valley. The lowest point at the southern end of Death Valley at Badwater Basin is 282ft BELOW sea level and what would appear to be a lake from the distance is in fact a salt bed shimmering like a mirage to the unknowing traveller. The valley itself is again another WOW!! The cliffs around are sheer with an assortment of different coloured formations changing with every bend in the road. We have to backtrack a bit because the Southern access road was shut but by doing so we saw things we missed on the first run.

Death Valley is an awesome place with moon surface like features everywhere. A very inhospitable place for any form of life

The lowest point in the US and a record for us. Lake Eyre in OZ is about 60 feet below sea level.

It would appear that people are walking on water but in fact the whole area is a salt lake

Water does lie beneath the surface but not a drop to drink

At the northern end of the valley we found sand dunes with sand being whipped up by the southerly wind like a storm you’d expect in the Sahara Desert. We climbed out of the valley along a narrow winding road up to a height of about 7,000 feet before descending again down into another valley with a base at about 1,000 feet and more sand dunes again whipped up into a frenzy, where it was difficult to see the road ahead.

It's called the Artist's Palette, a coloured mound formation resulting from various chemical crystals leaching out over the millenia

Just when we think we've seen it all we get the 30ft high sand dunes you would expect in the desert.

The valley below is whipping up a sand storm which we have to drive through to get out

Leaving Death Valley behind, a desolate scene, don't know how they crossed it on horseback, we virtually drank our RV dry

After another climb up to about 7,000 feet we then descended down into yet another valley to about 2,000 feet with the most magnificent mountainview to the west. The Sierra Nevada Mountains is a sight to see, especially from the Eastern side and what we saw first was Mount Whitney 14,491 feet the highest mountain in the US lower 48. In one day we saw the lowest point and the highest point in the US both within 150 miles. The Sierra Nevada Mountains still had snow on top even in the middle of summer. AMAZING!!

Mount Whitney, an awesome sight on a clear morning

Levelling out at about 2,500 feet we searched for a free camp in a town called Lone Pine. The town is famous for all the western movies which have been filmed here over the years. We find a campsite in the Alabama Hills just behind the town, at the foot of Mount Whitney. The hills have distinct boulder formations and contrast with the adjacent mountains, a perfect backdrop for the films that were made, some of the formations look vaguely familiar. Meanwhile back at the RV a jack rabbit scared Jen, while she was checking out the boulders but it was too quick for us to get a shot, camera shot that is.

The Sierra Nevada Range was formed after a succession of massive uplifts and plate tilting episodes, most is granite carved away by glaciers over millions of years

Elevation here in California is an important gauge of temperature for both day and night. It’s hot down low and cool up high. We’ve found that 4,000 – 6,000 feet is a good height at night and this works well with the pine tree forests as well. Daytime doesn’t really matter as we are travelling most of the time, except while hiking then it’s plenty of water all day long.

Looking for the best campsite in amongst the Alabama Hills, Lone Pine

With storm clouds brewing we settle in for a quick beer. Alabama Hills is the remains of ancient glacial flows coming down from the Sierra Nevada Range behind

We were going to head south to the Sequoia National Park and then onto Kings Canyon but we were warned that the connecting road was closed due to severe wild fires which had destroyed hundreds of houses and killed a few people. A RV had been found burned out with unrecognisable bodies inside, authorities not sure if human or animal, doesn’t say much for RV folk. It’s always a bit of concern when free camping in the forests, so far everywhere we’ve been fire bans are in place, but the undergrowth is tinder dry and burns so easily.

The entrance to Mammoth Lakes Ski Lodge

Heading north along the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada we pulled in to have a quick look at Mammoth Lakes a resort village for snow skiing in winter and mountain bikes and swimming in summer. At the main ski lodge we found a gondola (cable car) that takes you up to the summit of Mammoth Mountain at 11,053 feet. WOW!!! What fun we had frolicking in the snow which was still remaining in the summer heat. They maintained a ski slope almost all the way back down to the main lodge at 8,800 feet. From the summit we could see all the lakes below which give Mammoth Lakes its name. The lakes below are all at different elevations making the drive around really spectacular especially with the variety of pine trees and mountains as a back drop.

The gondola which took us to the top of Mammoth Mountain

Mammoth Mountain summit in the middle, you can just see the gondola structures going up

Another record this time the highest we have ever been.

We loved our quick look so much we found a camp in the nearby forest and stayed 3 days, 1 day longer than expected due to a case of Gout invading my right big toe, which grew overnight to mammoth proportions. Luckily we brought the remedial treatment and had a night off the grog.

Jen sizing up her snowballs

Rather than take the gondola down I tried my hand at cross country skiing in my Aussie snow gear

It’s so amazing that 1 day we were in the lowest place both of us have ever been on the planet and the next day we are in the highest place we have ever been. A difference of 11,337 feet elevation, surprising we didn’t suffer altitude sickness. Maybe all the ups and downs acclimatised us. Maybe that’s what brought on my gout?? Who knows!!