We left Pasadena mid morning, saying our good byes to our hosts, and retracing the last day of our journey to Los Angeles. Starting with the 100ft driveway, this time going in forward, we pointed East on the 210 highway, traveling opposite of the morning commuter traffic that flows each morning from the San Gabriel Valley, a melting pot of asian communities, and...
With the forecast of a bomb cyclone coming through the week, creating all the weather conditions except those representative of the California Dreaming I’ve been doing for the last several months, we were still able to accomplish our main objective of getting on a boat. Monday 1/2/23 In the morning the park ranger stopped by, and told us that we would not be...
We had a wonderful new year’s evening with our friends who made home-made tempura vegetables, and soba noodle miso soup so good that it turns words into grunts. Like most other places that are not in the Eastern time zone, California celebrates New Year’s eve twice, once with New York, at 9pm local time, and once at local midnight. Honestly, after the...
I’m so excited that we’ll arrive “home” to Los Angeles again today, that I don’t get a wink of sleep. Exhausted, with my head on my pillow, I impatiently look out the window and wait for the sunrise to peek over the Orocopia mountains and light up the mountains of Joshua Tree National park on the opposite side of the valley, before...
The City of Rocks park is something to see. I walked around winding myself through the maze of alleys between the boulders, with something to see around every corner. Some of the boulders stand alone, imposing in their own right arranged like buildings defining a street; others balancing unconvincingly on top of each other, ready to roll down and crush you at any...
This day was book ended by two wonderful places to stay, with the plains of Texas in the middle. The 7am sunrise in Sonora Caves, Texas is spectacular, and the roosters began marketing that fact promptly at 4:30 in the morning, making sure that the two tourists that were there, were well aware of the message. They were not wrong. A sliver at the horizon in the mostly...
It really shows how much care the rangers put into maintaining the park. I can appreciate how all the buildings are fully lit up with Christmas lights. They didn’t have to put this much effort in for a handful of campers, but they did. With those tall buildings, it must have taken some effort, and it added another warm dimension to our stay. In the morning I took a...
The cold snap that has hit the country, certainly didn’t spare the gulf states. We woke up to 26F, and although we were cozy in the trailer, our tanks live on the outside, uninsulated. You know you’re not South enough when you have to worry about frozen shiz. That’s the point of this whole experiment, I guess….moar South. We do have tank heaters, though to be honest...
We left Florida at 9:45 Eastern to begin westing towards California, with the night’s destination somewhere around Mobile Alabama, a 500 mile distance. We decided that I would drive the morning tank of gas, Lisa the afternoon one, and I’ll finish off the day with the evening tank on account of having better night vision, and that come 2pm and my peepers think it’s...
Aside from spending time with family for the holidays, we took advantage of slightly improved Florida weather to finish some last minute projects on the trailer. These included the installation of a couple more solar panels to keep us working off grid, securing the trailer body to the frame with additional lock nuts, and the building of mounts for a couple jerrycan...