Day 152: Casa Grande National Monument

Posted on January 6, 2014 by Ben

We left the Walmart in Tempe, AZ this morning, and after stops at Lowe’s and the bank, we headed Southeast to Casa Grande National Monument. There’s not much here, as the Monument exists primary to preserve and interpret the three-story “Casa Grande”, the largest known structure built by local 15th century Native Americans:

It doesn’t seem like much of an accomplishment, but considering the fact that the entire structure was built using clay plastered over wood framing, it’s pretty impressive:

Junior Ranger badges were earned, as usual:

Leaving Casa Grande, we headed South towards Tucson, stopping at a Walmart for dinner. This Walmart has “no overnight RV” signs posted, probably due to local campgrounds lobbying town government to restrict overnight camping in an attempt to force RVers to pay for camping at their facilities. I suspect most RVers in fact do what we did, namely, move on to the next free parking location. The real loser here is Walmart, as RVers that park overnight tend to purchase items while they’re there.

We headed South for another 20 miles and are parked for the night at the Desert Diamond Casino on South Nogales Highway. There are 10 or so other RVs here, and we do have WiFi, though it’s only twice the speed of dialup. Tomorrow we will head East to Chiricahua National Monument. See the trip map for details.

Day 128: Lake Mead NRA, Day 3

Posted on December 13, 2013 by Ben

This morning we met my parents at the Lake Mead visitor center:

The kids received their Junior Ranger badges:

Next we went to the marina to feed the fish and birds:

The carp opened their mouths wide above the surface, so I tried throwing little crackers in, but with little success:

Nom nom nom nom….

Next we visited the Clark County Museum, which has a row of historic houses built and decorated in the styles of various decades. My favorite was this RV from 1948:

They had an old newspaper office:

The museum also has an extensive collection of mining and railroad equipment:

Day 103: Blood, Guts, and Joshua Trees

Posted on November 18, 2013 by Ben

This morning we left the RV behind once again and drove about 5 miles to the nearby George Patton Memorial Museum. Patton was known as “Old Blood and Guts” to his troops, hence the blog title. It turns out that the BLM land upon which we are camping used to be the Army’s Camp Young, part of the desert training ground for US soldiers preparing to fight in World War II’s North Africa campaign.

The museum is an extensive collection of artifacts, relating to Patton in particular as well as the military in general. There’s no particular flow to the exhibits, rather it feels like a collection of donated memorabilia and artifacts. Nonetheless, it was very interesting:

Outside, there are over a dozen tanks on display. Our son was a more enthusiastic tank driver than our daughter:

We returned to the RV, had lunch, hitched up, and drove north into Joshua Tree National Park, where we completed a short nature trail which had signs identifying various plants. This one is helpfully titled “Dead Wood”:

Continuing north to Cottonwood Visitor Center, we dumped tanks, filled up on fresh water, dropped off some trash, and handed in the kids’ Junior Ranger workbooks so they could receive their badges:

As we continued north and increased our elevation, the Colorado Desert gave way to the Mojave Desert, and we finally started to see some Joshua Trees. We also saw some fantastic Monzogranite piles, so we pulled into the Belle campground, parked, and climbed up and around these interesting formations.

Monzogranite in the distance:

Our son below to give a sense of scale:

Trish did some journaling while I was bouldering with the kids:

The proud Joshua Tree, a member of the Yucca family:

The family portrait of the day. Aren’t those solar panels pretty?

The campsites were arranged around the rock piles:

We played on the rocks until sunset, then continued north into Twentynine palms, stopping briefly at the Oasis Visitor Center. It turns out that the laundromat in town went out of business, so we drove 15 miles west to Joshua Tree to do laundry. We then headed a couple more miles west to overnight at the Walmart of Yucca Valley. See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Day 99: Biking and dumping in Joshua Tree NP

Posted on November 14, 2013 by Ben

It was a beautiful morning on BLM land just south of Joshua Tree National Park:

I went for a sunrise ride into Joshua Tree, which began with a 5.5 mile, 1500 foot vertical climb:

I rode through the Cottonwood Springs campground and then continued north for another 10 miles:

After homeschool, we drove up into Joshua Tree with the RV, visited the visitor center to get our Junior Ranger workbooks, and used the campground dump station. The moon was rising as the sun was setting:

It says a lot about a place when a dump station photograph is postcard worthy:

It was in the high 80s today, but with three fans in the RV we were comfortable. Not that I’m complaining, I understand that it snowed this week back home. The desert cooled quickly after sunset:

We headed back down to BLM land, as it’s free and there’s cell signal there, unlike the campground.

See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Day 86: Motorcycle Madness

Posted on November 1, 2013 by Ben

We left Tracy and headed a few miles west to Carnegie State Vehicle Recreation Area. An SVRA is an area of public land set aside for OHVs (off-highway vehicles) like motorcycles, dune buggies, etc. We decided to stay here for Shabbos as it was close to where we were and it’s only $10 a night. On the way there, we passed Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Site 300 and stopped to ask the gate guard for directions to the SVRA. It was pretty clear from our brief glance that this site does not have a Junior Ranger program.

When we arrived, the ranger told us that there were only a few sites left, as adjacent to the campground there was a motorcycle competition slated for the weekend. In that area, there were easily 50 RVs parked, and every RV had at least one or two motorcycles next to it. The SVRA had a variety of off-road tracks as well as an extensive trail network, and folks staying both in the campground and in the adjacent competition area were driving their off-road motorcycles on the tracks.

In the afternoon, I went for a ride from the SVRA over the mountains into Livermore, CA. I rode into town before turning around, and I saw the guard station at the main campus for Lawrence Livermore National Lab as well as signs for Sandia Labs.

On the way back I passed vineyards on the outskirts of Livermore:

On my way up the hill, I passed an oncoming Tesla Roadster, which was ironic because I was riding on Tesla Road, both of which were named in honor of Nikola Tesla.

Here’s the crest of the range than stands between Livermore and the SVRA:

This promises to be a somewhat noisy but interesting Shabbos!