A Full-time Life

SALVATION MOUNTAIN AND SLAB CITY, 2007-08

Niland is the closest town to Fountain of Youth.  It was our mailing address, but it's actually about 20 miles from the resort.   Hitch-hikers and boondockers (RVers who park out in the desert for free) know Niland (which is a tiny, dusty little village) as the "gateway" to Slab City, the former WWII Camp Dunlap.  The camp was used by General Patton for tank and desert warfare practice.  The land has been used by squatters ever since the camp was closed after that war ended.

Seasonal snowbirds (often  in high-end motor homes) and full-time desert dwellers in junk-yard rejects reside next to each other on the crumbling concrete.  There's no running water or electricity.  One article I read described Slab City as "post-apocalyptic."  This kind of snow-birding isn't for us, but some RVers really enjoy it.  The picture on the right is one of the "buildings" It doesn't give the full impact.  This is one of those you really have to see it to believe it places.

Even before you reach Slab City off of the dusty back road from Niland, you can see Salvation Mountain, also on the old Camp Dunlap property (and also "squatting" there for free).  It's a surreal, technicolor mountain, built by one man who has a kind of singular purpose that is incomprehensible to most of us.  Leonard Knight is 74 years old and has been living and working out here for almost 25 years.   The Mountain is the height of a three-story building and is a couple hundred feet wide (so far).  It looks like a 3-D vision from an odd coloring book, standing up there out in the middle of the flat scrub land.

We always like it when we get the opportunity to meet local "characters" and Leonard is certainly one of the most interesting and eccentric ever.  He says that the Mountain is his testimony to God's universal love.  We aren't capable of judging the Christian merits of the project (nor would we want to try).  We just admire it as folk-art. 

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And we really enjoyed visiting with Leonard and getting a glimpse into his very different world.  Leonard didn't do any proselytizing or preaching to us (probably recognizing that it wouldn't do much good.)   He and Bill talked about how to make adobe and discussed the finer points of mountain construction.  We talked about travel (he is originally from Vermont).  And just told him that we admired his work. 

He has built the mountain mostly with donated paint and adobe that he makes from the soil of the desert. 

Right now, he is expanding the dome that he calls his museum.  He has piled up tractor tires with poles and limbs that he found out on the desert to make "trees" that help support the hay bales that form the dome.  He coats everything with adobe, forming a smooth coat on the hay and giving texture to the trees and flowers.   We asked if he was a little bit afraid working up so high in the "trees".  He said the they rose up so gradually that, by the time he got up so high, he was used to it.

Leonard sleeps in one or another of the several inoperable vehicles that are parked beside the mountain.  You can see one of them in the picture on the left. 

We've driven the 25 miles to look at the Mountain each time we've stayed at Fountain of Youth.  Leonard said he is getting quite a few more visitors these days because he and Salvation Mountain are briefly featured in the book and movie "Into the Wild."  (He wasn't sure what the movie was about, but he said the film-makers were really nice people.)  Nobody else was there on the weekday morning we went, but as we left, about 10 other people stopped by. 

He has just finished creating a miniature version of the Mountain, which is going to go into the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore.   

This is the outside of the dome, with window panes from scrounged glass.  You can see one of his work areas.

Anyone who enjoys seeing things that are out-of-the-ordinary and meeting people who are one-of-a-kind would enjoy a visit to Salvation Mountain and Slab City.

FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 2007-2008

We have stayed several different times at Fountain of Youth RV resort. near Niland, CA. and the Salton Sea.    FOY (as it is known) is a gated RV resort in the middle of a salty desert.  There is a lot of friendly energy here, even though the "Fountain of Youth" part doesn't exactly seem to be working (we are still at least middle-aged and so are most of the people here).  There are enough activities within the resort to keep you as busy as you want to be.  These include two large swimming pools, six hot tubs (some fed with mineral springs), game areas (outdoor and indoor), planned activities and entertainment, and even a convenience store and cafe. The FOY website shows off all of the pools and in-park activities much better than our pictures could. http://www.foyspa.com

We've never stayed a full season, because the resort is a bit isolated.  Although there's a little convenience store at the resort, you have to drive an hour to either El Centro or (the other way) to the Palm Springs area to shop at any kind of larger store.  This year, we stayed a month.  We had a nice view of the Chocolate Mountains out our window.  We enjoyed swimming and soaking, water aerobics, the exercise room, playing games and visiting with our neighbors.

But even when we're living in a resort, we enjoy exploring the surrounding area.  Here are a few of the things we have gone to see in the area. (Click to enlarge)

A convention of pelicans on the Salton Sea and a view of the sea and mountains from the shores of the nearby State Park.   Although the resort is isolated, its advantage is that is the only place where you get the winter-time benefits of desert living and also be close to the excellent birding area that is the Salton Sea. 

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There is geothermal activity all around this area.  These boiling mud pots are just out in a farmer's field.  People are neither encouraged nor discouraged from visiting.  There are no keep-out signs or fences, but neither are there any signs pointing the way.  It's kind of an explorer's badge of honor to find them.   

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The Glamis Sand Dunes, about 40 miles southeast.  High rolling dunes as far as the eye can see.  Highway-type snowplows are stationed at frequent intervals to keep the windblown sand off the roads.  There's a fortune in rolling stock parked out there every weekend.  There's a common dune    buggy hauler bumper sticker that says "It's a sand thing.  You wouldn't understand."     Yes, exactly.

This is really the low desert.  You can see the sea-level mark on this huge tank is at a sugar factory on the highway toward El Centro. There is a huge pile of sugar behind these tanks, just out in the weather.  It's almost enough to make you give up desserts.

FALL/WINTER 2007-2008

During the past few years, we've traveled fairly heavily in the Fall and then settled down in one spot for a few months during the Winter season.  This year, we have itchy feet and plan to do doing things a little bit different by staying a few weeks or a month in one location and then moving on.  Here's where we stayed from mid-November to mid-December. 

Winchester Bay RV Resort -- on the beautiful Central Coast.  This is the view we had from our window.  Situated between Reedsport and Coos Bay, this little park is only 100 miles away from the Eugene area and was our transition spot for 10 days after our visit with family and friends in the Northwest (as always wonderful and too short).   We've stayed in this park quite often (even back before we sold our house) and have always loved it. 

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On the way from our stay at Winchester Bay, we stopped for a weekend in Brookings, which is supposed to be the Banana Belt of the Oregon Coast.  Not this time though.  We experienced two days of the worst downpour ever, ever.  At least it was a good reminder of why we sold the house and why we don't want to be in Oregon during the winter.  We are so tired of rain!

And so we were really glad to get to California -- it seemed like just as we crossed the stateline the sun came out.   Getting to our destination, RiverWalk RV Park in Fortuna, we drove through the Redwood State and National Parks.  Beautiful -- hard to get good pictures.

RiverWalk RV Park http://www.riverwalkrvpark.com  is situated across a quiet street from the Eel River and there's a lovely walking path along the bank.   Fortuna is just a few miles inland from the coastal towns of Eureka/Arcata, which we've always loved.  Birding is wonderful in this area.  There are lots of easy-to-get-to places to walk and explore along the beach and at the wonderful Arcata Marsh. 

There are a couple of colleges in the area, which we feel always adds a good vibe.   There are great little counter-culture shops, food stores and restaurants, but there are also good supermarkets and a mall, so we had all the usual necessities of life.  There was even a good brew-pub within walking distance of the RV Park. 

Lots of great places to explore in this area.  We drove along the Avenue of the Giants and marveled again at the ancient Redwood Trees that line this section of highway.  Stopped for some strolls in the forest along the way. 

We spent a couple of days browsing around the nearby town of Ferndale -- This Victorian town has a wonderful old general store with all kinds of old-fashioned merchandise that you never see anywhere else.  Also in the area is Loleta, an old farm town where there is a wonderful family-owned cheese making facility.  You can watch the cheese being made, sample to your heart's content, and, of course, buy some of your favorite varieties. 

We drove a few miles to visit Trinidad (it's the village that "played" Cabot's Cove Maine in the old Angela Lansbury series Murder She Wrote).  We walked on the beach and had coffee in a funky little shop.  The commercial crab season was beginning the next day so we walked out onto the docks and watched the fisherman loading the boats and getting ready to go out.   We used to take our little boat out into Winchester Bay to do a bit of crabbing for fun.  But here on Humboldt Bay, the ocean is a little bit wilder, at the best of circumstances. A heavy storm moved in a couple of days later.  I'm still worried about those crabbers.

Yes, just as we were almost beginning to think that Fortuna was the kind of area we could enjoy for a little longer, the rains arrived -- and with a vengeance.  This was that Pacific Northwest "storm of the century" that brought all kinds of problems to the coast.  We were situated just enough inland to be perfectly safe as long as we hunkered down inside.  We stayed until the storm lifted and then headed south.  Did I mention that we're tired of rain?

http://www.sommervillervpark.com   I wouldn't even try to begin to write about most parks where we we just stay overnight.  But Almond Tree Park in Coalinga is worth an exception.  We stumbled on it on our way south, the second night after we left the coast.  This park is right off the freeway, but was sheltered enough to be very quiet.  We got in about six (really late for us), but the manager was very helpful and found us a level pull-through spot.  On checking in, he gave us a couple of little post-it note type calendars for 2008.  I really like keeping these in our travel journals -- and they're hard to find.  In the morning, we found a free newspaper delivered to our door.  What could be nicer?  A highly recommended over-night spot. 

Here we are parked at Orange Grove RV Park, Bakersfield, where we arrived on the 7th of December.  http://www.orangegrovervpark.com

It's a lovely park and a perfect stopping place on the way to or from southern California -- we've stayed there many times through the years.  This time we spent a little longer than we might have wished.  While the park is lovely and well run (and the oranges are best we've ever tasted) the city of Bakersfield is not the most interesting one in California.  We had to get some work done on our heat pump/air conditioner and Bakersfield had a Camping World that could do the work.  So we stayed long enough to get an appointment and get the work done. 

It was sunny all the time we were there, but there's a haze of pollution.  Still it was great  fun to step out the door and pick oranges for our breakfast.   "Our" crop is at its peak and we even took a bowl-full with us when we left.  (The management really does encourage you to pick the fruit, even providing long-handled pickers once the reachable parts of the trees are bare.) 

We rented a small car for the last weekend we were in Bakersfield and took a side trip to Long Beach (about 150 miles) to visit my aunt and cousins.  We had  a wonderful visit and were lucky to be there the weekend of the Christmas boat parade along Naples Canal.  It was amazing to see the decorated boats and homes -- and we got to go to their parade-night party.  Lots of fun with great people and gorgeous decorations on the boats and in the neighborhood.

A short visit to Selma (2005)

For the winter season of 2004/05 we stayed on the Gulf Coast of Alabama.   We  saw some wonderful country on our way and had a great time while there.   (I'll do a post next month about the RV resort where we stayed and some of our very fun Alabama Gulf Coast adventures.)   

But watching current political news and "discussion" about who was actually responsible for voting rights legislation reminded me of an overnight sidetrip we made while our home was parked near Mobile.  We went to Selma because we wanted to see this place where so much civil rights history took place.   It was amazing to see "in person" ("in-place"?) the Edmund Pettis Bridge and the Little Brown Church, where the 40-mile March to Montgomery began.  Of course we had watched these events unfold as on the nightly news, but it really doesn't come close to standing on the spot where history happened.   

Below is one link for a quick overview of what happened on the three Selma to Montgomery marches.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/selma_to_montgomery_marches

The Bridge's location is obvious -- because you have to drive across it to get into town.  Whenever we go to any city or town, we go first to the visitor center for literature and directions.  But when we went to one in Selma we were given information only on the "white history" of the area (about the Civil War, cotton, agriculture etc.)  and met with a kind of polite evasion when we asked about the Little Brown Church and the MLK monument.  Apparently, the visitor center felt like the "Black History" was separate and apart.  Unbelievably sad in this day and age.       

So we walked around town and located the Church and the Monument on our own.  And, we found that there is a very interesting Voting Rights Museum quite near to the Bridge.  (No mention of this had been made at the visitor center.)

I wanted to hope that this attitude might have changed some since we were there, but fear it has not.  This morning, when I went to Google to check my memory, especially about the Museum (because we didn't take pictures in it) I found that the official Selma web page gives the museum -- and  indeed the whole Civil Rights/Voting rights issue  -- only the briefest of mentions.  The Museum has no official web-site.   

Anyway, once we located the Museum and went inside, we talked to Joann Bland, the museum founder. (I'm sure that she meets pretty much everybody who comes  -- and in any case there were hardly any other visitors at the time).  As a child, she was at Bloody Sunday, where her companion was wounded, and then she later marched to Montgomery. 

The museum's displays include a good overview film and still photos taken during the marches.  These pictures were actually taken by FBI agents who were keeping an eye on the participants -- the Museum obtained them under the Freedom of Information Act.  The room that I remember most clearly is the one full of shoe-casts of many of the participants in the March to Montgomery (from kids to grandparents).  There was something so poignant about seeing those feet and thinking about the miles they walked to support this cause, under circumstances I can barely imagine even after watching the news and seeing again the film and pictures.  These were just regular people willing to take a huge risk to get to do something we have always taken for granted.  While they certainly had a charismatic leader, nothing would have happened without these ordinary people.

This visit was so worth the time and effort .  Selma's definitely not a top tourist destination, but I feel like it should be.    Our country's history was changed here.  Anyone who has the chance should go.

LIST MANIA - THE NATIONAL PARKS

Geoff included a list of all of the National Parks in his comment on our Big Bend post.   And he is right -- to our surprise, we actually are on our way to seeing all of them.  Counting up, we found that we've visited over half (31 of 58).  This picture is from Joshua Tree NP.   We've talked to a lot of people who don't understand this park at all, but we love it for the serenity and the fanciful desert atmosphere. It's quite a little bit different from the Northwest. 

There are a few Parks we've missed, even in those states we've visited often.  And we really do want to take the Northern route to pick up Minnesota and North Dakota and the East Coast.  And then there's Alaska and Florida.  Not so coincidentally, since we're talking about lists, those states are among the dozen that we haven't "lived in" yet.  And then there are the ones in Hawaii and Samoa (probably not RV adventures, those last two). 

Some of the Parks we can "check off" we visited years ago on camping trips, but not since we started on our retirement RV travels. We'd like to go back to those again (as we did with Yellowstone a couple of trips ago).  It would be nice to have pictures too -- those earlier camping trips were definitely before the days of digital cameras (or any camera at all usually).   

So many beautiful places still to see (or to visit again), but how fortunate we are in the memories we have!   Here are just a very few of our favorite National Park pictures.

Canyonlands and Arches (that's Bill gazing out at the mesa landscape and Geoff with me at Keyhole arch -- he met us for a long weekend when we stayed near these two amazing parks.) We were on our way back to the Northwest from Texas in June of 2006.

                                                                       Saguaro National Park, near Tucson AZ - Winter 2005-06

                  

Yosemite, Spring 2004. 

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And below, with Geoff and Lisa, on the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park, on one of our trips to beautiful Colorado.

BIG BEND NATIONAL PARK, April 2006

It would be fun someday to say we'd visited all of our National Parks.   Even if we don't ever get to all of them, we are glad to have spent time in the most remote and least visited one in the lower 48 states.  This is Big Bend in southwest Texas.   There are 800,000 acres within the Park's boundaries.  The scenery provides wonderful contrasts.  It is in the Chihuahuan Desert, surrounded by the Chisos Mountains. 

The Rio Grande River forms an international boundary along the south edge of the park (for 118 miles).  The River is narrow and you can see Mexico on the other side.  We really hope that by the time our grandchildren get to visit the park they will still be able to see this view instead of a fence or wall.

We hiked down the spectacular Boquillas Canyon.  It's a narrow section formed by the River when it meandered through the desert eons ago. 

The river level was low when we were there and we easily explored the bottom of the canyon by foot. 

Before 9/11 there was a soft crossing here into the Mexican village of Boquillos Del Carmen.    Tourists could be ferried across the river and experience a bit of what was like to live in a remote village in Mexico.  That's no longer possible because of security concerns.  By road, the village is 100 miles from the nearest legal crossing to the US, so these changes have almost completely cut off the village's source of income other than subsistance farming.  While security is certainly a problem at some more metropolitan border cities (such as El Paso), it is hard to imagine how it could really be so serious way out here. 

Vendors still wade across when they can get away with it, keeping an eye out for Border Patrol.  The stand shown here is on the Mexican side of the river. We purchased these walking sticks.  Made from stalks of the sotol plant which grows wild everywhere, they are light and quite strong.

Humans have lived in the park area since prehistoric times.  The little dwelling in the picture below is called Luna's Jacal.  It is a rare remaining example of a building from the region's early settlement period.  Luna was a Mexican sheepherder and he and his wife raised a large family (10 or 11 children) in this house.  A jacal is a type of dwelling with upright posts chinked with mud.  It had a thick mud roof that kept it cool in the desert heat.  You can see that the roof is disintegrating.  This points out a major problem with all national parks and especially this one, I suppose because it is so remote.  There isn't enough funding and staff to keep up the archeological sites in the park or even to properly catalog all of the historic sites and structures.

Big Bend Park is in Brewster County which is one of the most sparsely populated areas of our whole country.  Only about 13,000 people live within its 6,000 plus square miles.  We stayed in Alpine, which is 100 miles northwest of the park headquarters and then moved to the tiny village of Terlingua which is a gateway community to the park.  These are both remote, quirky communities.  We had fun exploring around the towns as well as within the park.