Tag: US Travel

Big Cats at Cat Haven, and RV Life
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Big Cats at Cat Haven, and RV Life

twosnatravels6 Comments
View of the Sierras from the pond in our RV park

When the National Parks have been seen, and we still have days to stay in our spot, then what?

Driving back and forth to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks, I noticed a sign for something called Project Survival Cat Haven. Looking online, I saw their mission statement: “…an innovative park dedicated to the preservation of wild cats.” They are not a sanctuary, although some cats have been orphaned in the wild or have needed to be re-homed. Their focus is to “educate people about the plight of endangered cat species, and to raise funds for the conservation project in the wild.” The reviews of the place were good.

The only way to visit Cat Haven is to book a tour, so we did. Below is a picture of our guide and what some of the pathways looked like with the cats’ cages. There are two cats in the cage on the right.

It was morning, and the cats had already had their breakfast and playtime. Most were stretched out for naps in the front of their cages. Although I don’t like seeing them behind bars, the cages for the largest cats stretched back into the hillside.

There are about 25 big cats here. We learned each one’s story as we passed their cages.

The park is the culmination of a dream for Dale Anderson, who became focused on the cats at a young age. Before he could ever start his park, he received hands on experience by working with cats while purchasing the land for his park. The first cats, a pair of Amur Leopards, arrived in 1997. If you are interested in his conservation and education projects, you can look the park up on the Internet.

We saw a lion, a tiger, a lynx, a jaguar, and a Bengal tiger, among others. There was also a mountain lion, a Canada lynx, and this black leopard:

There were also very small cats, such as caracals and a pallas cat.

I learned many things. Leopards have been called black panthers, and they don’t exist. The word “panther” means big cat, and this is an error that goes all the way back to “Jungle Book”. Also, a jaguar has teeth that are very strong. The jaguar in this park chewed through his metal bucket as a play toy!

And , this: small cats purr but big cats don’t. So that jaguar with the strong teeth won’t purr, but a mountain lion does, making it a small cat.

The caracals were sleeping in their little nest, so we couldn’t see them. I purchased this photo postcard in the store, which is a nicer picture than I could have ever gotten of them:

Photo credit: Project Survival Cat Haven

The park covers 93 scenic acres on a hillside covered with live oak and buckeye trees. At this time of year, the blooming manzanitas were spectacular here and also outside of the park.

On another day, we drove back down out of the foothills and towards Fresno to stop at some orchard fruit stands. At the first tiny stand, there were only oranges. I wasn’t really interested, as we’d had plenty of fresh oranges in Arizona. But the old gentleman inside began cutting a large warty looking tangerine just as we were going to leave. He spoke no English, just handed over the freshly cut fruit. Delectable! It was so juicy and sweet and easy to peel, we bought a bag. Just not as big a bag as he would have liked us to purchase.

At another stand, we purchased freshly picked peaches, cherries, and vegetables.

The interesting thing about Sequoia RV park is that sites are not assigned, even though an RV’er or camper has a reservation. There’s no office. Upon arriving, one simply drives through the park and chooses a site. This is an old park, so many sites aren’t level and in some, the utilities are problematic. We arrived early on our first day, tried a couple spots, and finally found one we liked.

The camp host and his wife were wonderful folks, who actually live in the trailer park that fits like a cap over the RV park. He took on the hosting job to clean up the neighborhood in both parks. We enjoyed this view with no RV’s in sight (they were all to one side or behind us) for a few days because he was having issues with the guy who was mowing the grounds. When the sites were finally mowed, they filled in.

Around 5 PM, the show started. Folks would start arriving from either the National Parks or from were they had driven that day, looking for the best site. When the park started filling up, we would see the same RVs circling more than once just to find a place to settle. Many of these were small RV’s rented from Cruise America or El Monte, and most of the people renting them that we talked to were European. I decided this grab-your-own-site deal wasn’t such a fine idea.

At our site, I would sometimes look down on our driveway or on a corner of our mat, and it seemed like the ground was moving. There were tiny little frogs hopping en masse! It wasn’t a constant thing, so it was startling and fascinating when I saw them. What I found on Google is that these frogs lay eggs on land, rather than water, and look like fully grown frogs when they hatch. They prefer to live under leaf and other ground litter, and move quickly when they think they are being detected.

A mini frog, no bigger than a quarter

One evening, what should come down our lane but a big fat pig on a harness?

This is Cleopatra and despite her huge size, she is picky about what she eats. Our neighbor had come out with a bag of lettuce and she totally rejected it. Not good enough for her. I’m supposing Cleopatra lives in the mobile home part of the park because I can’t imagine traveling with a pig in an RV.

We also had a goose family that waddled near our site now and again. Their favorite spot was the pond, of course. I took my lawnchair and my cross-stitching under a tree near the pond on a Sunday afternoon and they provided fine entertainment. They swam around the pond, rested on their little island, and got into some squabbles with a pair of ducks.

One of the best things here, though, was a dramatic sky that was ever-changing.

Although we are blessed to travel and see many things, it is the every day experiences in our home that provides the fabric of our current life. Whatever will happen at the next place is a constant gift that is just waiting to be opened.

Next time – Yosemite National Park

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Sequoia National Park – It’s All About the Trees

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No other tree in the world, as far as I know, has looked down on so many centuries as the sequoia or opens so many impressive and suggestive views into history. — John Muir

Although where we stayed was billed as the closest RV park to the National parks, the road was twisting and full of precipitous drops on the passenger side. It was still a fair distance to the gate. Past the entrance, we turned right, to go into Sequoia, instead of left, to go into Kings Canyon as we had done previously.

From Grant Grove Village, where we came into the parks, it is a 30 mile, 60 minute drive on the Generals Highway down to parking for the Sherman Tree trail. This is a beautiful and heavily forested drive. As we rode through the conifer forest, the music of Josefine and Trine Opsahl – Sterna Paradisae – provided a perfect accompaniment.

This is one of the world’s largest remaining groves of the world’s largest trees. Here, in an area measuring roughly five miles, are over 2,100 trees that measure over 10 miles in diameter. Many have been burned in forest fires but yet, fire is the way that giant sequoias regenerate.

Once parked, it is a half mile hike to the General Sherman Tree. Even taking the sequoias out of the equation, the pines are tall and stately. The forest is hushed, the animals long gone into their hiding places for the day, and the sun plays peek-a-boo with the trees.

Until, that is, we get down to the General Sherman tree, where the other tourists are. Early on a weekday, though, the crowd level is not too bad.

Here it is – the largest tree in the world.

Not the tallest, the oldest, or even the largest around. It is the volume of its trunk. It just keeps growing, to the point where it has more wood than any other tree – 52,500 cubic feet, to be exact. It is 109 feet around its base. Maybe its easier to understand that it would take up three lanes of traffic if you set it down on a highway.

The General Sherman tree was named back in 1879 by a cattleman who had served in the Civil War under General Sherman and greatly admired him. The tree naming continues on the 2.7 mile Congress Trail, where we took a longer hike through the stately sequoia grove.

Many trees here have been burned in the 2021 fire. General Sherman itself had been under threat, but received protective wrap around the base to help it survive.

The stumps of burned trees hold their own special beauty.

Despite the fire, the sequoias still stand tall – one may be damaged, but the next is not.

The whole trail is beautiful, and some parts of it even more so when a pretty waterfall is thrown in across the path.

Tree roots form impossible loops and holes.

What do you do when a sequoia falls on the trail? You simply tunnel under it.

Congress Trail is named for trees that have themselves been given names of the various branches of the US Government. There is the Senate grouping, and there is the President McKinley tree. The rear of the House trees look battle-scarred. Down, maybe, but for sure not out. I thought this was an amusing metaphor for our current House.

Fire generates new growth in the forest, and this is good to see. What will our planet be like when these trees grow tall?

All too soon, it was time to leave the forest. We could have gone further to the Giant Forest Museum, but our truck was over on the other side of General Sherman and up a hill. We hiked back to it and continued down the Generals Highway to the museum. There, I learned a lot more about the trees and how the park has changed its approach to having visitors in it. The focus now is on forest conservation and remediation from years of damage.

We also learned that our next stop to the Moro Rock area of the park would not be possible since the road had not yet been cleared for the summer.

Nothing else to do but have a lovely late lawn chair lunch.

Next time – Cat Haven and RV life

Kings Canyon National Park
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Kings Canyon National Park

twosnatravels8 Comments

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike. –John Muir

Heading out from San Luis Obispo, our destination was to the Sierra Nevada mountain range. We retraced some of our drive through the California Central Valley. This time, though, we turned northeastward, driving through miles and miles of orchards and fields growing strawberries, blueberries and other produce around Fresno. We learned later that we were driving on part of the “Fresno County Fruit Trail”.

We soon ascended into the Sierra foothills and arrived at an aged RV park, the closest one to the entrance of the twin Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. On our first day, we decided to explore just Kings Canyon.

Maybe if you think about Sequoia trees, you think about Sequoia National Park. I know I did, and did not know what to expect with Kings Canyon. This park has its share also, though. Upon arrival at the park we soon turned off onto a parking lot for a half-mile loop that would bring us face-to-face with these majestic sentinels of the forest.

In the morning, when the day was fresh and new and we were one of the first on the trail, the feeling of walking among the tall trees was indescribable. It isn’t just the giant sequoia: there is the ponderosa pine, the sugar pine, and the white fir, among others.

The headliner in this area is the Grant Tree. Its stats are impressive. It is the third largest in the world by volume, 268 feet tall and 1700 years old. I tried to wrap my head around what was going on in the world when this tree was but a seedling.

It’s not age that makes a sequoia grow so tall, though. Just the right amount of nutrients, water and sun is the secret sauce that makes one tree thrive so extraordinarily.

Also on this trail is the trunk of a long-felled sequoia which we could walk through. There is a photograph on a signboard which shows that this trunk sheltered a construction crew around the turn of the century, and likely other travelers needing a spot to camp for the night down through the ages.

Sequoias decay very slowly when they fall, continuing to exist for hundreds of years.

As wonderful as all of this was, it was only part of what was to come during our day in the park. Upon entering the gate, we were delighted to discover that the Kings Canyon Scenic Byway had just been opened for the summer. Every time I’d looked it up online, the byway had still not been cleared from the winter snows.

I’m so glad we did not miss seeing it!

Here we were, with a ringside seat to the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Mount Whitney is the highest peak in this range, and it’s possible we were looking right at it, but I can’t be sure which peak it was.

As we descended into Kings Canyon, the South Fork of the Kings River came into view.

Gushing waterfalls streamed from the high walls of the canyons to join the roiling river waters.

Boyden Cave sounded interesting so we stopped, but the trail to whatever cave that may have been there was closed. It was a nice break, though, and we enjoyed the scenery all around.

The grand finale to this drive was Grizzly Falls.

We stayed a little while to take in this extraordinary sight before regretfully turning the truck around. The road continued to Cedar Grove Visitor Center and Zumwalt Meadow, but it had not yet been cleared and opened for the summer.

Retracing our drive, we turned off at Hume Lake.

A man by the name of John Eastwood had this dam built in 1908 for his lumbering operation. The lake served as a holding tank for cut sequoia and pines, and water supply for a 54-mile flume that carried the water through Kings Canyon to a town on the other end for finishing. At one time, an entire community lived here.

Thankfully, the era of sequoia harvesting ended in 1929. The sawmill had burned down. By 1936 the federal government came under ownership of the lake as part of the Sequoia National Forest. And, decades later, we could enjoy a picnic lawn chair lunch on its shores.

Next time – Sequoia National Park

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A Visit to Hearst Castle

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The reason why we were in this part of California at all is because I wanted to see Hearst Castle. Looking around for a place to stay, Camp San Luis Obispo was the best recommended for the best price. And by staying there, we discovered the whole area of San Luis Obispo. Travel is like that. You find one thing while looking for another, and soon a new world has been opened up to you, one you’d like to revisit again and again.

The bonus to staying near San Luis Obispo is that we had to drive up the Pacific coastal highway 1 to get to Hearst Castle. I had purchased timed tickets for our visit and we allowed plenty of time for stops along the way. This is when I snapped the beautifully clear photo of Morro Rock that I posted earlier. The turnoff to the castle is just south of San Simeon.

Magnificent coastal views awaited us at every turn

Hearst Castle was built by William Randolph Hearst, on land he inherited from his father. George Hearst purchased 40,000 acres of ranch land in 1865. George made a fortune, lost it, made two new fortunes. It was a major stake in the gold that came out of the South Dakota Black Hills, though, that clinched his wealth. William inherited the land upon the death of his mother in 1919 and eventually expanded the spread to 250,000 acres.

When we were standing here, at this spot in the gardens, we could see for about thirty-seven miles. That used to be about the extent of his property. Now, much of it has been sold off and only 83,000 acres are still owned.

William R. Hearst expanded on his father’s wealth in newspaper publishing beginning in the late 1800’s. By the turn of the century, one in four newspapers printed was a Hearst newspaper.

His family loved to come up to the ranch. In 1919 he found an architect, Julia Morgan, and famously asked her if she could build something a little more comfortable to stay in than tents up on the hill. For over thirty years she worked closely with him. The castle is still unfinished, although I didn’t see any evidence of that.

This is only partially the result, the grand entrance of the house:

The entrance gate once belonged to a convent and the gold is real.

We actually started our tour by getting on a bus at the visitor center, and rode up through verdant countryside and around the hill before arriving at the mansion. As we rode, we were given taped introduction to the castle narrated by none other than the lately departed Alex Trebek from Jeopardy. When we first arrived, we walked through gorgeous gardens, our tour guide giving us a lot of information as we went.

In the right corner of the above picture is one of the guest houses. There are three at Hearst castle, and another is shown below. There is a tour just to visit the guest houses at Hearst, which would all be worth seeing in their own right.

Soon, views of the main house began to peek out at us. At the time, I didn’t really know if it was the house or something like a private chapel!

We saw a video about Hearst’s life in the visitors center after our tour. In 1873, his mother wanted to educate him on the finer things of life and took him on the grand tour of Europe when he was only 10. I loved seeing this as they showed many of the places that I have also seen. This trip affected him as much as it did me over one hundred years later. I don’t have a fortune to purchase all of the pieces of castles, monasteries, and other antiquities that he did, though.

Those pieces are what Julia Morgan incorporated into the design of Hearst Castle. The top of the structure by the pool is from ancient Rome, and was Julia’s inspiration for creating the Neptune Pool. An artist by the name of Charles Cassou created the statuary.

The first room we entered upon going through the golden gates is the assembly room, which would be a living room to you and me. Guests would gather here for conversation and cocktails before dinner. One of the things you see here, just to give an idea of the treasures Hearst amassed, is an 18th century monastery chant book on the table that is so large that it has wheels:

Tapestries hanging in this room are the remaining four of a set of ten that are 500 years old and depict the defeat of Hannibal.

The dining room is done in Gothic style. It reminded me of the dining room at Hogwarts Castle, if you are a Harry Potter fan.

It was here that our guide mentioned that Hearst wanted to give the visitor a taste of the art and architecture of Europe without traveling there. He and Julia nailed it. Every piece was exquisite, had history to tell, and was wonderfully incorporated with the work of artists and designers of the day. At the same time, though, I wondered if some of this stuff shouldn’t have stayed back in a museum in Europe, where it originally came from. Times were different back in the early 20th century.

A passageway like any you’d find in a European castle
Tapestry and tiles in the billiard room

If it was too cold or rainy to swim in the pool outside, you could always swim in the indoor Roman pool. It’s styled like an ancient Roman bath, with heated water. There are eight statues of Roman gods and goddesses, created by an Italian sculptor in the 1930’s.

We sat in the theatre, where Hearst would show movies to his guests. One of those was Clark Gable, who watched the movie Gone With the Wind which he himself starred in. Hearst would also film his guests having fun at the castle, and we watched some clips of those.

Among Hearst’s guests were politicians such as Winston Churchill and Calvin Coolidge, and folks from the entertainment industry: Charlie Chaplin, Gary Cooper, Greta Garbo, Carole Lombard, and Harpo Max, to name a few. Other guests were Howard Hughes and George Bernard Shaw. Some I recognized in the black and white film clips but most I did not.

There were also tennis courts and horses for riding. There was once even the world’s largest private zoo. We could see the bear pits as we rode up to the castle. All of this opulence comes at a cost, however. Hearst spent prodigiously not only on this property but also on other ones that he owned, eventually bankrupting himself. The animals were sold off to pay debts, but zebras can still be seen mingling with cattle herds on the hills around the castle. I had hoped to see them, but we did not on this day.

Both our tour guide and a couple of folks in the visitor center told us not to miss seeing the elephant seals at Elephant Seal Beach, just a short drive further up the Pacific Coast Highway. So after leaving the castle we had a late tailgate lunch overlooking the beach, and then walked over to see the seal rookery.

This is the Piedras Blancas colony of elephant seals, which number about 25,000. They are never all here at the same time, and they only come up on shore for only four or five weeks. The ones that we saw were adult females as well as juveniles that had been out at sea all winter. They were shedding old skin and hair while growing a new one.

This was truly an unforgettable sight, and a superb finish to this day.

Next time – back east to the national parks

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Wagons West to California

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A lunch stop at the first rest area inside California

I have one note to add before I jump into this post: we are now actually in Denver for the summer. We’re in our RV at the local state parks, and getting ready for a blessed event! Yes, we are expecting our third grandchild within another month, and helping out the busy parents to (literally!) get their house in order by doing a lot of babysitting for the older two. The most traveling that we are doing these days is to shuffle between the two state parks every two weeks.

There are still plenty of memories to record for this trip. Once we were into the month of May in Las Vegas, the weather started getting very warm. Long rows of RV sites at our park stood empty. Did we stay in Vegas too far into the spring? As we traveled through California and beyond, there were times when I thought so. There were other times, though, when I was glad we waited.

Counting Desert Eagle at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, we had three military RV park stays back to back, with just a one-night stop at a KOA thrown in between for good measure. That’s rare for us. We traveled southwest from Vegas back into California on Interstate 15. We were farther north than we had been earlier in the season, but still traveling through the Mojave Desert. Our second military park was the tiny Marine Logistics Base just east of Barstow.

The black shield in the middle of this marker reads “Barstow 66″ for the legendary road

Cal was very excited about this stop as it was our first Marine Corps base. The only military branch we haven’t stayed with at this point is the Coast Guard. This base once sat on the old Route 66. The RV park wasn’t much, just a solitary road with a dozen or RV sites on either side, but it was OK for a night.

The real reason for being here is that I wanted to go to Peggy Sue’s Diner. I had found it on Harvest Host and it looked like a fun place to eat and then stay for the night. Harvest Host stops already have one strike against them in Cal’s mind, since they don’t have RV hookups. Add in a huge potholed concrete lot on the side of the highway where truckers also like to stop, and that’s two strikes. So, after unhooking truck from RV, we headed out for dinner.

You can’t miss Peggy Sue’s. With billboards back as far as Las Vegas, it is an I-15 institution. The place was opened in 1954, and this is the original diner:

These tables were full, but no worries: there are several more dining rooms. After we found a table and ordered, I was entertained by getting up to look around at all the rock-n-roll memorabilia while I waited for my dinner.

There’s even an outdoor garden:

We indulged our appetite for fried chicken, and the portions were huge enough to take home for another meal and then some. By not eating all of the dinner, we saved room to share a slice of delicious strawberry-rhubarb pie with ice cream.

There’s one more thing to note about this stay: in the morning, we walked over to the commissary for a few groceries. I saw this, for the very first time in my life:

Perhaps you’ve seen these before, especially if you live in California. It is a solar-powered electric charging station. Having one environmentally friendly power source charged by another is brilliant. Perhaps I’m being a bit of an idiot and they are everywhere. Later, in California, we found ones that were much bigger. It’s the wave of the future, recorded here! Is this the first time you’ve seen this?

We’d seen huge solar farms farther south and in Nevada as we’d traveled. The places I’ve lived in the past don’t have enough sun for a solar farm, so for me they are novel.

Moving on further west, there was the usual desert driving, more Joshua trees, and finally we climbed a mountain. At Tehachapi we entered a valley and that was the end of the Mojave Desert. When we parked at the Bakersfield KOA, we had grass on our site. That was a marvel! The grass was so soft. We thought hard about it and decided it was the first grassy site our RV had been parked in since we’d left Colorado the previous November.

We didn’t disconnect truck from RV in Bakersfield, so for some entertainment we walked down to the Camping World store about a quarter of a mile away. Across the road from the KOA were car dealerships lined up, one next to another. Each one had one of these cute little Bakersfield-themed pieces of art in front of them:

After Bakersfield, we entered the Central Valley of California. In the distance we could see barren hills. But in the valley were miles and miles of orchards. I don’t know what kind of trees for sure, but we saw signs for almond and pistachio. There were ranches with cattle and a couple of beautiful flower fields. Closer to Paso Robles, we began to see vineyards and many wineries. Now we turned south and the hills started to close in and become green with a smattering of trees. And then, all the hills became tree covered. Everything was kalaidoscopic green. Having been in the desert for seven months, I felt like we’d reached the Emerald City!

We stayed at a National Guard post outside of San Luis Obispo for several days. Everything looked like it had been built in the 1940’s and not much improved since then. Here, though, we found a place that we absolutely loved. There is only space for 12 RV’s, plus more room for dry camping around the edges, at Camp San Luis Obispo. The sites are wide and grassy. The whole time we were here there were probably less than five other RV’s sharing the park with us, plus the camp host.

Here’s a view to the green hills of San Luis Obispo:

An afternoon bike ride here felt like a ride through the countryside. And back at our site, there was plenty of wildlife to entertain us: a whole scurry of ground squirrels that resided in the field behind us, one or two deer strolling through, and a pair of turkeys that regularly visited.

On the last couple of days of our stay, a marine layer (fog) crept in over the hills, for the ocean was just on the other side.

We are learning that all of the military branches have diverse places to stay across the US. But near San Luis Obispo there are other places for RVer’s to stay. Why would anyone want to come here? I’ll explain in my next two blogs.

Next time – the Pacific seaside near San Luis Obispo

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Grand Canyon West, Arizona and Boulder City, Nevada

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Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon? If you have, chances are that you’ve been to the South Rim of the National Park. Grand Canyon National Park also includes the North Rim, which not as many people visit. It doesn’t usually open until mid-May and it’s harder to get to.

There is also Grand Canyon West, which is a commercial enterprise run by the Havasupai Indian Tribe on their reservation land. About fifteen years ago, they constructed a skywalk out over the Grand Canyon. We’ve been to the South Rim several times, so I thought this might be a different way to go. The distance from our RV at Nellis AFB to Grand Canyon West was 125 miles. Thinking that we might appreciate a little overnight road trip after spending so many weeks in Las Vegas, I booked us into one of their cabins for a night. It was to be our last night in Arizona for the 2024 winter and spring.

Driving out to Grand Canyon West, we drove though Lake Mead National Recreation Area. The lake shimmered in the sun. The lake level is still a little low, although not as bad as it had been.

A surprise treat was in store for us as we drove through Arizona. Joshua trees! Miles upon miles of them. We thought their height and sheer beauty rivaled what we had seen weeks earlier at Joshua Tree National Park. Some were in the desert or tucked into sloping mountain canyons. Some looked to be at least thirty to forty feet tall with trunks as large as regular trees.

As we drew closer to Grand Canyon West, the Joshua trees began to intersperse with juniper trees and pinon pines until, finally, they were gone. The juniper and pines, too, eventually gave way to a prairie-style desert with cacti and beautiful orange-blooming flowers.

When we arrived, we first stopped into the visitors center to pick up our tickets. A shuttle takes visitors to the first stop, Eagle Point. All of these places are very important to Hualapai culture.

Do you see the eagle in the rock with its wings in flight? It was spectacular to receive not only the first glimpse of the Grand Canyon here, but also to see the eagle.

The views of the canyon are no less grand for being on the west side.

Looking to our left from here, we could see the Skywalk.

When the Skywalk was completed in 2007, it was the world’s biggest glass cantilever bridge. It extends 70 feet over the Grand Canyon, has a glass bottom, and can hold 800 people at once. By now the length has been superseded by a bridge in China.

Here’s the thing: you have to pay, of course, to step out on the bridge. (The whole day is not a cheap proposition. We supported the Hualapai quite well.) But you cannot take any possessions out onto the bridge. That includes phones and cameras. The reason given is to protect the canyon from things dropped or intentionally thrown from above. There are folks right there on the bridge to take your picture, of course. It costs $50 to purchase the photo package.

Our photographer arranged us in several cheesy poses. Afterwards, I noticed people could ask their photographer to take pictures in poses of their choosing, and I wish we had done that. I would have liked a photo of our feet down through the glass floor.

After our photoshoot, there was plenty of time to look at the canyon below our feet and all around.

I purchased the photo package because it came with the scenic photos that I was not able to get from the bridge. When I first went out to the website for the photos, I glanced at them and figured I’d download them later. I did download the photos of us. But then as the days after our visit went on, we were busy and traveling, and I never quite got around to downloading the scenic photos. When I did, they were gone: they are only out there for 30 days. Live and learn. If you visit, and spring for the package, don’t be Julia: download your pictures immediately! Better yet, just enjoy the view and have a passing tourist take your picture in front of Eagle Point for free.

Outside of the bridge, we walked to the Native American Village. Here, we could see various types of Native housing and sweat lodges.

This “wikiup” is made of the juniper trees that are plentiful here and can come in many different sizes. There must be a native person (or many) skilled in making these here because I saw at least three of them like this in various places. They can be bare of the greenery or have animal skins on the ground, and can be large enough to house an entire family.

After a good lunch at Sky View Restaurant, we walked over to the shuttle stop for the ride to to Guano Point. As we waited, we listened to this gentleman chant. I was intrigued with his combination of native and current day dress. He has next to him on the bench burnt sage in a shell. For the people, the rising smoke has spiritual meaning, and the shell that the sage sits on does as well.

The Hualapai have always lived here and a small piece of their land includes the Grand Canyon. They are not subsidized by the US Government. Years ago, they started trying to generate revenue with a casino, but realized that what people really wanted was to see their land. They make a fine living off the tourism offered here.

Guano Point is so named for an enterprise that operated in the mid-century to extract what was supposed to be 100,000 tons of bat guano from a cave. The guano was used in that time for fertilizer, dynamite and (yikes!) makeup. A tramway was built over the canyon to ferry the workers over and bring the guano back. But there was actually only 1,000 tons to be mined and it played out quickly. A US Air Force jet crashed into the cable, damaging it, and it was never repaired.

Remains of the bat doo-doo cable system and extraction enterprise

More interestingly to me, this is also a sacred site for the Hualapai. There was a time when the US Government tried to round them up and place them in a central camp in La Paz. The Hualapai call this the “Long Walk”. Many Hualapai jumped off the canyon to escape, and the people call them “the lost souls”.

Just below the bat guano operation, the Grand Canyon offers an extraordinary view of the Colorado River far below. All around Grand Canyon West, there are no fences to keep anyone from going over the edge.

The day was getting on, so we rode back to the truck and drove to another GCW area where the Hualapai operate cabins, and checked in. It’s set up like a Western town, which is really weird considering this is reservation land. There’s not much here that’s open, save for a tourist shop and a place to purchase tickets for the zip-line. There is a restaurant, but we opted to save that for breakfast. Instead, we drove back down the road off-reservation, enjoying the view at “golden hour” with the canyons and hills bathed in a warm glow from the setting sun.

Grand Canyon Western Ranch has a variety of acommodations and also a restaurant. It’s small with less than a handful of tables, but the tables are large and different groups are expected to share it. Many evenings they have a guitar player singing songs. The restaurant closes at 8 PM and the resort does a campfire with s’mores, to which we were invited. We were fairly early and didn’t stay as we had other plans, but we ordered their barbeque ribs and the food was good. It would have been a great alternative to staying with the Hualapai on the reservation.

Returning to the reservation and cabin area, there are two trails that lead out onto the prairie. I wanted to do a sunset walk on the shorter, 1/2 mile trail. Arriving at the edge of the canyon, we had the view all to ourselves for a very long time, and it was magnificent. Like Red Rocks outside of Las Vegas that I wrote about in my previous blog, it was totally quiet. All was still except for some birds soaring over the canyon.

Off in the distance you can see the cabins at Grand Canyon West, strung out like a wagon train

We rose early the next morning to hike on the longer, 1.75 mile trail. Needing to get on with our day, we only walked about a mile through the prairie before turning around. At our turnaround point we finally reached the start of the canyon, but this part of it was green with hills folded into hills.

The prior evening we noted that there was a whole warren of rabbits running around. This morning, we watched a coyote unsuccessfully on the hunt for one of them. Those are wily rabbits.

Returning toward Las Vegas, we stopped just below the Lake Mead Visitors Center in Boulder, Nevada to ride our bikes on the Historic Rails to Trails. As the title implies, this is an old rail line which leads 3.7 miles to Hoover Dam. Many people were hiking it but they seemed mostly to be going the other way. It was a good thing they started early because the day was getting hot. It wasn’t too bad on e-bikes.

There are five old train tunnels on this trail. Each one is very exciting to ride through.

Looking ahead to one train tunnel while inside another

When the trail ended, we jumped on the state route for just a bit and stopped at a turnoff to view Hoover Dam.

This was a novel view for us. We have been on this road many times in years past; it used to be the only way to get from Arizona to Nevada. Cal remembers us touring Hoover Dam for $1.00. Having visited the dam in earlier times, we did not feel the need to go any closer.

From here, we could turn around and see the new bridge that bypasses this whole area. It was built between 2005 and 2010. When we drove on the bridge, we would have never have known that Hoover Dam was below. It’s not possible to see anything with the concrete barriers. I really think it’s too bad they’ve “lost the view” in the construction of the bridge, as wonderful as it may be for safety and bypassing a congested area.

With our added little side trip to Hoover Dam, we logged in 11 miles on this ride, plus had a great chat with a young German couple at a rest stop.

This trip completed our time in Las Vegas; we left just a few days later with a whole lot of great memories.

Next time: on the road and back in to California

USTravel

Red Rock Canyon, Springs Preserve, and other Las Vegas Sights

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One of the things that made for a good stay at the Nellis AFB RV Park, Desert Eagle, was that there is actually an event coordinator here by the name of Lori. She and her husband, Troy, who also works at the park, were an awesome team who headed up the events Lori planned. We went to a chili cookoff, and then the next event was a hike at Red Rock Canyon National Preserve.

This park requires entrance tickets, which Lori took care of. It receives local visitors and tourists from the Strip alike, since it isn’t all that far from the city, so it can get busy. It was nice not having to drive, as Lori has a large van at her disposal.

The Willow Spring Trail at Red Rocks is rated moderate and is 1.5 miles one way. There were some tight spots–

— and a bit of rock scrambling —

— but we enjoyed the trail and meeting our fellow RV’ing hikers in the group. Coincidentally, several were from Alaska. Military folks get sent, and put down roots, in a lot of varied places.

The trail took us to a pretty waterfall.

An unexpected treat near the end of our hike was a native American agave roasting pit. It is to the right of this picture, and you can see the soot marks on the hollowed limestone rock. Underneath, rocks were placed and heated, and the heated rocks formed an oven. These seasonal roasts were a time of feasting and gathering for dances and religious ceremonies.

If you can zoom in, and you would like a little “seek and find”, you can look for the ancient hand prints to the left of the top of the crack that rises up from the ground, near left center of the picture.

After our hike, we had the picnic lunch that we’d brought along at a shelter. There was a spontaneous second walk on a boardwalk loop trail nearby before returning to Nellis.

We returned to Red Rocks another day with our ebikes. The park road goes one way in a loop for 13 miles, and is recommended for biking. We arrived at 8:15 AM, with park entrances in hand. We saw no other bikes and only a handful of cars, so it was perfect timing. In a natural park like Red Rocks, the uphills are steeper but easily tackled by ebikes. And the downhills – wheee! I had my bike up to 25 mph, which would normally be too scary for me. The road was empty of traffic, though, and the surface smooth.

Seeing the park at our normal biking speed of 10 mph gave us a slower view of the scenery, including those red rocks for which the park is famous.

Sitting to take a break, the silence was profound.

We took another of Lori’s excursions to Springs Preserve. This park is much closer in to the city. It is on the site where a spring with water was originally found and the city of Las Vegas was born. There is a whole exhibit here about water, and the Charleston Heights pump station is here. Most of Las Vegas’s water comes from Lake Mead.

That’s not all there is to Springs Preserve, though. There is a botanical garden, a butterfly house, a train that goes to a recreated Western boomtown, the Nevada Museum, the Origens Museum, and a tasty cafe overlooking the park where we had lunch. I’m sure I’m forgetting something. It is not hard to fill up a day here.

This is the Western Town, from the train station. It was still early in the day and not many people were about.

At the train station, I found the old photos of Las Vegas to be fascinating.

In the Western Town, there were period homes to visit:

And things I never heard of were here, too:

This is a solar chimney, which is used to cool a room. The sun heats the air in the chimney, causing a draft, which draws warm air up and out of a room. Native plants (that you don’t see in the picture) cool and dampen the air, which is also pulled into the chimney.

The Origen Museum here was great for several short movies in various rooms as you walked through. The flash flood exhibit is everyone’s favorite. There is a video on the screen with two rangers walking around in the desert, talking about the dangers of the heat and other desert-related information. Then, all of a sudden, 5,000 gallons of water are coming at you! The water goes right under a bridge under your feet and does a great job of informing the visitor about just how fast a flash flood can come up.

The last thing we saw here was the Liberace Room in the Nevada Museum, with Liberace’s piano, chandelier, and other assorted items on display. Liberace was a flamboyant pianist and singer who had concert residency in Las Vegas. Besides Liberace, you can see a dinosaur fossil, listen to stories of Nevada miners, and hear about Nevada’s part in atomic history in this museum.

We did a fair amount of bike riding while in Vegas, besides Red Rock Canyon. Nellis Air Base was interesting in and of itself. The Thunderbird flying team is here, and we saw them lined up on the airfield.

They did zoom over us at the RV park a couple of times, but mostly they were out of town doing shows. We were delighted to discover a small museum dedicated to the Thunderbirds near their parking spot.

The Las Vegas Upper and Lower Wash Trails provided a chance for a longer ride. What the trails lacked in beauty, they made up for in urban interest. Going from east to west, it was all suburbia, starting at the prettily landscaped Centennial Park. As we got more into the city, it became more industrialized and gritty.

We rode on what seemed like the longest pedestrian bridge ever, over the rail yard and the highway with a view of the Strip. The end of the bridge can be seen on the left center above.

The only thing about this trail is that their trail maps are miniscule and not well placed. Peering down to see where we were was always a challenge!

Another day, we drove out to artwork in the desert south of the Strip called Seven Magic Mountains. The artwork is by Ugo Rondinone, and has something to do about the continuity and solidarity between man and nature. I captured six of the seven “mountains” in this photo.

This little boy laboriously building his own Seven Mountains was more inspiring to me.

Last, but certainly not least: we have family everywhere, it seems. Cal found a distant cousin a few years ago who lives in Las Vegas. He had met Andy on an earlier trip to Vegas, but it was my first time meeting him, his wife Iris, and their son Daniel. We went out for dinner one night and got to know one another better. Daniel took this picture of us. I could for sure see the family resemblance between Cal, Andy, and others in his family.

I’ve covered a lot of ground here, and haven’t even noted everything we did while staying in Las Vegas. The city surprised us with all that it had to offer, and the RV park at Nellis, Desert Eagle, certainly lived up to its reputation as a great place to sojourn for a little while.

Something different…a highway view from the Upper Wash pedestrian bridge

Next time – back to Arizona and the Grand Canyon

USTravel

Valley of Fire State Park, and a County Fair

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Valley of Fire State Park lies about 45 miles from where our RV was parked in north Las Vegas. It’s considered to be a geologic park. The additional thing that drew me to it was the promise of seeing petroglyphs. These messages left from ancient peoples are fascinating and I like to think about the people who drew them. So, we packed a picnic and headed out.

A hint of sights to come is the bright red rocks that greet you as you enter the park.

The first stop just after entering Valley of Fire is Atlatl Rock. Here, the petroglyphs are high up on the boulders. The stairs up to them presented the first challenge, but the reward is great for those who make the climb.

Petroglyphs offer a window into the lives of the people who lived here long ago. An atlatl is a primitive spear. Here, near the top, the artist drew a picture of one as well as a person with an atlatl in his hand. There are also some big- horn sheep scattered around. It’s interesting to speculate what else the artist, or artists, may have been thinking of when creating these.

The artwork covered much of the tall rock slab. We marveled at how they might have gotten up there to accomplish it.

At the Visitors Center, there are descriptions of the rocks. Valley of Fire’s rocks come in many colors. They are mostly sedimentary, meaning they come from liquid rock that is deep within the earth, compressed and formed into new rock. They then metamorphose into new forms such as dolomite (from limestone) or quartzite (from sandstone).

This formation of rocks can be seen just after leaving the Visitor’s Center.

What is intriguing about the rocks is that just by moving your perspective, you receive a whole different view. After driving around a corner of the road, the above formation is also pictured below. The small rock perched on another looks like it might fall right off in a good windstorm!

We hiked Mouse’s Tank Trail, which starts out with sand for the feet and orange boulders rising up on the side. There are petroglyphs here, too, and it was like an Easter egg hunt to find them as we walked.

Another thing I learned in the Visitor’s Center is that a dark staining of some of the exposed sandstone walls is called “desert varnish”. Valley of Fire has a lot of desert varnish, and this is what the natives preferred for their petroglyphs.

Still another definition for you – a “tank” is a pool of water formed when rocks form a sort of bowl which holds rainwater. The early peoples and later travelers greatly benefited from these water pockets. We learned about these when we unsuccessfully tried to find a tank on a trail at Capitol Reef National Park a while ago. I was happy to see this one.

Supposedly, Mouse is the name of the Indian fellow who found it. I’d venture to say he wasn’t the first.

Our other trail for this day was White Dome Trail, with two huge white domes of rock as the entrance portals. On this trail there is a piece of a movie set.

What looks like an old ruin was actually built in 1965 for the movie “The Professionals”.

Still on this same trail, and shortly after the movie set, we entered a slot canyon.

After walking in to it, the air was suddenly cool and we were shaded from the sun.

Coming out of the slot canyon, the walk was level and the rocks were so pretty. I saw what looked to me like a giant tortoise head in this formation:

And, the colorful striated rocks for which the park is known, in pinks and reds and whites, along with some spring flowers blooming:

We found a picnic area for our lunch. It turned out to be a stage for a nest of chipmunks who were all vying for a piece of our lunch. I don’t feed the critters anymore, and no one should, but people do. They were very entertaining as they scampered about.

Here’s more photo of Valley of Fire, showing a deep contrast between the colors of weathered rock and desert varnish:

Coincidentally, the morning news on the same day as our visit here did a feature on the Clark County Fair. I looked up the location and found it was only a little distance from Valley of Fire.

We had come into the state park on the west side. To get to the fair, we needed to go through the park – which we were doing anyway – go out the east side, and turn north for a little while. We enjoyed the different view along the way. The east side emerges just north of the northernmost reach of Lake Mead. The landscape was other-worldly. There were dry mesas with lofty tables miles long, yet the valley was green with trees.

Inside the fair gates, I was ready for a treat and our mission was to find funnel cakes and lemonade to share. I couldn’t remember when I’d last had one, although we’d had plenty of opportunity. There was a grove of trees with a large patch of grass and we soon joined everyone else taking a break from the sun. It beat hard on this day and felt hot, even though the temperature was barely eighty degrees.

Only small animals were being judged at this fair. There were no cows or horses here, although there were one or two on display. There was a mama sow with her piglets and other animals such as this group of llamas:

We watched the goat judging. These kids work so hard taking care of their goat all year long, and then making sure they and their goat are looking their best for the big day. The judge had a lot to say as he checked them all out. The goats and their owners are evaluated in groups of six. All of the goats are then in their pens for the duration of the fair, and ribbons proudly displayed.

When the judging was done, the kids could enjoy the carnival at the fair to provide some stress relief. There was also a handful of buildings to walk through. I always enjoy the fine arts building at fairs in order to view the needlework, paintings, and other creativity on display. This is an embroidered piece with a multitude of French knots that form the background and the tablecloth for the vase of flowers. I’m sure it was a lot of work!

From here, it was an easy drive a little further north to hop on the interstate for the drive back to Vegas. I counted this day as one of the highlights of our time here.

Next time – Everything else in Las Vegas

USTravel

Downtown Las Vegas

twosnatravels3 Comments

“Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city, linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty, how can you lose? –Petula Clark

The place that used to be hopping with the main casino activity in Vegas is downtown on Fremont Street. After our fine hotel stay on the Strip that I wrote about in my last post, we came here after checkout. Since it was morning, things were pretty quiet. Change was immediately evident since the last time I was here. The street has been permanently blocked off and made into a pedestrian zone. Something called a Viva Vision canopy now covers the whole thing. It is the largest LED canopy screen in the world. Free light shows happen on the hour. There is even a zip line that goes from one end to another. It has been dubbed “the Fremont Street Experience.”

As I first stepped on what was formerly known as the Strip, a wave of nostalgia washed over me. I was here, days before my 19th birthday, with my best friend who has since passed. She had purchased a car from her uncle who lived here, and I flew to Vegas to meet her and help her drive it back to Texas. Of course, we dressed up to the nines to go out on the town. We played the slots, but I’m sure we didn’t spend more than some of our quarters. A decade later, Cal and I also visited here a couple of times when we had family living in town.

On a side street, I could almost feel the old Vegas.

Cal and I remember when people would stand outside the casinos handing out coupons for free sodas, a room, a low-cost meal. Breakfast was especially cheap. Anything to get you inside. If you played, they gave you free drinks. What I didn’t know then, I know now: in those days, the Mafia ran Vegas with a tight fist. They are credited with developing the city into what it is today, both good and bad. People with money ran hand in hand with those who had no money but had expertise.

Two things happened to change things: law enforcement cracked down on traditional organized crime, and new Nevada laws were passed to ease the way for corporations to own and operate casinos. Add to that, all of the newer casinos out on the Strip are not in the city of Las Vegas. They are in an unincorporated township named Paradise.

Here in downtown Las Vegas, on Fremont Street, no one passes out coupons anymore. It seems smaller to me, but someone I talked to said it really is not. Some of the smaller casinos have been swallowed up by bigger ones, though, so there are less of them.

If you are interested, you can get more of the history by visiting the Mob Museum in downtown Vegas. We didn’t visit it this time.

There is a show on TV called Pawn Stars. Occasionally, when Cal is flipping channels, he stops on this show to watch something that catches his interest. On the show, people bring in things they want to sell. Many times they are antiques or oddities and the owners then consult experts to check the value. It is interesting to see what the experts tell about the history of the item and to find out how much they think it is worth, and then see how much the pawn shop owners give the seller for it. Sometimes a deal is struck, sometimes not. Usually the seller receives much less than they said they originally wanted.

The shop that the Pawn Stars own is Gold and Silver Pawn. We walked down to it from Fremont Street.

It was strange to be in a place we’d only seen on TV. The counter is familiar as the place where people set their treasures for evaluation and sale. There was nothing we would have been interested in buying, though, and some of the collectibles were very expensive. I’d call this “Upscale Pawn”. Do they have good luck selling this stuff? Well, there are buyers for everything, and the store is also on-line so you don’t need to come to Vegas to shop.

After digging around, I discovered the shows we’d watched are reruns. The show has been off the air for two years. The shop is owned and run by three generations of men and one of their friends, but scandal and legal issues surrounded them. The store is still a popular place to visit, judging from all the people coming and going.

Walking from Fremont Street to the shop, we passed a pretty wedding chapel:

We made one more visit downtown. I wanted to see the Neon Museum. We took an Uber back downtown for an excellent dinner at Nacho Daddy’s. From there it is a 3/4 mile walk to museum. It wasn’t the nicest walk. I suppose walking isn’t the main way people get there, and I think it’s too bad that the city can’t do something to clean this up just a little bit.

The Neon Museum is a graveyard for many of Las Vegas’s old signs. There is a lot of history to be seen just by looking at them.

The Stardust Casino opened in 1958 and the hotel was the world’s largest at the time. As a child, I remember it being one of the iconic scenes of Las Vegas that you would see on TV or movies. The design of the sign is a nod to the beginning of the space age that was happening at the time. The resort closed in 2006.

I was surprised to see the Hard Rock Cafe sign behind it. How can a Hard Rock be out of business? It was here for only five years before being purchased by Richard Branson and rebranded as Virgin Hotels. Word is that a new Hard Rock will be opening in 2027.

Argon makes the light in this sign, which dates back to the early 1950’s. The light that argon produces is blue, but the colored glass used for the words changes it to green. This was a motel sign.

Neon, however, is what put Vegas on the map. The museum’s oldest operating sign is the Chief Motel Court which dates to 1940.

The Golden Nugget, built in 1946, is one of the oldest casinos. Today there are six Golden Nugget resorts in five states. I suppose this sign doesn’t work any more.

The Neon Museum has placed some of the old motel signs in the median on some streets downtown. Of course, the Normandie Motel is long gone.

I’d want to sleep here if I could. Maybe I’d get the same room Elvis had?

Walking back to Fremont Street, we noticed that we could have happy hour at the Gold Spike at 4 AM. That’s handy.

The Strip in Las Vegas today uses LED lighting, but the neon lights (and light bulbs) are all still aglow on Fremont Street. When we arrived back after visiting the Neon Museum, the place was hopping. It was a drastically different scene than we’d encountered on our morning visit.

The East side of Fremont street doesn’t have the covering over it and traffic is allowed on the street.

Visiting the city of Las Vegas was a whole lot of fun but it didn’t take many visits for us to decide we were done. We talked to many locals while here, and every one of them said that they only go down into the city when they have company. What else could there possibly be to see and do? I’ll be exploring that in the next couple of posts.

Next time – Valley of Fire

USTravel

Amargosa Valley and Longstreet RV

twosnatravels4 Comments
Anywhere that we put our slides, awning and lawn chairs out is home – for a few days, anyway

By the words and pictures of my blog, it may look like Cal and I are always running around from here to there and seeing everything there is to see. That’s not exactly true. There are stretches of time where we are just living life, same as everyone.

It’s not often that I write about one single RV stay, but that will be what this post is about. And the question is, what makes a perfect place to park our RV?

When we started out RV’ing, the answer was simple. A state park or Corps of Engineers park, out in nature, with full hookups, or at least with water and electricity is a must. Then, a nice level spot with lots of shade, and preferably not in close sight of our neighbors. Places to walk are also important. These sorts of places weren’t hard to find where we lived in Missouri. But we’ve only been in Missouri once in the past three years of full time RVing.

The RV park for Death Valley was full before I could even blink. Of course there weren’t any state parks nearby, and not even many commercial parks to choose from within spitting distance of the park. That led me to “Longstreet Hotel Casino and RV Resort”. This was a novel idea. The pictures looked good, reviews okay. I’ve long ago learned to take the “Resort” part of an RV park with a grain of salt. We would be in Death Valley for a good part of the time, anyway.

The building only has two stories, and the RV “resort” was around back. The gentleman at the desk assigned us a site and said we could move if we didn’t like it. That is a rare offer.

The casino is out in the middle of nowhere, and this was the view out our window. For our first two days, there were RV’s in these sites with ATV’s parked next to each. If I had my druthers, we would have moved, preferring instead to have been in the first row facing the mountains. Cal was happy with the site, though, so we stayed. It was interesting watching the ATV’ers head out for jaunts into the desert; after two days, they were gone. No one ever moved into these sites again, leaving us with a perfect view.

We thought maybe the green space might have been a golf course at one time, and the pond a part of it.

On our first evening we took a long walk down a narrow gravel road leading straight into the desert and alongside the mountain. There is no cacti here, just sagebrush and scrub.

We put a rest day in between each of our visits to the park. Those days had long miles in them, both for the truck and on our feet. At home, we caught up on chores, all the stuff one normally does in life. Here, Cal is attending to something on the roof. All we had here was a gravel spot in a parking lot. It was nice that the park was always less than half full.

Someone was in that site next to us only one or two nights. On the other side, there was another 5th wheel with a gentleman who left for work early every morning and went inside his RV when he came home.

Cal was really impressed with his ATV.

On our “off days”, when I needed to stretch my legs, I could walk out to California. And then, back again to Nevada.

The wildflowers were just starting to come out. How can they grow in the harsh desert terrain?

The inside of the casino is typical of many casinos. Longstreet has a gaming floor, an area with couches, a restaurant, a convenience store, and a bar. With the exception of the store, everything is in one big room. A country band played on the weekends. I thought I’d be tempted to eat in the restaurant more than we did but we only had one lunch there. It was a rare treat to just walk over from the RV.

Walking around the building, there were many things to see. I could admire the old conveyances out front.

The old with the new

There is a petting zoo, with animals that mostly didn’t want to be petted. The zoo also includes a bull, a goat and a sheep.

The back rooms to the hotel had patios and balconies which looked out onto another pond. This one is nicely landscaped and there are sculptures and many interesting artifacts set out to look at. This pair of geese would fly from one pond to the other daily, honking along the way for good measure.

I’m not sure what this is, but I liked that it said “Denver”.

When the sun started to set, we would put our lawn chairs out on the (not) golf course, and watch the mountains turn red. We would puzzle over why the owner thought he needed the enormous cow out front, and where it may have come from. And, of course, we could ponder the meaning of life and let ourselves be swallowed up into the silence.

So, back to what makes a perfect RV spot?

The road has shown us that there is no one simple answer. The spot that we are initially disappointed in may reveal its secrets to us later. It could be the friendly folks at the park or some fun events that they held, a great trail to walk on, an interesting neighbor to hang out with, or a resident cat. We don’t tend to use a lot of the amenities that parks like to advertise.

A concrete pad here might have been nice, but gravel is the way of the desert. No, Longstreet wasn’t perfect. Only a select few sites have ever won that title for us. Longstreet did, however, score points with both of us for 1) the view into the desert, 2) lots of delightful places for me to walk and get my steps in, 3) a slight quirkiness with all the various little things to see, and 4) being quiet and peaceful.

In the end, we can’t ask for too much more.

When we passed our first night in San Diego, I was very excited to put a California sticker on my map. And then, in Boulder City, I could add the one for Nevada. It had been almost two years since we’d been able to add new stickers. You can see that we have covered the Southwest. Which state will be next? Even we, the Twosna Travelers, don’t have the answer to that question at present.

Next time – It’s Vegas, baby!