California Here We Come

Friday, November 4, 2011

Thank you Lee, you are an excellent host. Not only power and shower, but lots of food too. Sorry we didn’t have room to take the salads, they looked yummy!

Driving into, through, and out of the dust storm!

The forecast of snow in Flagstaff and other points on our planned route had us changing our plans. Knowing we would at least see some wind, blowing dust, and rain, we chose that against the snow, and headed west into California. We did in fact get some wind, and a short area where the dust storm was quite thick, and we got a little rain.

Since it is into November now, some RVs are already present around Quartzsite, but many thousands are still to come!

It has been many years since we have been in California, and had forgotten the inspection stations at the border. We didn’t have any problem there, and on we went to Joshua Tree National Park.

California agricultural inspection

We were going to top off our fuel tanks before going into the park, but the only station we found was out of diesel. Oh well, we were okay, so went on into the park. We stopped at the Cottonwood VC and got our stamps and the brochures, but they were closing in a few minutes, so we didn’t get to see the video.

Setting up after dark

Driving on through the park, we checked out the first campground we came to, but didn’t see anything suitable, so went on. We weren’t going to make it to the next VC before it closed, but needed to get through the park to check out a campground on the other side. Indian Cove was full, but we got our stamps there and the ranger called ahead to Black Rock to check on camp sites for us. They had sites available, so we went on.  It was already almost dark, so we quickly got tucked in for the night. It will be another cold one.