December 12th, 2016: Back to California
Writing from: Jumbo Rock Campground. December is peak season for J Tree…unbelievably different from our last few days as they’ve been extremely remote and desolate. It took us a while just to find a spot to camp…and it’s a Monday!
Mood: Excited for the next day. Slightly down on some mechanical woes that still need to be addressed, but I’ve pushed them to the back of my mind for now. So happy and thankful that it’s not cold anymore.
Last nights dinner: I think I’ll do this from now on, as a lot of people have shown interest in our diet, especially when I remark that we eat pretty much exactly what we would eat in a city. Tonight’s dish was ravioli and tortellini (we combined what we had left), with onions and broccoli, topped with vodka sauce.
#Vanlife tidbit: We do (or at least think we do) a great job at keeping the van from smelling like crap. I’ve noticed that the two main things you have to worry about are the trash and dirty clothes. The way we handle dirty clothes is by always making sure we seal the bag that we’re holding the dirty clothes are stored in. Lexie with a string tied bag, and me with a chip clip thing. That part isn’t difficult. The trash on the other hand can get weird, especially with leakages and stuff. The way we handle this is by always making sure we have bag liner in the trash. That’s first. But the real trick is by bagging all of our trash as we throw it away into said bag liner. For instance, we would never just crack an egg and throw it away. Eggshells, and typically all of the trash from breakfast, will either go in a Ziploc bag or a bag used for the vegetables. We do this for every meal when handling food to protect ourselves from leaks getting into the trashcan and stinking it up. The only thing we throw in there without a bag is paper stuff.
Looking back on it now, the desolation of the past few days was beautiful. It’s peak season in Joshua Tree National Park and there are people everywhere. I wanted to take the Mojave Road from Kingman into the Mojave National Preserve and then down into Joshua Tree. You can look it up, but it’s basically an old historic trading route that crosses the desert. It’s got a lot of cool historical monuments and then also passes through some really interesting places. One in particular was a dense forest of Joshua Trees and other desert cacti. It was actually a forest, like, as dense as a pine forest would be in the Sierras, except for the fact that it was all Joshua Trees and huge cacti (sometimes 4–5 feet tall). The road really pushed the Gator to its limit though. I’m going to pull back on off-roading because a few instances scared the shit out of me. I really thought I was about to tip over or snap an axel on a number of occasions. At any rate, the solitude and incredible, weird scenery made up for the fact that I was beating up my car/house. The first night we slept near one of the old cabins that have been turned into a historical monument (mainly bc it had a bathroom that Lex could use). The next night was spent at the Hole in the Wall campground where we did the hike to get a better view of the scenery.
Appreciating the desert really requires attention to detail. In my opinion, you’re looking at slight differences in the terrain and vegetation to see how things adapt to that specific area. All of the life should be appreciated since it is constantly being tested. There is no easy way to live out here, whether you’re a plant or animal, and I think this should be respected. Lexie wasn’t as thrilled as I was, but there is something about being able to see for miles and miles that adds to grandeur of the place. The landscape, including the mountains, rocks, and plains, seem naked. When you get a high enough viewpoint, the contours allow you to infer how geological forces like fault lines and erosion shaped the land. This is something that’s much harder to do when the entire place is covered in trees.
We then took Pipeline Road, another 4WD trail to get to the Kelso Sand Dunes. I couldn’t believe it, but this road was more fucked up than the last. We had maybe 3–4 “holy shit, broke the car” moments and it was a fraction of the length. Safe to say that I’m going to be much more weary of 4WD roads going forward. I just don’t want to fuck with the van anymore…or at least until after Mexico.
Joshua Tree post to come.
