Today was set aside for maintenance of Charlotte’s wonderful 6.4 liter turbo diesel engine so we took her over to Gosch Ford in Hemet, CA. We got up pretty early, for us, and drove about 20 minutes to the dealership. We initially met the service writer, Ben, and described the services we wanted: change the oil, rotate the tires and perform an inspection of the serpentine belt that powers all the mechanical bits attached to the engine.
The dealership had a shuttle for the unfortunates required to wait on service so we were introduced to Manny, a shuttle driver, who dutifully took us to a tiny restaurant called the Hangar at the local Hemet Ryan airport. He was very nice and he zipped us over to the chow hall and dropped us off. The food was okay and sitting on the porch of the restaurant watching the planes come and go was actually quite nice. On the horizon from our perch was a line of snow-covered mountains remaining from the recent rotten weather and they were spectacular.
Partway through breakfast we got a ring tone from our new Nexus 6 cell phone hooked up to Verizon and quickly started the series of completely bizarre and mysterious motions required to force the device into allowing us to speak with the caller but, alas, we were unable to implement the stuff required to answer the phone before the ringing stopped. We figured we would open up the voice mail app or service or thing but were politely told by the cursed device that voice mail was not set up so we wouldn’t be listening to any pithy messages left by the unknown caller. After considerable fooling around and some harsh words, we were able to get the phone number of the unknown caller and called back only to have the phone answered by the receptionist at Gosch Ford who had no idea who may have called us. We eventually were put in touch with Ben the service guy who asked us if we had the doodad required to get the locking lug nuts off Charlotte’s pretty wheels.
We have had the tires rotated previously by Kearney Ford in San Diego and they had no problem getting the locks off so even the presence of the locks was news to us. Gosch was unable to rotate the tires without the doodad and, since we were both unaware of needing it or having any idea what it might look like, they were only able to tell us it was time to consider replacing the front disc brake pads and they would be more than willing to perform this service if only they could get the front wheels off the hubs.
We settled for just the oil change and scrutiny of the serpentine belt and the dealership sent Manny over to pick us up at the airport. We will take Charlotte to Kearney Ford when we go see our kids in San Diego in a few days. I suppose the brakes will just have to be okay until then.
We have a couple pix available by clicking here

Today the weather was pretty nice in the morning so we decided to go up into the mountains to the mountain hamlet of Idyllwild. Peggy and I have been to Idyllwild a few times previously but not in the last 15 or 20 years. We started our journey with a stop at a place called Abbie’s Cafe on the east side of Hemet. They were quite busy even at 11:00 AM and the place was amply stocked with about 85% really old people nibbling away at soft foods and giving furtive glances our way. I think they thought we were way too young to be dining in their greasy spoon. I know why they go there – my chicken fried steak and eggs and Peggy’s Reuben sandwich were good. Prices were reasonable and service was good.
From the cafe we continued east on SH-74 up a long, steep incline to a store in a place shown on the map as Mountain Center. The road to here was dry but there was some plowed snow on the edges of the paving which became snow everywhere as we approached the town. From here we turned north toward Idyllwild but only went about three miles before the road was covered with ice and we lost traction. We bravely chickened out by turning around and heading back down the hill although we did not quite feel ready to go home. We coasted back down the steep hill to Hemet and then turned northwest to go see something called Lake Perris State Park.
Lake Perris is another lake imitating a reservoir. There are extensive vacant camping areas and the only person we saw was a park ranger who had a voice squeakier than a dry barn door hinge who told us how to continue through the park going north and back onto civilian roads. On our way back south, we skirted a range of hills shown on the map as “The Badlands” but that had scant resemblance to the Badlands we saw in South Dakota last year. They were just soil hills peppered with big granite boulders. I was unable to ascertain what made these lands any badder than any other granite boulder and dirt mounds.
We finally drove back into Hemet, turned west and returned to our Wilderness Lakes campground although there don’t seem to be any lakes here. There are a couple of shallow ditches with water in them and acres of flooded farmlands but no lakes, per se.
We have a few pix which you can see by clicking here

It is still raining but without the unfettered fury we had for the last 36 hours. After waiting out the rain, we hopped into Charlotte and took a spin down some local roads.
Our first stop was Diamond Valley Lake which is not really a lake but would more appropriately be called a reservoir. They have an enormous boat launching ramp, maybe the biggest I have even seen, but little else. Although there is a scroungy river here called the San Jacinto, it does not enter nor exit the alleged lake. What seems to have happened was some water authority has put some earthen dams between two parallel ridges and they must pump the water into the reservoir because there is scant watershed to feed it. In any event, there is a bunch of water there and the area surrounding it is quite ordinary, hardly worth a trip. There is also a sign indicating Diamond Valley Lake is the nicest lake in California which would appear to be a pretty substantial fib.
After seeing this inland wonder, we drove into Hemet, a small city of some 85,000 souls located about 10 miles north of California’s nicest lake. Peggy was scoping out some facts about Hemet and found the average age is 71 which seems pretty old. Once we got into town, however, we became convinced that the average age reported might be a bit low because we noted people older than us everywhere. Many were scurrying about on little wheeled vehicles with their walkers strapped to the back. Vehicle speeds were exceptionally low downtown possibly because old folks here really do not have anyplace to go and they certainly are not going to hurry to get there. I drive pretty slowly these days but I am a veritable whirlwind next to the local drivers. We got up to as high as 21 miles per hour on streets plainly posted at 40.
After short stops at a fabric store, a diesel station and a liquor store run by folks not familiar with English, we decided we had seen enough for today and returned to our camp spot at Wilderness Lakes TT. We are dull.
There are some pictures of our dullness you can see by clicking here

It is raining. It is raining quite a bit for this part of the world. Driving conditions were going to get worse as the day progressed so we figured we better do some food shopping in case the ability to get around was eliminated. We ate breakfast with fortified coffee, watched a little morning news and then set off for a Trader Joe’s about 1/2 an hour away in Temecula, CA.
We probably shouldn’t have watched the news because by the time we got to Temecula, it was raining quite hard. All the gutters were overflowing and drivers were engaged in the peculiar and terrifying antics that seem to be a trademark for southern CA whenever there is the slightest deviation from bright sun. Trader Joe’s parking lot was demonstrating the benefits of sheet runoff by soaking everybody’s shoes as they sprinted from their cars to the store.
We bought all the tasty stuff we could bear at Trader Joe’s before wading back to Charlotte and transferring the groceries into the back seat. The rain was so vigorous at this point that all the cardboard boxes surrounding our food got quite damp. We hauled the newly moistened groceries back to the Barbarian Invader and transferred the groceries from Charlotte to the Invader in some more penetrating rain. Quite a few of our boxed goods got to ride the kitchen counter while our two electric heaters attempted to dry them before they go into storage.
According to the news, all the roads in southern CA are filled with tardy motorists awaiting the authorities tasked with towing away drowned cars, removing newly-wrecked cars from the freeway, removing mud from the highways and trying to make the flooded areas dry. They seem to be overwhelmed.

Today is the first day of our 2016 explorations of neat stuff in the USA. We finished up our trip for 2015 by driving from Yuma, AZ, to the Thousand Trails Pio Pico RV Resort near San Diego, CA, where we did family stuff, maintenance and took some time out for a couple weeks of fooling around in Cabo San Lucas with our kids. It was fun for us but probably stupifiingly boring for blog readers (if any) so I will omit this time period in the blog.
We started out today by picking up our trailer (sometimes referred to as “The Barbarian Invader”) at San Diego RV Center where they serviced the wheel bearings and the brakes. No sooner had we hooked up the Invader when it started to rain quite impressively and it continued as we drove west on I-8 to I-15 north to I-215 north where we turned off at Newport Road to get to the Thousand Trails Wilderness Lakes RV Resort. We couldn’t really see much of the park as we pulled in but we did get to partially set up the trailer before the merely miserable rain morphed into a deluge which quickly filled the park’s roads with about 4″ of water and a big bunch of ducks, coots, geese and swans who seemed to be enjoying the weather.
The park has full hookups but due to the miserable weather I initially did not hook our waste lines to the park’s sewer system. After a few hours of deluge, the weather relented a bit and I went outside to hook us up. Unfortunately, when I opened the cap to the sewer, the flood waters standing in the roads immediately started disappearing down the hole so I closed it up and retreated back into the Invader. Maybe I’ll try again tomorrow if the rain quits. We are actually in pretty good shape; we have water, empty waste holding tanks, 30 amps of electrical power and our TV satellite antenna is giving us good reception. We eagerly await the opportunity to check out this part of the world but the weather is going to have to improve some before we will leave the comfort of our travelling home.
For pix of the San Diego area while we were home, click here

Peggy and I both woke up early and initially had no idea why until we noted that the wind had come up and was creating rocking motions of the Invader along with little plopping noises from vegetation being separated from the trees and dropping on the Invader’s roof. The wind must have been doing about 25 or 30 miles an hour and, as a bonus, picking up massive amounts of soil from the surrounding farmland and depositing it elsewhere.
Yuma is a city of some 90,000 persons and the primary and maybe only activity around here may be farming. There are some low rock mountain ranges visible in the distance but most of the land around our RV park is dead flat. Where crops are not currently being irrigated and growing, the fields are bare dirt and those not recently watered have taken to the skies in the breeze. We took a long time to get going today because we really had nothing to do except make it to a store to pick up a half gallon of milk.
Once we finally got on the stick, we drove first to the Yuma Territorial Prison parking lot. The then-territory of Arizona housed some 3500 prisoners here back before 1900 although they must have been here at different times because the facility is very small. It is a masonry structure built by the inmates and looks like it could not hold more than maybe 150 people at any one time. It must have been a bleak existence being sentenced and doing time here.
From there we drove to a strange store called the Peanut Patch. This place apparently serves those with a liking for nuts of almost any variety along with peanut brittle, trail mixes, some chocolate candies and religious books which are prominently displayed right inside the front door. We picked up some nuts, shot glasses that look like Saguaro cacti and some Roadkill Chicken Rub. I have no idea what the last item might be used for unless it is to revive fowl hit by cars.
We made short stops at a Fry’s grocery and diesel station before returning to our RV park for cocktail hour. Yuma has been found to be slightly less than fascinating so far. We noted that Arizona must get their share of the Colorado River water because most of the irrigation here is by inundation from large irrigation canals. Some folks have sprinkler arrays which in today’s breeze seem to force water into the air to have it evaporate in the low humidity. There is a lot of water going to waste here although Yuma is the largest producer of winter veggies (mostly lettuce) in the U.S. The folks in California would love to have the water going into the sky here.
For some pix of this horrible, unremarkable place, go to here

We gathered up our stuff, dumped the tanks and departed Ajo Heights RV Park headed for Yuma, Arizona. The drive north from Ajo to I-8 is very scenic through tortured terrain. About 20 miles north of Ajo the road crosses through what seems to be a tiny mountain range with hundreds of little rock minarets dotting the landscape that is pretty neat but further north the road flattens out and crossing the terrain gets to be a drudge. Once we got to westbound I-8, the mountainous terrain disappeared into the distance to be replaced by flat ground with few redeeming features other than some enormous cattle feedlots surrounded by large expanses of dirt with some creosote bushes and palo verde trees.
There were a couple little passes over some minor mountain ranges separated by long stretches of nothing until we reached Yuma at the Colorado River and the border of California. We pulled into an RPI RV park called Yuma Lakes RV Park about 2:30 PM Arizona time. Arizona time is hard to determine because the state is in the Mountain time zone but this state alone does not observe daylight savings time so, in the summer, the clocks are set the same as those in the Pacific time zone. After this next Sunday when the clocks elsewhere go to standard time, the clocks in Arizona will be back on Mountain time. Weird.
Yuma Lakes RV Park has nice large spots, full hookups, wi-fi, our dreadful phone works and there is a lake, albeit a phony, man-made one. The town of Yuma is not far away for those that might have some reason to go there. The weather today was clear and pretty hot but the humidity is zilch so if you stay out of the withering sun, the conditions are quite pleasant.
We have been hauling a satellite receiver for Dish TV with us for 16 months but today was the first time we tried to hook it up. It was the usual first time headaches but by evening, we succeeded in getting the thing to work although we are thoroughly confused about what to do with it. Changing channels was about the only thing we mastered. Dish has elected to call channels from their satellites by different names than anyone else so NBCSC is NBCSP on Dish’s guide. We will eventually figure out the mysteries associated with this new form of TV reception but I think progress will be unremarkable.

Today we went about 25 miles south on AZ-85 to Organ Pipe National Monument. The monument is named for a distinctive type of cactus that grows only there on this side of the border. There are lots of them in Mexico, specifically in the area referred to as the Sonoran Desert.
We started at the visitor center where we picked up some maps and bought some of the national park / monument postcards we have decorated the Invader’s innards with before we watched a short movie about the area. After a short stop at the restrooms (at our age, passing available restrooms is unwise), we hopped back into Charlotte for spin on Ajo Mountain Drive, a 21-mile loop road through the monument. As soon as we left AZ-85, the road turned to dirt and gravel and sometimes big stones. Fortunately, not many folks use this one-way road so the only vehicle we saw during our exploration was one Ranger vehicle. We went very slowly because the road is crummy and the scenery is spectacular.
At the beginning, we saw few organ pipe cacti but as we continued more and more were visible from the truck. The flora in this place has to be very tenacious because this is a very harsh land and does not suffer fools. Without a couple gallons of water, humans are going nowhere and will soon die. All the plants have rotten taste or chemical defenses or very nasty spines or a combination of the three. Other than cacti, there are palo verde trees (no leaves most of the time), mesquite trees (nasty spines), ocotillos (very prickly) and some hardy flowering shrubs (shitty taste). The organ pipe cacti sort of look like saguaros without arms growing in clumps with pointy defenses.
We drove past 3 separate arches in the rock areas of the loop. We did not expect them, particularly the big one which must have been about 30 feet high and maybe 50 feet across with a big nothing in the middle. The terrain is tortured by the elements but is very unique and quite stunning. The loop road takes visitors through and around some small mountain ranges over surfaces that resist fast driving and it took us better than two hours to complete the loop.
This monument has some very pretty scenery but wandering away from the road is quite likely to be fatal either from dehydration or blood loss from wandering amongst the well-defended plants. Charlotte did a great job keeping us cool, traversing the terrain and getting us back out. This monument is adjacent to the U.S. / Mexico border so on the drive back to Ajo we got to stop at a Border Patrol checkpoint in the desert but we were sent on our way quite quickly.
This is a pretty extraordinary place but if I ever return, I would prefer to be riding in a very well armored 4 wheel drive to traverse the dirt monument roads. There are no paved roads here except the road to the monument campground. This area suffers from a substantial illegal immigration impact although it is hard to believe anybody would select this country to cross on their way anywhere. We did note where some folks have left water for the crossers, if they make it this far. The monument has signs warning visitors that human smuggling is prevalent here and to be aware of the dangers of encountering desperate folks, their guides, snakes, poisonous critters and treacherous terrain. We had a great time but I wouldn’t want to walk through this part of the world.

We bundled up our stuff and left Catalina State Park in Tucson. Tucson is an area Peggy and I both have come to enjoy, preferring it to the enormous concrete hell of Phoenix.
As we were finishing our departure routine, Peggy started waving her arms and giving me funny looks from her guard post at the back of the trailer. I bailed out of the truck cab and hustled back to the rear of the trailer to see what was making her so excited. Sure enough – there was an enormous spider climbing up the back of our trailer’s rear window. It wasn’t a tarantula but it was bigger than some tarantulas I have seen before. One good thwack and he was on the ground near the trailer proceeding with his frightening endeavors. We do not allow hitchhikers to ride with us.
We drove west on Tangerine Road for about 10 miles and then turned northwest on I-10 back toward Phoenix. About 35 miles later, we turned west on I-8 back toward San Diego and our former home. We continued on I-8 for a bit more than an hour before turning south on AZ-85 toward the bustling metropolis of Ajo, population about 3,000. AZ-85 passes through what must be a terribly bleak wasteland when it is dry but recent rains have made the area into a very green wonderland rivalling southern California where they cheat nature and use irrigation to transform that ugly portion of the world into a garden, albeit a parched one.
After about an hour on AZ-85, we pulled off at the Ajo Heights RV Park which is much nicer than I expected. The grounds are beautifully landscaped, the wi-fi works, they offer free cable TV, the spaces are large with full hookups, roads within the small park are very well maintained and the folks greeting us were very nice. We came here to see Organ Pipe National Monument, a cactus garden that is still about 35 miles further south.
It is a bit too warm for me outside and hooking up the trailer generated some sweat so I hustled until I could get on the shady side of the Invader and get some respite from the incinerating rays of the sun. We will go to Organ Pipe tomorrow, hopefully early so we can miss some of the benefits of the midday weather. There are lots of birds here.

Our destination for today was a small private botanical park right in the midst of the city named Tohono Chul. We went there last January when we passed through Tucson and felt compelled to return. This is one of our favorite places even though it is situated in an urban area. The park is just gorgeous with a variety of desert environments accessible by paved and gravel pathways.
We started in their hummingbird garden after we discovered that passage through both the facility gift shop and restaurant was required to get there. We cozied up on a bench and watched the birds and particularly the butterflies as they flew between the flowering plants looking for the good stuff. There are also a couple varieties of small lizards living in the garden. They were cute.
We continued through the Children’s Ramada, a colonial courtyard with some outdoor sculptures, the Children’s Garden, an ethnobotanical garden, a sinagua garden (sinagua in Spanish means “without water”), a butterfly garden which was just spectacular, a tortoise enclosure, a riparian section with nice benches along the stream, some performance gardens and a cactus and succulent garden before calling it a day and heading for the exit.
On the way back to the gate, I decided to have a seat on a nice bench shaded by an enormous mesquite tree amidst the gorgeous desert flora and fauna. Pretty soon after sitting down I noted some rather nasty insects that were not pleased with my seat selection and they attacked. The foul yellow jackets only stung me a couple times before I finished a quite athletic dance complete with spastic flailing, shirt wiggling and head slapping motions culminating in a quick exit down the path and away from the miserable little bastards.
We left the park and drove down the road to a Home Depot where we blocked traffic and got a propane bottle refill for the barbecue. After a short fuel stop, we headed back to the Invader for the evening. Sunsets here are pretty grand. We leave tomorrow for Ajo, AZ, near Organ Pipe National Monument.