One week on the road

Tonight we're in Lone Pine, California.    We'll be here for a week and have lots to see and do.   A few familiar stops and some new ones too.

another windy day in Lone Pine

 

Mt. Whitney with the Alabama Hills in the foreground

 

We left home last Wednesday after delaying our departure by one day due to high winds and heat.    We also changed our initial route a bit and skipped the first two nights at Burro Creek BLM campsite because of those high winds and extreme fire danger.     Flexibility is the name of the game, especially during fickle spring weather.

Needles Elks Lodge

We stopped at the Needles, California Elks Lodge for one night (Wednesday)  but it turned into three, again, because of high winds.    Their 6 site campground was pleasant, clean, quiet and very inexpensive with full hook ups so it was no hardship!

The first day we wanted to get down to the river.   It seems we always find our way to some body of water but, in Needles it seemed that access is either restricted to private homes or  at a few small fee areas.    Friday we had to find a grocery store, other than a tiny and very run down Bi-Rite market, so we headed into nearby Fort Mohave.    The river was maddeningly close, again, so this time we just turned down a dirt road heading in the right direction.     Success!

 Our road ran right down to the river and turned to run along it in both directions!   We found quite a few spots to access the shoreline and spent some nice time dawdling along next to the fast moving river.    An unhappy and very vocal Kildeer tried to lead us away from her recently hatched chicks but we ignored her.   The tiny babies raced along in front of us at every turn.    

On our way back to Beluga we came acrosss a marshy area and stopped to bird watch for awhile.

Saturday morning we pulled up stakes and continued west to another Elks Lodge in Ridgecrest, California on U.S. route 395.      The Lodge had lots of full hook up spaces available and we selected a 50 amp site and settled in for the night.    We had planned a three night stay so we could check out two nearby places of interest but, because of our wind delays we only had one full day to explore.

We chose Red Rock Canyon State Park and left the Trona Pinnacles for another visit.    We stopped at the Visitor's Center before trying to see any of the Park's sites but were very disappointed.   The Ranger on duty was busy reading her paperback novel and didn't seem to have any interest in anything other than collecting the senior fee of $5 and shoving a map in our direction.    The map was about as much help as the Ranger was, it's scale was way off and the illustrations were more cartoonish than accurate.   After a few turn arounds, and "was that the turn?" and "there's no road here!" exclamations, we decided to just wing it.     We always find the best things when we just bumble along.    Here are some the sights we saw along our exploration......

the pinks were Pepto Bismol ish!

There was lots more to see and oh so many dirt roads to explore....we'll definitely plan another trip back.

We're all finally getting our travel legs.    We haven't lived in this "house" for six months and we all are having to readjust to where things are and how we do things and why we do things.     How to work these TVs, (and where the remotes are!) how to check the weather ahead and to remember to turn off the water when we leave for the day and where do we keep the gin and which ball is our favorite.....

yellow!  It's the yellow one!

And....do we sleep on the floor in the bedroom or on the couch?   It's exhausting.....

Zzzzzzzz