Since our last update, we have crossed into California. I haven’t been here since 1978. Tanja has lived in several cities here but has not been back since 1997. Of course, the first thing we did was to head to Imperial Beach to see the ocean.

We spent one night at the home of some very friendly Boondockers Welcome hosts and we spent three nights at a free camping area near a dog park. There, we camped next to a really nice guy who was in the process of relocating to the area. We spent the evenings hanging out with him and spent the daytime in the San Diego area checking out some of Tanja’s old haunts. We saw seals and sea lions on the beach in La Jolla, we toured the bakery that Tanja and her ex helped open years ago, and we visited the historic old town region which has been turned into a museum/tourist trap.

This has also been a time to visit friends and family. We had dinner with my great-niece Haleigh at the restaurant that she manages. One of the perks of her job is she gets to bring guests and dine for free! Tanja and I have cut WAY BACK on restaurant dining as a way to make this journey more economical, so it was a very special treat to be able to order anything we wanted without worrying about the bill! The food was delicious and we had a very nice time chatting with Haleigh and her friend.

We spent that night at a state park campground right on the ocean. At $35/night, it was without a doubt the most expensive place we have stayed so far.

We usually are able to find free places to stay, but that is proving to be difficult in The Golden State. The gas prices are outrageous here too! While $2.50/gallon was about normal for most of our journey so far, finding it for under $4/gallon is considered a bargain. We have paid as much as $5.50/gallon !

The next day, we had lunch with a lady who used to be our favorite yoga teacher. She had moved here a couple years ago. After lunch, the three of us strolled through the gardens of a beautiful meditation center. It was a very nice visit!

That afternoon, we headed into the desert to visit with my niece Regina and her family in the little town of Hemet. We spent about four days with them, taking the opportunity to shower, get all our laundry done, watch TV, and play games with her kids.

Next up came a visit with my nephew Bill and his family in Orange California. We had a cookout and spent the evening visiting together. We slept in their driveway and the next morning we headed off for Joshua Tree, our first National Park in California.

Joshua Tree was very different from the other desert parks we had previously visited. Besides the trees, from which the park gets its name, that look like something from a Dr. Seuss book, the other features that make this place look so different are the huge boulders stacked into piles hundreds of feet high.

We only ended up spending one night there because it was just too cold. After spending the night under all our extra blankets and while wearing sweatpants, sweat shirts and pullover hats, we decided to move on to Death Valley National Park where it was supposed to be warmer.

Just before we arrived at Death Valley, Tanja got a message from the young couple with the converted school bus that we had met and camped with in Big Bend National Park in Texas. They were also headed to Death Valley and wanted to camp with us. We ended up sharing a campsite with them for four nights and exploring the park together in the daytime. We had a great time together laughing and sharing stories of life on the road.

After they left, we drove into the higher elevations of the park to a free campsite in the mountains where we spent one more night. It was beautiful up there but it was a little cold. Between the cold and the fact that we were running low on supplies, we decided to head towards our next destination, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.

After driving a few hours, we pulled into a picnic area to have a sandwich. When we were finished, and began to drive away, the van started beeping and saying we had left a door open. Looking back, we saw that not only had we left the sliding door open, we had left the step back in the picnic area.

Those who have read our earlier posts, know that this was not our first experience with forgetting the step. You should also expect that the step will be making another blog appearance before this post is complete.

Sequoia and Kings Canyon are very near one another with Sequoia National Forest dividing them. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of trees down throughout the area. I never did hear what had caused all those trees to fall. We spent one night camping in a forest campsite that looked like a war zone with all the downed trees. We were the only campers there. The sign said someone would be coming by to collect the $28/night camping fee, but they never showed up before we left ( honestly, we did get up super early and got the heck outta Dodge before they had a chance to charge us.)

We found one small free campground where we spent the next two nights. It was called “Convict Flat”. When the mountain road that connected the two parks was being built in the 1930’s, inmates from Folsom Prison were used as cheap labor and this campsite was where they were housed. I found it quite ironic that the only free place to stay in the region was the same place where previous inhabitants were not allowed to leave.

As far as I am concerned, Kings Canyon was the most beautiful we had visited so far.

However, the highlight of the visit to Kings Canyon was not the scenery. It had more to do with the wildlife. Tanja and I stopped at a picnic area next to a stream that ran through a meadow. We sat at a picnic table with our backs to the meadow and proceeded to watch the water roll down the stream as we ate.

The next thing we knew, another car pulled into the picnic area and blew its horn. Turning around to see what all the commotion was about, we saw a mother bear and her two cubs about 30 yards behind us. We grabbed our food and jumped into the van to watch them from a safer place. After they had continued out of sight, I asked Tanja was she ready to go. When she replied in the affirmative, I started to drive away and felt the van go over a bump and then it felt as if it were dragging something. Tanja and I looked at one another and in unison exclaimed “ The Fucking Step!” Yes, indeed, I had driven over the step, which broke into three pieces and the largest piece was jammed under the rear axle. I ended up having to crawl under the van and disassemble the jammed portion and the rebuild the whole damned thing all over again. I have to wonder how long it will be before I have to make another one!

After Kings Canyon, we moved on to Yosemite where we are currently.

I will post about our exploits here in my next post.

Since our last update, we have traveled across Texas, New Mexico, and are currently in Arizona. We visited Grand Canyon, Guadalupe Mountains, Carlsbad Caverns, Suguaro, and Petrified Forest National Parks. We also visited the ghost town of Shakespeare New Mexico, a former mining town that at one point was home to several hundred people, but is now only occupied by the caretaker (who gave us a private tour) and his wife. 

We have stayed at National Park campgrounds, state camping areas, city park campgrounds, county park campgrounds, and on the property of Boondockers Welcome hosts. 

We have driven through deserts, mountains, canyons, and forests. The scenery in this country is amazing and beautiful. 

However, what surprises me the most is how much I am enjoying meeting other travelers. Tanja has always been the outgoing extrovert while I have tended to be the shy, introverted loner type. However, traveling this way has allowed us to meet and interact with the most interesting people. We have hung out with folks young enough to be our kids whose work is all done remotely over the internet, older retired folks who travel in big fancy RVs, disabled veterans who live in decades old RVs, and retired ladies living in minivans on social security. While everyone we have met is traveling this way by choice, for many this choice is primarily economic. 

It seems as if this country is seeing a modern day twist on the mass migrations of folks not unlike those described in Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath”.

The difference however is a lot of these folks are not traveling to a specific place, but rather are trying to escape what many see as the American Dream gone horribly wrong. 

Home ownership (or even rent in most areas) has become too expensive. For many of the people we have met, life on the road is how they have chosen to make ends meet. Tanja and I consider ourselves very lucky to have a paid off home to return to a few months a year. 

Getting to know and listen to the stories of other travelers has been the most rewarding part of this journey so far. 

Some family and friends have asked us aren’t we afraid to travel the way we do to all the remote places we stay? Honestly, the only time we have been afraid was during a severe thunder and hailstorm in Texas.

We did have one unpleasant experience once with another camper, but she was just upset that some other people we were hanging out with allowed their dogs to enter her campsite. I understood her being upset, but not the severity of her anger. She was literally the only person we have encountered that was not friendly and nice.