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RV Travel Plans

Last years RV road trip

The plan for this years RV road trip.

Rally for the Republic

Seattle Summer

Nebraska and Casper

Texas

Knotts Berry Farm

Roswell & Carlsbad, NM

Hiking in Carlsbad Caverns. Wow I wouldn't go so far as to say Carlsbad Caverns are better than Yellowstone Park but there is nothing at Yellowstone that is better than the experience of hiking through the narrow passage ways and huge caverns decorated with soda flutes, stlactites and column formations.

There are two entrance to the caverns, first the elevator that takes you 70 stories down into the big cavern and a natural entrance that you walk down tight switch backs to the bottom. The bats exit out the natural entrance nightly at dusk. When we first entered the natural entrance it smelled a little like a urinal.

Guatto, bat poop, can pile up to 40 feet deep in the bat cave. You only notice the smell when you first enter the cave. As we turned the last corner where the opening of the cave was still visible I could see clouds of steaming mist leaving the cave as the light was shining into the cave. You can only see it from the inside of the cave looking out and I though that's where you smell it the most. I wasn't sure if it was musty cave smell or fermenting bat poop.

Palm Springs / Joshua Tree

Desert Hot Springs was a real treat. I had wanted to visit the world famous windmill farms for the past five years. We spent a day driving down dirt roads filming different windmills from all angles. I plan to use some of the footage on my personal website or possibly start up a windmill specific website.

Gretchen had a few friends in town that she had grown up with that came over to visit and enjoy the natural mineral water. We spent time working on websites, real estate deals and miniature golfing.

One of the days we drove through Joshua Tree State Park. The large bolders and Joshua Trees were interesting to look at. At the peak of the park you can see Palm Springs and the boarder of Mexico on a clear day.

Sailing to Catalina Island

Andre Michel sailed us over to Catalina Island on his 32' sailboat. We secured "mooring"in the Avalon Marina with a great view of downtown and the Avalon Casino.

On the way over Andre showed me the ropes of sailing and how to tie a few knots. We had 20-25 knott winds so when we finished motoring out of the Long Beach marina, where Andre stores the boat, we turned off the motor and at full sail were going much faster than the motor was able to go.

The boat seemed to be a 45 degree angle with the wind blowing so hard It made me feel like if I stood perpendicular to the water I would fall out of the boat and into the ocean. My feet were on the bench across from me and my back was against the chair I had been sitting in after we got the sails up. Even though it took four hours to sail to Catalina is seemed to go by quickly talking to Andre and adjusting the sails to let the wind "slip over the sails".

When we arrived at Catalina we had to pull the "dingy" out of a bag, blow it up, put boards into it's bottom to make a flat sturdy floor then attach a small Honda motor so we could go from the sailboat to town. Riding in the "dingy was my favorite activity on the island, second only to driving a golf cart off road and down a steep hill.

First Week in L.A.

The first week in Los Angeles included visits to the Los Angles Art Museum, the La Bra Tar Pits and mountain bike rides up and down the beach .

We got a great spot at Dockweiler State Beach and I decided to extend an additional week for three weeks in L.A. The location is a base while in the L.A. area, it's half way between Santa Monica and Long Beach. The only down side is the constant background of jets flying out of LAX located about two miles North East of the RV camping area.

The Dockweiler State RV park includes full hookups except for cable. Usually if you want to stay near or on the beach with an RV in California you have to stay at a state park and so far Dockweiler State Beach is the only one I've found with electric, water and sewer hookups.

The solar panels I bought back in Seattle seem to cover all the power needs so the RV doesn't need external power. Except the built in coffee maker, front TV and microwave only work when plugged into "shore power", but the 12 volt T.V. in the bedroom works fine just using the batteries. I use a few inverters that turn the power stored in the four 6 volt deep cycle batteries to 120v power to charge electronics like laptops, cell phones, cameras and running the wireless internet.

Here are a few photos of vases put together, I liked the ones made of certain glass that reflected colored prisim of light. The museum was full of paintings by Picasso and other artist although my favorite areas were the modern art that was a combination of photography, painting and sculptures. I included a photos of Hermosa Beach where we rode to for breakfast this morning.

Last Week of March

We spent the last few weeks of March at Campland on the Bay in Pacific Beach just a little north of downtown San Diego and Silver Strand State Park on Coronodo Island across the bay from downtown San Diego. Some of the highlights of the past two weeks were the sunsets on the beach, a concert by Candlebox at the House of Blues downtown, the Science Center in Balboa Park, playing Starfares and riding motorcycles with a local sport bike club. I spent over a week getting through the book John Adams by David-McCullough and found it better than 1776 also by David-McCullough that I finished last month. I found Thomas Jefferson to be most interesting as he is mentioned in both books as a constant over consumer that seemed to impress and capture the hearts of all he came in contact with.