Sweet Desert Country

Well here we are back in the USA again just 3 months after returning to OZ. A quick trip with the boat back to Townsville plonked us right back into the tropical heat again, something we haven’t experienced for a while and boy have we missed it. It was great but not enough to prevent our desire for further travels this time in the deserts of the deep southern states.

This trip we are flying with Fiji Airlines so we had a 3hr stopover in Nadi which was quite pleasant

Wildfires around LA delayed us for hours on our trip to Bakersfield and were devastating to local residents

The motorhome was again fired up without problems and hooked up to power in the overnight section of the RV Park in Bakersfield. The weather is cool but not cold certainly not as cold as we experienced earlier this year. The guys at the park know us quite well now and it has been great catching up, it’s very friendly and like a home away from home.

Checking for cracks in the caulking around the roof edges

 
After a stock up at Walmart we stayed an extra night as we had booked in at a mechanic to have our engine serviced the following day, something we planned prior to leaving in September. The diagnostic report showed we needed to replace 2 off O2 sensors which monitor the exhaust gases and regulate fuel flow to our V8 motor. With this work done straight, away along with a tire check at Swabby’s, gas and propane we were good to go by the end of the day.

Wind farms are everywhere in the U.S. this farm is a mixture of many varieties and goes for miles

The desert winds create a lot more than just dust, they drive the energy grid

We headed southeast to avoid the raging wildfires which were burning out of control near LA. The same fires which caused us hours of delays when we headed north from LA a couple of days earlier in the hire car. Nearly a thousand homes were burnt to the ground and some 300,000 people evacuated. The sky was full of smoke and breathing was difficult. This is probably why the Avis man was offering a cheap upgrade to a convertible, thankfully we refused his persistent offer.

Smoke from one of the wildfires near LA as we skirted around the eastern side. It looks more like a North Korean missile test

The next day while camped up at Home Depot we discovered that Avis had somehow included a pre purchase fuel package when we picked up the hire car and charged our credit card without authorisation, for more than the internet prepaid hire charge was, and in addition we filled the vehicle with gas prior to returning it in Bakersfield. WE WERE ROPEABLE!! Avis was very apologetic and agreed to refund the money providing we sent copies of our visa statement, the rental agreement, and the gas receipt, all at our expense and time.



Seeing birds like this Phainopepla make up for all the grief we had to endure



And this Western Scrub Jay, the birds in the desert are just as pretty as those in the forest and easier to spot

Finally after Avis was sorted, we headed for the Joshua Tree National Park which is located in the southern Mojave Desert at about 4,000 feet elevation. It is considered the high desert because of the elevation and despite the lack of consistent rain is full of a great variety of vegetation and wildlife.



A mature Joshua Tree, named by early settler Mormons who thought the tree resembled the prophet Joshua with his arms aloft preaching something or rather



 

A baby Joshua tree about 10 years old

This is a grand old Joshua & is probably thousands of years old



An oasis in the desert, a dam built in 1949 by a rancher who brought cattle to the area only to find that all the native grass died and only introduced species survived creating an extreme fire hazard

 

A Bighorn Sheep spotted in among the boulders, look at the animal then check out its eyes!!

 

 

 

Joshua Trees grow prolific here in the NP

After a night in a very full campground and a couple of hikes around the rocky outcrops we headed south through the park down into the lower section called the Colorado Desert at about 1000 feet elevation and as such named the lower desert, still lacking water it is home to a completely different variety of vegetation. Cacti predominate but vary depending on elevation and rainfall. The adjacent mountains are so high that they create rain shadows within very small areas thus depriving that area of water, while where it does rain it comes down in torrents creating major washouts and flash floods.

 

The Ocotillo tree is a thorny scrub and not a cactus, more like a rose bush





The Ocotillo flower is rare for this time of year as it requires rain to sprout

Most of the trees and bushes have incredibly long spikes for self preservation

The Cholla Cacti is only found in a rain shadow area within a narrow range of elevation, the dark under growth is a natural die back not a result of wildfires as we first thought

The Cholla are a mass of thorns and will break off within the skin if touched, their trunks are wooden and very hard. Many of the desert cacti and bushes remind us of coral and sponge species found on the reef back home



Our camp for a couple of days is at one of many free BLM (Bureau of Land Management) campsites scattered throughout the desert states where this time of year masses of “Snowbirders” flock from the frozen northern states and Canada heading south for the winter and free long term camping.



Petroglyphs in a cave within the NP



Skull Rock looks more like an Alien's head

Further south we headed to the Salton Sea which at present covers an area of 890 km2 and lies in the Imperial Valley still within California, the surface of what is really a lake is 240 feet below sea level. The sea was a small shallow lake until 1905 when the Colorado River about 100 miles east and much higher elevation broke an irrigation bank and flowed nonstop for 2 years filling the lake to well above its current level. The sea/lake is located directly above the well know San Andreas Fault and is causing major problems geologically and also environmentally as it has become very toxic spewing up hydrogen sulphide gas along with a concoction of other gases and also increasing its salinity well above levels found in the Pacific Ocean.

Front view of the Salton Sea Yacht Club is very inviting for the newly arrived visitor

The rear view tells a very different story of a dream that didn't come true

Strangely the area around the lake is another of California’s many food bowls which draws water from a multitude of irrigation channels coming from the Colorado River with the overflow containing pesticides and herbicides flowing directly into the Salton Sea. The area around the sea has been described as an extreme danger area due to high levels of pollutants in the dust as the lake continues to dry being lifted by strong winds which prevail in the winter. Many of the residents have to wear face masks when they venture outside. Yes this is the USA!!! It is close to the Mexican Border and the winds do predominately come from the north so perhaps a solution is not such a high priority.



The inland sea was believed to be a vacationers dream come true with campgrounds along the foreshore like this one and waterfront property to die for. Well that part came true. 

Having had enough of the doom and gloom location we headed west for the real salty water of the Pacific. The coastal strip was still dry but full of life and yuppies galore. The coast south of LA is a surfer’s paradise with endless beaches similar to the north coast. We hit the coast at Oceanside and travelled south through Encinitas to San Diego stopping where we could without having to fork out ridiculous parking fees. The coast is like our Gold Coast with one town rolling into the next along the Coastal Highway ending at the huge waterway of San Diego.

Looking North along the coast back towards Oceanside

 

Looking South along the coast towards San Diego

 

San Diego is the largest port south of LA and home too many marinas, all were full to the brim with yachts of all sizes. The waterways are spacious with a single entry to the ocean, it’s close to the Mexican border and with a fantastic climate, 20 Celsius and light winds virtually all year round a perfect place to stay. Well not if you are in a motorhome!! Despite getting a free complimentary as long as you want reciprocal entry into the San Diego Yacht Club, one of the Americas Cup home bases, we could not find a single place to stay overnight even the 2 commercial campgrounds were full. We tried Walmart and were moved on at 0130 ending up out of the city an hour later at a Home Depot for the remainder of the night.

This club had a dream and it very much came true, regaining the Americas cup from Australia in 1987

We’d gone as far south as we could without crossing into Mexico. Our crossing is still in its research phase at present to determine the logistics and complications of making the trip. It’s an easy process in a car for a short visit but not so for a motorhome if you intend staying for an extended period of time. We continued our travels east along the roads closest to the border surveying a route for the new wall, when we found to our surprise that a wall already exists with a dedicated border patrol both ground and air 24/7. It’s certainly high enough but perhaps not deep enough to stop the tunnels in the sand??



The existing wall would appear to be a sufficient barrier to stop an influx of Mexicans

Perhaps its just the valleys that Trump wants to fill in, Hey Amigo Gringo's are soooo stoopid 



Again we found a BLM campground close to the Arizona Border and after talking with another camper were told we could cross the border into Mexico by foot for the day just 5 miles away from the camp at Los Algodones, heaps of snowbirder’s come down every year to get cheap dental and optical services. WOW!! I needed a new pair of glasses and what a way of checking out Mexico, we were warned that the locals there are very pushy flogging tourist stuff so BEWARE!!


If you need concrete for roads in the desert just build a batch plant, no worries for the yanks

 

And water, same same

For protection from the southern hordes just put the wagons in a circle



We hit the border and parked on the U.S. side and just walked through the gate, no checks, no passports, not even a stamp which we were hoping for, but heaps of spruikers all talking over each other to get you to go with them to their dentist. We headed for the Immigration Office to enquire about entry with a motorhome and were politely told that we would have to cross at another crossing with the van and all could be arranged there Amigo.



Down town Algodones is just a stroll across the border

We found an optometrist close by and were advised that I could have an eye test and a new pair of glasses with transitional prescription lenses within 2 hours. The deal was done when I found a frame and after the test we went bargain hunting with the locals. Just like Asia we could haggle away till both were happy, a long way from the first attempted price. It was a bit of fun and we eventually knew the final price of most items the venders were willing to accept. Food and beer was cheap, we had 2 lovely meals and 4 beers each for a total of US$30 and this was the tourist part of Mexico. The new glasses were US$240.

Lunch in the restaurants reminds us of the 'no frills' joints in Asia with just a bit extra

Mexico was a good day out and a change from the regimented behaviour of the yanks in the states and we had a good laugh with the locals, it’s very difficult to get a laugh from a yank, not so hard from a Canadian but very easy from a Mexican trying to sell you stuff.

Drinking Sol Beer in Mexico with the Authoritaire keeping a close watch on the Gringos while chowing down on a free feed

Well that’s about all from us in California we’re off to Arizona tomorrow, another border and another set of rules.

Bye for now and have a very Merry Christmas
 

  

 Beers and Cheers with a Pacifico Beer at the very relaxing and friendly San Diego Yacht Club

J&J

 

The Great Basin

The Rocky Mountains National Park is another of the famed parks which we were expecting great things from, but similar to Yellowstone we were left wondering what’s all the fuss about. It's probably just a great place to hang for a while and soak in the scenes.

Looking east back down the valley in Rocky Mountain NP

 

The mountains are spectacular and the park contains some of the highest peaks in the US but like Yellowstone it’s commercialised and crowded, perhaps in Spring or Fall it may be better. We just don’t do crowds.

Looking south from near the highest part of the Ridge Trail

Many areas within the park are only accessible by undergoing extended hikes for many miles or you’re left with just a drive-thru along the very scenic Ridge Trail Road which takes you across the mountains from East to West or vice versa depending on your destination.

High up above the tree line the road continues with all and sundry

 

The Ridge Trail climbs to a pass in excess of 12,000ft, high above the tree line and into the most southern tundra in the Northern Hemisphere, spongy moss and stunted growth just like we saw in Alaska’s Denali NP.

Our highest moment at over 12,000 feet

We found a camp in the National Park campground on the western side adjacent the head waters of the Colorado River. Here it is just a creek before it heads southwest for 1,450 mile collecting water from other rivers along the way.



In winter this valley has about 50 feet of snow cover and is uninhabitable except for the hardiest of creatures and plants



 

 



Looking westward amongst the pine forests which are being attacked by boring beetles, digging not dull

A little further west we stopped a night in a free camp at Hot Sulphur Springs also on the banks of the Colorado snagging the last of only 11 sites. The name sounded interesting but again we were left wondering, what’s the attraction here?? as a lap around town revealed nothing other than a railway line within 50m of the camp. At least 6 trains blasted their horns during the night as they approached the adjacent road crossing giving us precious little sleep and a grumpy start to the new day.

A beaver pond and many dead pine trees in the background

 

The Colorado River at its headwater, just a stream here

Down stream about 30 mile and the Colorado starts to take shape

Again we headed west and managed to free ourselves from both the Colorado and its accompanying railway and found a camp on the Green River at the Dinosaur National Monument which lies on the border with Utah. The monument is a combination of a live dinosaur dig quarry and back east the Green River Canyon. The Green River is the main tributary of the Colorado running for 730 mile itself from Wyoming in the North to the junction in Southern Utah.

A baby Osprey caught crying out for more

 

A curious white tail prairie dog near Green River Canyon

 

We were advised not to miss the canyon so we headed back to the eastern end of the park 75 mile away along the road we had come the previous day. We were also told of the solar eclipse which was to occur that day at 1130 and given a couple pair of eclipse viewing eye covers. Our location was expecting 91% of sun cover by the moon as it passed between the sun and earth.

Looking east the canyon is breathtaking

 

The eclipse was amazing as we hiked along the trail out to the canyon, the sunlight dulled, all was quiet and it got quite cool, even the shadows become fuzzy. With the eye covers we could easily see the moon crossing and were very surprised that even at 91% the amount of light still present. The last solar eclipse in the US was in 1978 so it’s been a long time between events.

Watching the solar eclipse

 

The shadows became quite fuzzy creating feather like shadow rather than crisp definition. Many people noticed this peculiarity



The canyon when the sun was almost blocked out

The Green River Canyon was spectacular displaying the many rock layers which the river has carved through over the millennia. Rock layers which have been bent and buckled with pressure as the plateau rose 4,000 feet when the Rocky Mountains were thrust upwards. As the plateau rose the river continued its course cutting the canyon rather than divert around the uplifted area similar to the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon.

 

Full sunshine again and the canyon shows the extent of buckling and swirling erosion over the millions of years

The curved formation required huge amounts of pressure from below to bend the layers here, a fault line also exists running across the river and up the valley in the bottom left corner

Looking westward the river is 4,000 feet below the plateau which was once below sea level

 

The Green River is green because of the sunlight reflecting off the sediments suspended in the water

The western section of the park was amazing, to see a live quarry excavation with masses of dinosaur skeletons dating back 150 million years. The area was once at sea level where the dinosaurs lived and it is believed that many died in the muddy swamps. Their entire carcases were buried below silt layers preserving them as fossil remains.

A rainbow of exposed colours depicts a time line over 150M years

This rock is the oldest about 750M years and hardest in the park, it appears to have been drilled with a huge auger while in fact it has been carved by the Green River whirlpooling through the canyon

A Stegosaurus replica, these dinosaurs were well represented in this area



These dinosaurs were present in this area during the Jurassic Era and now found as fossils below the hills


 

Awesome creatures that ruled the world from 150M - 50M years ago

These creatures laid eggs and were warm blooded more like birds than reptiles

Lower jaw of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, old and broken teeth were renewed when needed just like sharks

The uplift of the Rockies twisted the landscape at 60 degrees and after eons of wind and water erosion exposed the sedimentary layers bringing the fossils to the surface and just below.

Embedded in stone this dinosaur was a meat eater

 

The rear socket is for eyes while the others are air sacks like sinus

 

The teeth are perfectly preserved in the stone

The Dinosaur National Monument and its campground were fantastic along with the rangers who were very helpful and knowledgeable, a great place which just happened to be on our westward passage. Another unplanned visit which paid off, we spent 3 nights here and loved the place.

A perfect backbone showing the interconnecting vertebrae 

Femur bone from a Brontosaurus, a massive vegetarian dinosaur 

In Utah now and again heading west, we are in the last month of summer so need to keep above 5,000 feet to keep cool, we cut south of Salt Lake City and find a roadside camp on a summit at 6,500 feet. The deep salt valley we crossed was once full of water prior to the mountain collapse further north causing a surge in the adjoining Snake River carving its valley which we saw at Shoshone Falls earlier in the year. The Great Salt Lake is huge and a great reminder of the forces which play in the creation of these marvellous landscapes.

Petroglyphs from 10,000 years ago when the first Fremont Indians arrived in the more fertile region

How many lizard petroglyphs can you find on this rock face

Across another valley and border we are again in Nevada and pulled into the Great Basin National Park thinking that we just crossed the “Great Basin”. We were thankfully informed that the Great Basin in fact covers an area in excess of the state of Nevada, half of Utah, north to Idaho and west to the White Mountains in California. We developed a much better appreciation for Nevada now, knowing that the basin is in fact defined as the area where water that falls as rain and snow does not reach any ocean.



Wide open plains between the mountain ranges used to be much more fertile than they are today and will become more arid as time goes by

Rock Glacier has almost fully receded and will soon only appear during winter

The mountains in this region were created when the plateau rose and buckled causing ridges up to 13,500 feet and valleys down below sea level. They formed in a north/south orientation and somehow not a single river was able to find its way out.

 

 



This tree is 5,000 years old commencing its life before the construction of the Egyptian Pyramids

This Bristlecone Pine is twice as old as Jen, so how old is that, well I'm not saying

The park surprisingly has an active glacier which we hiked to and a Bristlecone Pine forest with trees 5,000 years old. It is also home to Lehman Caves which are limestone formations carved out by water accessing the limestone layer well below the mountain peaks. It was another great find and gladly free of the masses. An oasis in the desert!!

Amazing caves

 

A little squeezy

Spectacular!!

Phenomenal  structures like these abound within the depths of these caves

The caves are only fully appreciated with good lighting something which was not present when they were discovered in the 1800's

The early visitors to these caves were pioneering people who thought it good to leave their marks and take souvenirs, many sad reminders remain within the confines of the caves

This creature is 1cm long and is considered the lion of the caves, very few things can live in the perpetual darkness, some come to sleep but very few to eat

We hit our outbound junction at Tonopha in western Nevada and avoided backtracking by using an alternative route around the White Mountains and arrived again at our favourite camp (3^rd time), Alabama Hills at Lone Pine, California, just below Mount Whitney in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It’s a Luna landscape at 4,300 feet and despite the heat is a great camp away from any other campers.

Our very own Stone Henge



Close to twilight the adjacent mountains almost glow


The next day we visited the Mt Whitney trailhead up the road at 8,500 feet and spent the day keeping cool before returning to our camp location. We considered the climb but found out that we needed to book 12 months ago, it’s very popular due to the short window available in summer only. The trail attracts people from all round the world and gets you to the peak at 14,494 feet and back after hiking 22 mile round trip elevating 6,000 feet. A bit more than our usual day hikes.

Mt Whitney peak with the last remnants of snow, much changed from our earlier visit in April

With a week to go before storing the RV in Bakersfield again and flying back to OZ we climbed the Sierra Nevada Mountains from the east along a very precipitous road we avoided last year due to bad wildfires in the region. We found a campground at 7,500 feet and despite the horrendous thunderstorms we endured comforting temps in the range of 25 – 10 Celsius instead of the 45 – 30 Celsius currently in Bakersfield.



Tucked up in the Alabama Hills

It was very pleasant for the couple of days before descending down to 450 feet at Bakersfield and the Southland RV Park. It’s hot but we need to get sorted so we cranked the AC up full bore to cope.

A woodpecker making hard work on a Ponderosa Pine

We have again had a fantastic 4 months exploring the best this continent can offer and seen some incredible places and wildlife in the short time, travelled nearly 15,000 mile. We will return next year in the northern winter and head south to the deserts, maybe even Mexico and beyond. Fools and their walls a hinder to no one.

 

    Fly For Now



 

Beers and Cheers from the Santa Monica Windjammers Yacht Club doing lines of coke as we wait to get high again at LAX

 J & J