Heading to the Ocean!!!

9 September

After publishing the last blog we had a shop and fuel up and headed east again along the I-15. Our next destination is The Valley of Fire, a Nevada State Park about 50 miles east of Las Vegas. This a beautiful park, really isolated from the hurly burly of Las Vegas. It is an area of red rock formations. We are in a great camp with power, and the rocks all around us. Later in the day we cycled down to some petroglyphs (ancient graffiti) and some great rock formations.

10 September

We drove to the visitors centre and after a look around continued into the valley. The road ends in 5 miles and we walked about 4 miles thru great rock formations in all sorts of colours from white, gray, purple, pink, bright red and copper. There were even a couple of nice “slot” canyons. This is a nice little state park which has many of the features of the bigger National Parks. (Arches, Bryce etc) There are lots of hired RVs here mostly with European people. We think that they pick the rental RVs up in Las Vegas and this is their first stop.

11 September

Another rainy start to the day but we had breakfast outside under our awning. We headed the short distance to Lake Mead. This is a huge lake formed by the Hoover Dam. We camped at Echo Bay. It is all very weird. The lake has dropped about 80 vertical feet some time ago and everything is high and dry. There is a resort hotel which would have been on the lake shore which is now ½ a mile away. There is also a floating marina which has been towed so far out into the bay it is now virtually blocking the bay entrance. The boat ramp has been extended many times! As it is overcast the whole place has a deserted gloomy feel.

12 September

Down the lake shore road for 50 miles to the Hoover Dam. After having “Ernie” searched for explosives we headed onto the dam and across it to a parking area. The dam was built in 1935 and is now a huge tourist attraction. We walked back across the dam to the visitors centre and some statues. The centre of the dam is the state border between Nevada and Arizona. It is quite awe inspiring looking over both sides of the dam. After lunch at “Ernie” we drove back across the dam and up to the new bridge downstream from the dam. This was

completed in 2010 and has a walkway which gives a great view of the dam. It is hard to imagine the huge amount of traffic on the Interstate crossing the dam before the new bridge was in use. We drove back to our camp at Boulder Beach. It was a beautiful sunny day and you would not believe Lake Mead could look so different. We cycled down to the lakes edge for a great swim in the clear warm water.

13 September

This is a relocating day. We drove a mixture of multi lane highways, and back country roads including the old route 66 towards Joshua Tree National Park. Our plan was to overnight at one of the many small towns on the route. Unfortunately they were all abandoned. We ate lunch at Amboy. This town is on our map of the USA but in reality is only a petrol station and a diner. We decided to carry on to the National Park but found that the road had been closed by flash floods and had to continue on another 20

miles to the only road open into the N.P. We eventually found our camp at Hidden Valley 15 miles into the park. It was getting quite late in the afternoon and we quickly took one of the only flat sites for an RV. The views are spectular. We are camped among huge cream coloured boulders set off by Joshua Trees. We will stay here a couple of nights.

14 September

We are around 4000ft again so it is nice and cool at night. We rode about 8 miles thru the Joshua Trees to a trail head. The walk was about 4 miles return to the old abandoned Lost Horse gold mine and stamp. It was a really nice gentle climb with great views. The Joshua Trees are really unusual. They are actually huge Yuccas and grow into weird shapes. The Mormons called them Joshua as they looked like the Old

Testament prophet beckoning them. It was a nice down hill ride back to our camp. We watched 4 guys rock climb a crack on a huge slab in front of us which inspired us to climb a big rock behind us for some views. In the cool of the evening we took another bike ride and short walk.

15 September

We had planned to drive to the other end to the N.P. and spent a night there but unfortunately the road to the camp was closed by the flash floods. Before we left the N.P. we walked thru an area of Teddy Bear Cholla.

The lighting was great for these interesting cacti. We continued on to a state park at Salton Sea. This vast, shallow, salty lake is at 228ft below sea level. We thought only Death Valley had that distinction. Like Death Valley it is really hot (around 108F) and we have the aircon running. We hoped for a swim but the water is foul so we are in the shade or inside. This is obviously a winter resort!!

16 September

We went to a town called Mecca to stock up but we were the only people speaking English. And there was only take-away food. It was a little bit of Mexico. Down the side of the Salton Sea and then west into the desert. The camp we had looked at for an overnight stop was 15 miles up a side road into the desert and as we were still below sea level and therefore bloody hot we decide to continue into the mountains.

We eventually found a great state park camp at Lake Cuyamaca where we had a great view over a mountain lake at 4600ft. We had a cool night and slept well. Sleeping with the aircon on is not great as the air dries out and you get the dry horrors.

17 September

As we are only 50 miles from San Diego we drove on to our camp. On the way we tried to shop but ended up in the wrong style of Wal-Mart. They have various types of shops but our GPS does not know the difference. This one had no fresh fruit/veg and no meat. More importantly no WINE. We are at a basic RV park on Mission Bay close to the city. After lunch we cycled a great path around Mission Bay

passing beautiful beaches, apartments and houses and the huge Sea World complex. We got lost a couple of times but eventually arrived back at our camp after about 12 mile ride. We have been away from the sea for nearly 6 months. It was great to feel the ocean breeze again. There is a lot to do in San Diego and we will stay here for 5 nights.

18 September

We set off to explore the city of San Diego. First a walk to the bus stop, a ride to the transfer station and then a trip in the tram into the city. We bought a 24 hour pass for $5 each so not too bad for price. We got off the tram near Petco Park where we bought Baseball tickets for Friday night. The San Diego Padres are playing the L.A. Dodgers. We found a bar and they put the Americas Cup on a TV for us. The barman was fascinated by the event as he knew nothing about it. Unfortunately we missed the first race that Team NZ won and only saw the second until it was blown off with Team NZ in the lead.

Back on the tram to a stop near the USS Midway. This is an aircraft carrier in use thru the Vietnam War period. You pick up an audio device and can tour the whole ship including the engine room, bridge and flight deck. It was fascinating. When you stand on the landing deck and look along its length it must have been hairy trying to land on it.

There are old pilots giving talks on the landings and takeoffs. The takeoff deck and the catapult systems were also great. They only had less than 100m to take off in! We walked along the water front passed some old sailing ships and submarines and then caught the tram and the bus back to “Ernie”. We were a bit leg weary. Funny that we can walk for miles along tracks but flag on city streets.

19 September.

As we had had no luck grocery shopping a couple of days ago we had to drive to the nearest supermarket. We found a good one quite close to the camp. We spent some time trying to follow the Americas Cup on the internet with no luck. We had to settle on written updates. Radio New Zealand has changed its live online coverage and we can no longer get it. Very frustrating!! This camp has its own beach on Mission Bay and we walked down for a swim and a sit in the sun. In the evening we went for a short bike ride to explore the large camping ground in the next bay. (research for Nicola and Gary’s trip).

20 September

After a great American brunch (eggs, pancakes and bacon) we caught the bus to Old Town San Diego and walked around this area. It was mostly Mexican shops and the early sites. Back on the Trolley and into Downtown where were found a bar but were frustrated by the Americas Cup race which Team NZ missed out on winning by one leg, due to the time thing! Back on another bus (these all day passes are great) and up to Balboa Park, an area of museums and exhibitions where there was the largest model train in the USA.

It was basically 4 model railway clubs that had combined to present different gauge layouts. Some of the layouts were a bit disappointing but there were a couple of great layouts depicting famous sections of the US rail network. We walked and bussed to The GasLamp Quarter where all the bars restaurants and night life are. The old architecture of the buildings in this area was great art deco and we walked up and down and eventually settled on a bar and enjoyed a wine watching the passing traffic.

At around 6pm we walked the short distance to the Petco Park, the baseball stadium. What a site! It is in the middle of town and holds about 50,000. We found our seats 4 stories up between home and 1st plate. The crowd built up and the atmosphere was great as the two teams (The Padres, local and the Dodgers from LA) had about the same amount of support. The Padres won 2 – nil, a bit of a nail biter at the end! Back on a crowded trolley and the bus to camp.

21 September

After a lazy morning we cycled around Mission Bay to Pacific Beach. As it was Saturday people were picnicking in large groups all around the whole bay area. This beautiful bay is truly the playground of San Diego.

There was a refreshing ocean breeze at Pacific Beach. The bay and the beach are separated by a narrow strip of land with older holiday homes. The beach reminded us of all the Beach Boys songs 

with many people swimming, surfing, playing volleyball and generally having a good time. There was a lot of weed in the water making the swimming less than perfect. On our ride home we passed 2 weddings set up overlooking the bay. In the evening we met Brenda and Daryl Gates from Waikanae. They had bought an RV 2 years ago and gave us some great advice. We will publish this tomorrow before heading north up the coast towards Los Angeles. This will be the second last blog!