Travel to Escapade, 5/5/14

Day 3 - Monday, May 5, 2014
Utah to Wyoming

We continued traveling on I-80 into Utah.  The Bonneville Salt Flats are near the western entrance into Utah.  This is an amazing site.

The actual Bonneville Raceway is located far off the highway back closer to the mountains. We did not go there.  There is an observation area at the rest area near the beginning of the approximate 50 mile long section of the highway that passes through the salt flats.  Here is a photo of the salt flats taken from that observation tower.  All of the white area in front of the mountains is salt.

 This is our trailer at the rest area.  The salt is everywhere that is not covered with asphalt.

 

This gives you an idea of what that 50 +/- miles looked like.  Pretty boring and white, huh?

 

 

There were a couple things, to break the monotony, that you won't see anywhere else. 

 

















How many times have you seen an 80 MPH speed limit?  The tree with Christmas balls on it are actually microwave and communication antennas in disguise. 

As we neared the eastern side of the salt flats, we saw several salt processing plants.  The salt is piled so high that it towers over trucks and buildings.  THAT'S A LOT OF SALT!!!

Next along our route was the Great Salt Lake.  It is difficult to see because we had a very cloudy day, so everything had a blue hew, and the road is just about level with the lake, but the bluish color at the base of the mountains is the salt water lake with some areas of salt where the water has evaporated along the shore.

There is a copper smelting company along the highway west of Salt Lake City.  It is so huge that it took two photos to show how big it is.  The stack in each picture is the same one, just to give you a perspective.

We do not like to take I-80 through Salt Lake City because there is a very long steep hill going out to the east.  Instead, we go around on the western side and north of the city to get to I-84 east then meet up with I-80 after that hill.  There was a rock formation along side of I-84 that was called Devil's Slide.  I think it looked like a child's slide only made of rock and very long.

Not far past this formation, on I-84, there was a dramatic change in the terrain.  First there were these outcroppings.  Then we went around a curve.

When we got around the curve, this is what we saw.  I can't even imagine what sort of earthquake or other force caused the mountain to be tipped on its side like this.

After we got back on I-80, we completed traversing Utah and entered Wyoming.  When we got into the Green River area, the terrain changed again.  Now we saw very definite layers of sediment which were white on the bottom and brown on top.

There were more tunnels to go through with many layers of rock above the tunnels. 

 Then, on the other side of the tunnel, we saw these formations.

 

Shortly after this, We arrived at our campsite for the night.  We will continue traveling tomorrow.

 

 



Travel to Escapade, 5/4/14

Day 2, Sunday, May 4, 2014
Nevada

This morning, when we stepped out of our trailer, we could see some traces of snow on the distant mountains.  Here you can see our campsite for last night.

We were driving through the high desert of Nevada and I thought it was so interesting to see how the mountains seemed to rise from nowhere, right out of the flat land.  Look closely at the top of this mountain.  (By the way, for anyone who may not know, if you click on any of the photos in my post, you will see a slide show of all of the photos in that post and they will be much larger.)

Here is what I discovered, when I was editing my photos from today.   It seems that there were some radar antennas as well as other antennas perched on top of the mountain.

 I liked the different shades of green that made a colorful design on this mountainside.

We had a tunnel to go through as we traversed Nevada on I-80.  There are actually four tunnels - one for each direction of the freeway and one for each direction of the railway. 

We entered the tunnel.

This is what was on the other side.  There was a lot of construction going on.  and the mountainside was interesting with its strips of brown and green.

I think this is the most snow coverage that we have seen so far on this trip.  Again, the mountains seem to come out of nowhere.

We are camped for the night.  Tomorrow is another travel day.  As we go into Utah right at the beginning of our drive, we will change to Mountain Daylight Time from Pacific Time.

Travel to Escapade, 5/3/14

Day 1 - Saturday, May 3, 2014
California

We are embarking on our longest vacation ever, for us.  We left home today and traveled through the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California and into Nevada.  California has been in a severe drought for the past several years.  The snow pack, that we depend on to store water for summer use as it melts in the mountains and runs down rivers to supply water to the low lands and reservoirs, was only at 19 % of average for this time of year.  Some areas that they use every year to measure the snow pack and water content of that snow, had no snow at all. 

 As you can see, there is very little snow on these mountains near the town of Cisco Grove, CA.  As we continued on to the Donner Pass, high point on I-80 in CA, there was more snow, but usually it would be deeper than this and even deeper as we continued up in elevation. 

We stopped at the Donner Summit rest area and saw the following.

These castle peaks were across from where we parked in the rest area. 

This pond was the result of melting snow at the rest area.  Very beautiful anyway.  This was the deepest that we saw.

As we were heading further east on I-80, we notices a line on the mountain side.  It was the snow sheds that were built to protect the railroad tracks from all of the snow that would fall and tumble down onto the tracks.  The sheds formed a "tunnel" where the trains could have a chance to make safe passage and keep commerce flowing from coast to coast in the winter.

This is a close up of the snow sheds.  They run for miles and miles.

Here is Donner Lake. 

 

All of the "Donner" names are in tribute to the Donner Party, a group of pioneers, who were caught in an early snow storm in the winter of 1846-47.  Only 48 of the 87 people survived the winter in the mountains near here.

 

Here were some interesting cloud formations that we saw.  The sunset was not very colorful tonight.

That was the first day of travel.  Tomorrow we will continue along I-80 on our way to Indiana and the Escapees Escapade.


Quartzsite, AZ January 2014

Heading Home from Quartzsite
Thurs., Jan. 30 - Sat., Feb. 1

We were planning to leave Quartzsite this morning, but the wind has come up quite strong.  Strong enough to rock the trailer more than we want to handle on the highway, so we have decided to spend another night in Quartzsite.  We'll make it home in two days.  No need to go on the road in this weather.  Tomorrow will probably be calmer. 

I haven't posted any sunset photos recently, so these are samples from the last three or four days.  

This sunset made everything look so pink!



 

This is a view looking to the east, away from the setting sun.  This is not our trailer, but one in our group of friends.

On another evening, I was able to get some of the desert plants silhouetted against the sunset.

It's Friday morning and it is much calmer and nice and warm.  We will start on the way home.

We made it as far as Bakersfield, CA  and stayed at Orange Grove RV Park.  We have stayed here before at this time of year and it is always a treat.  You see, as the name suggests, this RV park is built in an orange grove and the oranges are ripe at this time of year.

I like the way they trim the trees behind the wall.

Our campsite surrounded by orange trees.

The owners are kind enough to let their customers pick oranges in certain areas of the orange grove.  This year was very hard on the orange groves.  There were many very cold nights and there was hardly any rain.  The fruit and trees had a lot of frost damage.  Many of the lower areas of the trees have been picked bare of oranges, but there are still enough for us.  The owners have fruit pickers that they loan out to the campers so we can get oranges off of the higher branches, as we demonstrate on Saturday morning before we leave on the last leg of our trip home. 

That was fun!  I don't know what variety the oranges are, but they are just as flavorful and juicy as what we have picked here on our previous visits.

We made it home in the early evening and now are home until our next adventure.




Quartzsite, AZ January 2014

Road Runner BLM Campground
Exploring the Quartzsite Area
Tue., Jan. 28 - Thur., Jan. 30

The weather is continuing to be really nice.  We wanted to go geocaching while we were here, so we picked the Grizzly Trail series.  For those who don't know what geocaching is, it is sort of a treasure hunt where people hide containers (caches) then, using GPS coordinates, you try to find what was hidden.  We found all 22 of the caches in this series, over a two day period.  We enjoyed this series because the owners were more creative than some who place series, especially those in the desert.

 We found caches in cacti.

Under rocks.  The theme of this series, the Grizzly Trail, was carried out in the containers used for the caches.

 And in dead tree stumps or branches and bushes.  You have to look closely to see that there is a cache in here.

Geocaching gets us into areas that we might not have gone to otherwise.  Often there are interesting sights along the way, as well.  For instance, Kofa National Wildlife Refuge is a huge area that has been set aside to protect desert big horn sheep, Sonoran pronghorn and other animals of the desert, as well as plants native to the area like the fan palms in Palm Canyon.  We did not have time to explore the refuge in depth, however, the last three geocaches of the series were located along the first couple miles of the main road inside the refuge.  One was very close to this sign.

The cacti that you see below are called cholla (pronounced choya).  The fruits/blossoms are forming at the ends of the segments of new growth.

Below, Earl is searching for a geocache in the cactus in the background while I am trying to get a good picture of some desert plants.  See the little oval shaped balls below this cholla?  This type of cholla is known as "jumping cholla" because they are so prickly that they easily attach themselves to whatever may accidently brush up against them.  It doesn't take much to break off one of the segments, in fact, one time we were out on a hike and I got too close to one that attached to the back of my hiking boot or pants leg.  I didn't notice it until I was back at camp and moved in some way that made it dig into the back of my leg. OOOWWW!!!  We were able to get it detached, but it was a painful process.  Of course you can't just grab it and pull it off.  If you did, it would be attached to your hand, then there would be more pain.  We learned to give this type of cactus a wide berth.

After we got our geocaching done for this trip, Earl worked on setting up a Ham Radio station at the trailer.  We were at Quartzfest, here, all of last week and used the hand held radio, but now there was more time to get things set up in a more leisurely fashion.  We had not established a plan for using the bigger radios when we are out and about in the trailer, so Earl was able to work on that without the distractions of seminars and everything else that was happening during Quartzfest.  Bob helped with setting up and tuning the antenna seen above the back of out trailer.  It looks like a very thin "T".  The other smaller antenna at the front of the trailer is for the TV.

Bob and Earl tuning the antenna

After everything was adjusted and tested to see that it worked properly, Earl got on the air and made contact with a guy in Iowa, the first contact with this radio and the first time for a long time that he has done any long distance radio communication.  Now we have a plan for our mobile "Ham Shack". 

We plan to leave tomorrow, Thursday, so we have to pack up and get in travel mode again.





 

Quartzsite, AZ January 2014

Road Runner BLM Campground
Exploring the Quartzsite Area
Sun., Jan. 26 - Tue., Jan. 28

Quartzfest is finished.  Many people are leaving, so our section of the desert is becoming sparsely populated.  We and some of our friends are going to stay here for a few more days and do some things that we haven't had time to do earlier.

The first order of business that we need to take care of is to get the trailer cleaned up, organized and resupplied.  We have been out for about two weeks and at this location for over a week, so it is time.   Since Quartzsite is a seasonal town made up of "snowbirds" who winter here mostly in their self contained RVs without hookups to water, electric and sewer, those holding tanks must eventually be emptied and fresh water tanks refilled as well as refilling the propane tanks that are used to heat water, cook and warm the "house".  Now I usually do not talk about the everyday maintenance that we do while on the road, but Quartzsite has what we think is a unique answer to this task.  It is a one stop location where you can take care of everything in one spot and reasonably quickly.  It's called the ...

As you can see, they even have a website.  Here we are at the first station filling our fresh water tank.  The attendant has collected our money according to what services we need, a note is placed on our windshield so that other attendants can guide us to where we need to go.  We actually fill our own tanks, so we know that we get a full amount of water to fill up to the top.

You can see that the line forms on both sides of the water station.  While we were filling the water, I took a photo of the propane station.  They do fill those propane bottles for you.  It is a little more tricky and dangerous than water.

After we finished filling the water, we were guided to the line for dumping our holding tanks.  It was very busy at the time we went, so we had to wait in line while others dumped.

Our truck is directly behind the Road Warrior trailer the vehicles in the background are in lines for water, propane and the dump station.  The attendant in pink has quite a job directing all of the motorhomes and trailers as well as folks who may just bring water jugs or propane bottles to fill.  Well, it finally became our turn at the dump station.  Like the water and propane stations, both sides are put to use.  We do this job too, so we know that it is done like we want.

That job is done, so now we will head back to our campsite and settle in for a few more days, confident that we will be OK for at least another week.

 

Along the same lines, one of the Laundromats in town has another useful service that they offer.  They provide private showers for a fee.  We use them so we don't fill up our waste water tank with bath water.  Plus, we can take a more leisurely shower than the quick one we take in the trailer.  It is a whole different world in Quartzsite.

 

Quartzsite is an interesting town in other ways, too.  Many of the temporary winter residents open businesses that are there in the snowbird season only.  That includes restaurants and shops as well as the multitude of  flea market type stands that do resale of purchased products, others display crafts of all sorts that the occupants have been working on specifically to sell at Quartzsite.  Some have specialized food items.  We went into town to see what was available, one day.  This is a sample of what we found .  Places to buy clothing, kites, jewelry, food staples, RV supplies and accessories, rocks and beads of al types and sizes, food of all kinds to eat and much more.

Our favorite hardware outlet.

If your doggie needs to have some dental work done, here is the place to go.  You can see some of the other booths nearby.

There is even a drugstore for over the counter items that you may need.  There was a "grocery store" among the booths, but you need to beware.  What we saw there was recently expired boxes of cereal and other boxed products. 

There are permanent grocery stores, gas stations and restaurants with delicious food, etc.  The bottom line is that you can find just about anything that you need, want or didn't know that you just had to have, in Quartzsite.  It is very interesting to walk around just to see what is out there.  Everything from top quality to cheaply made items and very expensive to bargain basement prices.  Buyer beware .

We enjoy going to Quartzsite.  In the next post I will tell about what else we did during our extra days of camping.