Well, I’m traveling again, and here on the first night out I find myself parked at a cold and very windy pull-off 40 feet off of California 120, about 3 steep miles from US 395 and Lee Vining. It’s dark and 7pm, and I have nothing better to do than to take up this blog again on the WordPress I run on my laptop. I really don’t have many other options, since the temperature is dropping 5 degrees an hour and it’s windy and I am after all parked on the side of a road … so I listen to the NPR classical station and catch up on my off-line activities and get back into the rhythm of spending quiet evenings in my comfy blue box.
One quiet night in Florida on my last trip I got a call offering me a gig to teach a session of IS 101 – Introduction to Computers at Truckee Meadows Community College. I had quite enjoyed teaching a similar course back in Marin, and it’s one of the regrets of my move to Reno that I left there at the exact moment when I had finally connected on that job, which could have grown into a nice little permanent thang if only I had stayed there.
So here I am with my fancy camper van and a life that I am setting up to be on the road a lot, so what do I get? I get a job whose basic requirement is to be in the same place for four and a half months at a time. Oh the irony… But what does this have to do with this post and this trip? Well, it’s Spring Break of course! Since I am tethered to Reno for the whole semester, that one week of freedom takes on a much greater importance that it otherwise would.
At the end of my epic East Coast road trip I had planned to camp in Death Valley, but I ended up driving through with only a quick stop, because the ole’ El Nino monsoon pattern was setting up over Southern California and I thought it was the better part of valor to get the heck out of there, and I’m glad I did. But I consoled myself with the idea that I could return now, at spring break, when the flowers would be starting to take off.
I taught my Thursday at 11 class, had a slice and a salad at the (quite nice) TMCC cafeteria, and here I am three hours down US 395. Tomorrow I will either take a left at Lone Pine and head to Death Valley or I will keep blasting down the highway to look for flowers in the southern desert (Anza Borrego) instead. I really have no idea which I’ll do.
Friday
In the quickly warming morning (5 degrees an hour in the other direction also!) I find that I am parked in a beautiful spot! I can see Mono Lake in the distance through the trees, and my old friend Lee Vining Creek is rushing right below me, making a helluva spring thaw racket that I didn’t recognize last night because of the wind. There is a spur of the Sierras right in front of me and another to my right (with the lake to my left and the creek to my left and down). No traffic to speak of, so I hung out for 1/2 hour just diggin’ the creek and lake view.
First order of business was to buy painfully expensive diesel in Lee Vining – oh if only I’d stopped in Minden. It was SO expensive that the pump ATM cut me off at $75 … 13 gallons for $75 – EEK! It turned out to be a good thing that I couldn’t fill up. I got way cheaper gas down the road at the Indian Reservation above Lone Pine.
Breakfast at The Stove in Mammoth. Crazy tall piles of snow in Mammoth, 10′ – 15′ piles of snow everywhere, completely covered a little one-story insurance building.
Slow easy drive down the extra-lovely 395, to eventually ending up at Tuttle Creek CG near the Alabama Hills outside Lone Pine. Still don’t know if I’ll go to Death Valley or not. From the vantage point of Tuttle Creek, the waxing moon makes the Owens Valley look spectacular tonight, which is a great argument for going to Death Valley and getting more of that fine desert moonshine tomorrow night..
Saturday
Well, Death Valley it is! I return to the very friendly little bakery/coffee/wifi place in downtown Lone Pine for an hour or so of wifi-ing – planning the next four days and catching up on my news and sports sites. Martha called, and it turns out she will not be in San Diego till Tuesday … which gives me an extra night to play with!
The jog over from 395 through Death Valley looks so easy on the map that I always forget that it is a f— of a lot of driving. I begin full of enthusiasm, driving around the much wetter-than-usual Owens Dry Lakebed, formerly Owens Lake before the LADWP (Los Angeles Department of Water and Power) stole the life of this enchanted valley. There I hit SR 174, which I last drove in the other direction in monsoon rains and fog in late December. For the first time I actually stopped at Panamint Springs. It always looks user-friendly as I zoom past, and up close on a mild spring day it seems to really be user-friendly. It comprises a pleasant looking little desert campground ($7!) across the road from a bar/restaurant with good beers on tap and a wide porch from which to watch the sunset. Gotta plan a stop here oneofthesedays…
But today it’s onward, where I more or less drive straight through Death Valley again without staying over night! I think there is a structural problem with my planning around here. Namely, Tecopa Springs seems so close (although it’s another long 86 miles from Furnace Creek), that I’ll always end up there for the night if I’ve only one night to spend in the area.
This is my third time at Tecopa, and the first time without very strong winds. It’s quite a bit nicer this way! Tonight it’s possible to walk around in the evening and enjoy the real beauty of the place. After you’ve walked three blocks, you’re out of town, in this very pretty and very interesting saline marsh that is just an excellent place to take a sunset walk … if howling winds aren’t keeping you huddled in your vehicle.
The other big news this time is that I figured out my hot springs and campground IS the Inyo County Park I’ve looked for each time I’ve visited but never been able to find. The map clearly shows a county park here, and I have driven the area looking for it and have been very puzzled to not find it. This time I thought to ask at the office and this is it! Mystery solved! On the web there is a back story that the commercial enterprise running these springs got a little too druggie or a little too weird i in some fashion so the county took it over. Inyo runs a lot of parks that aren’t exactly Inyo parks. Back on 395 around Lone Pine, Big Pine there were little parks on LADWP land administered by Inyo County.
Sunday
It’s that time of year, the Sunday when we all spring our clocks forward. The laptop and the iPad know to spring themselves, and normally the cell phone would also, but there is No Service out here, so my poor ole cell was an hour off until we got closer to civilization and it quietly corrected itself.
A pleasant morning soak before returning to desert driving. There are tons of Japanese folks here this time, I’d say 60-70% of my fellow soakers are Japanese. They know a good thing when they see it! Back when the Hot Creek near Mammoth was open most of the bathers seemed to be German, and most of the folks at Walley’s seemed to be some kind of Eastern European. Not sure what the easy generalization is here, except that foreigners value our hot springs more than we do, but that is what I have observed.
My stomach was set for the Greek place in Baker, but it was not to be. I’d forgotten how noisy, hurried, and generally un-atmospheric the place is, and they were no longer serving breakfast (feta omelet would have been mighty good), so I ended up at the Big Boy. The town was ridiculously crowded – 40 car line at the stop sign, similar gluts of short-tempered drivers everywhere. When I finally escaped and crossed I-15 to head into the Mojave Wilderness I saw the reason. I-15 west was stopped dead as far as the eye can see, and you can see pretty far out here. I am glad I was just crossing it and not planning to go on it.
I did not stop at the charming renovated train station in Kelso which I soo enjoyed last time. In fact I did not stop much of anywhere until Twenty-nine Palms and Joshua Tree. All the campgrounds but one were full! … on a Sunday night in March before flower season … go figure! I did find a pretty sweet spot in Jumbo Rocks CG and spend the remainder of the day and a little of the night (waxing gibbous moon!) clambering around the rocks.
Monday
Coffee and wifi at the little cafe next to the Visitors Center in the town of Joshua Tree. If I was the kind of guy who wanted to retire to a warm, desert-y place (which I am not!) this would be high on my list of prospective homes. Pleasant and open, interesting places nearby, and just enough action. Palm Springs 50 miles away!
I got my day’s exercise walking about Big Morongo Nature Preserve, then did a walk-through on Sam’s RV Campground. They have really nice hot tubs there. But it’s $44 for the night, and even $14 for day use. I would do that if I had the whole day, but I don’t. There are a ton of really nice hot springs resorts in Desert Hot Springs, but they are all expensive to get at.
Now for the strange, winding road to my destination on Palomar Mountain. First comes the strange part – Palm Springs, then comes the winding part – the road out of Palm Springs. After three days of deserted desert driving, where even the civilized areas are somewhat worn-out and empty, it’s very disturbing to suddenly be in fifteen miles of Jaguar dealers, potted palms, manicured green lawns and fancy restaurants and being cut off by Vuarnet-wearing rich kids in BMWs and old golfer dudes in Cadillacs. You take a left on SR 111 and start climbing. First a straight shot through the golf communities and the Cadillacs, then suddenly it’s all over – you pass your last manicured lawn and boom!, you’re back to the empty roads and the pickup trucks and the desert rats – was it a mirage?
After another hour or so of twisting through the So Cal mountains, I did make it to Oak Grove CG, in the Palomar section of the Cleveland National Forest. A pretty big campground with only two other campers in it tonight. It was very pretty in a dry live oak-y way and it did have running water, which is the first I’ve had in four days!
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