April 14, 2015

Traveling always brings adventure.  We have been on the road for six weeks (which has flown by) and have had some "issues".  Our spring excursion began in Pinnacles National Park in Northern California.  The park was lovely and not too hot.  We did some hiking in hopes of spotting a condor's nest, however, knees and heat prevented us from hiking as far up as was necessary to see nesting condor's.  Down in the campgrouind we were able to spot condors riding the thermals every day.  This was not as exciting as a nest but was good nevertheless.  The condors have wingspans up to 9.5 feet so they are a sight to behold even from a distance. Since we visited in March the park was green and cool.  Wild flowers dotted the trail as we climbed up the rock strewn path.  It was a lovely place to visit.  When I have downloaded pictures I'll add them to the blog.

After Pinnacles we journeded down to Joshua Tree National Park.  Those trees are strange and wonderful and many were covered either with open blooms or buds ready to burst open.  I didn't even know they had blossoms.  Joshua Tree is a roughin camping area - as much as you can say we "roughed" it in an RV.   There were no hookups.  We discovered that we can exist about a day without hookups.  At one point we attached power to the truck battery so we could run our furnace.  It got pretty cold at night.  We had a portable battery powered lantern so we got through our evenings without power.  However, no battery power = no water pump = visit to public showers/bathrooms.  Not my favorite thing to do.  So camping without hookups is not my ideal situation.

Joshua Tree is an interesting geologic area - so many amazing rock formations to see.  Again, not a place to visit in the summer.  The campground was a challenge as there is no such thing as level spaces and the roads inside the campground were poorly maintained.  An interesting area but not one I will clamor to visit again.

More soon....the truck is ready and I've gotta go....