Grandpa's Burgers and S'mores!

One of Catt's main requests when we come to visit it that her grandpa fix his famous burgers on the grill, and of course she looks forward to playing with the fire. I mean, she is really good at building the fire. S'mores are an important part of the ritual.

Catt was at work today, but Rebecca came over earlier. We went for a walk around the lake and more of the Mojave Narrows park. Even when there are lots of people here enjoying the park, it's easy to get away by yourself. Rebecca and her dad played one last game of chess. We've been in Victorville for two weeks, and we will miss Rebecca and Catt when we pack up and move on tomorrow.

Jeff sent his dad a belated birthday and early Father's Day gift: a lovely Marks Signature Pen handmade by the founder of a new business: Jeff Marks.

An unexpected bonus is that he sent one to me also. Thanks, Jeff! Ken had his pick of the two pens. He chose the fountain pen, the first that we've seen in many years. I got the ballpoint pen, which writes beautifully. Read more!

Down the Hill

We drove "down the hill" today--from Victorville in the High Desert to Montclair and Claremont and Rancho Cucamonga, down in the L.A. basin. Rebecca and Catt make this drive regularly, since they both work in Montclair. Catt had invited us to visit The Ontario Rescue, the animal rescue and adoption center in Montclair where she works. We found her hard at work as an animal caregiver extraordinaire. All the animals seem to love her.

Montclair is very close to the Claremont Colleges, where I taught for a couple of years in the Psychology Department, located in Mason Hall. We walked around the campus, but very few people were around on a Saturday between terms. Lots of fond memories.

We were also interested in looking at bicycles, so we stopped at a couple of bike stores. We're looking for something with comfortable upright seating, but better pedaling efficiency than our Electra Bikes. So far we haven't found the perfect bikes, but we're hoping to figure out what we want and buy something while we're in Portland in a couple of weeks.

We headed back up the hill and returned to our campsite at Mojave Narrows just in time to see the people from the Medieval reenactment group beginning to break up. We were sorry to have missed the spectacle today, but we enjoyed seeing everyone dressed in costume, even the little kids.

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On to Mojave Narrows

Today we picked up our Majestic from Super Collision, looking good as new. They even washed it so it looks clean and shiny. Now we've moved out to Mojave Narrows Regional Park. We've stayed here before. It's nice being out in nature and near the lake--but we're also near to the railroad tracks. Way more trains come through here than we remembered.

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Repairs Underway

We are temporarily staying at the Hawthorn Suites in Victorville while our Majestic is being repaired at Super Collision.

We stopped by today to pick up a few things and check on progress. The damage was to the lower panel between the main cargo bay and the door. It resulted from an encounter with a service station concrete post as I was pulling up to a propane service area. Fortunately the vehicle was moving very slowly, and Chris, the owner of Super Collision, assures us that once repairs are finished, no one will know it ever happened. (Wish I could remove the memory of the crunch as readily!)

Today is one of Catt's days off, so she came over to visit us at the hotel. This is a typical pose: phone in hand and plugged in.

We wanted to have a nice hot soak in the spa, but it was disappointingly barely lukewarm and the wind was quite chilly, so we didn't stay long.

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Cougar Crest Trail

Our adventure for today was a hike with Rebecca at Big Bear Lake. We hiked the Cougar Crest Trail. We had great views of the lake as we ascended the trail. The trail runs into the Pacific Crest Trail, and we walked along it for a short distance and took photos just to show we were there. Altogether we hiked about 4.7 miles.

We've been at Big Bear many times, but this was our first time on the Cougar Crest Trail. We didn't see any cougars, but we did have a great time with Rebecca.

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Happy Birthday, Ken!

We went over to visit Rebecca today (Catt was working). She brought out all her running medals for us to see. Each one is a memento of a racing experience. Most of them are for half marathons, which is 13.1 miles.

Rebecca wearing her Tinker Bell Half Marathon medal which she earned at Disneyland on May 8.

Rebecca gave her dad a choice of two local restaurants for his birthday dinner, an all American diner or an Italian place. You can see which he chose.

Mollie's Kountry Kitchen in Apple Valley

Ken ordered one of his all time comfort favorites, turkey dinner.

A great meal with a sweet finish: birthday cake and ice cream.

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Hesperia Lake

This evening we met Catt and Rebecca at Hesperia Lake. It's a very nice city park. We walked around the lake and chatted and watched the ducks and geese. Catt told us about her job working at an animal rescue facility. She loves animals and is learning to give them medications and vaccinations. She often brings home shelter residents to give them some extra TLC.

We ended up in the campground. The sites are sand, but quite large. We sat at one of the picnic tables and talked about Hobbiton and the Lord of the Rings movies and Jungle Book (which we have not seen, but Rebecca and Catt love it). Catt is jealous of our getting to visit Hobbiton on our trip to New Zealand.

When we walked back to the vehicles, Catt proudly showed us her Tinker Bell Half Marathon medal.

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Arrival in Hesperia and Celebrating Rebecca's Birthday

We have arrived! In Southern California, that is. We are at Desert Willow RV Resort in Hesperia, which is near Victorville. That's where Rebecca and Catt and their menagerie live. We are in site P13. It's spacious and has a view of the southern sky. We don't have many neighbors, but we heard that a big rally will be coming in soon.

This evening we met Rebecca at the Olive Garden in Victorville to celebrate her 40th birthday, which was May 3. Catt was home recuperating from her first half marathon, The Tinker Bell Half Marathon at Disneyland. She was one of over 16,000 runners. It's a small world for sure: I noticed on Facebook that my cousin Dave's wife, Nancy, also ran in that race. Read more!

California, Here We Come (Right Back Where We Started From...)

We drove from Williams, AZ, to Needles, CA, today. Last night it was freezing, and this evening we were running the air conditioning. We are camped at Fender's River Road Resort and Motel, which is right on the Colorado River. Our site is on the upper level, not on the river, but we strolled down to see the rushing Colorado.

Tomorrow we'll drive to Desert Willow RV Resort in Hesperia, near Victorville, which is where Rebecca and Cathy live. Read more!

Stressful Day (but we made it to Williams)

We were expecting to hear from Meineke that the truck was ready sometime between 10 AM and noon. Instead we got a call that they had run into difficulty and we might not get our truck repaired until next week.

Stress ensued. We weren't sure until 5 PM when we got the call that the truck was ready that would be able to make it to Williams today. What a relief!

We did manage to accomplish a couple things today while we were waiting. We did some trip planning, and we even took a walk.

We had to bundle up and carry our umbrellas because it was periodically showering and blasting us with icy winds. We walked a short way on historic route 66. Then we turned north on Ponderosa Parkway. It had a sign saying there was no outlet, but it appeared to go north far enough that we could get a view. After we walked a short distance on the street it ended, but the multi-use trail continued on North and so did we.

It was a relief to get away from the city noise and traffic to this lovely place.

Flagstaff is a great place to visit in the summer. We were here in 2014 and found several enjoyable hikes.

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On to Williams (not)

We started out this morning heading west on I-40 to Williams, AZ. We stopped at this rest area to walk around and change drivers. The red rocks around the area have been moved here, but they sure do make a colorful backdrop.



We didn't make it to Williams, AZ, where we had reservations to stay at the Grand Canyon Railway RV Park. Instead we ended up at this Meineke's in Flagstaff. Our check engine light came on, and we got an "Oil change required" notice, so we decided to pull off at Flagstaff, figuring that Williams is too small to have much in the way of diesel engine repair.

We actually went to the Meineke's for our oil change, but they scanned the code for the check engine light and determined we needed an exhaust back pressure sensor. Unfortunately the repairs won't be finished until tomorrow, so we're boondocking for the night in a nearby parking lot. Plenty of genuine red rock landscape here!

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Water Pump Woes

As we were hitching up this morning, Ken heard the water pump operating continuously (not a good sign). We looked in the manual and found some troubleshooting suggestions for this condition, but none of them were things we could do. We decided that we could live without the water pump until we get to Victorville, where we will be for two weeks visiting Rebecca and Cathy.

But then when we were out on our walk around the park, we noticed that the small business in the corner of the parking lot offered service as well as parts, propane, and DirecTV. We decided to stop and see if they could fix the pump. Randy said he could replace it, but we said we doubted it needed to be replaced and that our best guess was that the strainer had gotten blocked. He was just finishing work on another rig and said he could do our work in about 20 minutes.

That gave us time to finish hitching up and pull over by his building, and time for us to empty the cargo bay so that he could reach the water pump. He tried a few other things first, but finally decided to check the strainer. That was indeed the problem. He had a replacement part which he installed, and we were back in business.

Our trip today was to Sun Valley RV Park. It's in the small community of Sun Valley, near Holbrook, AZ. The new owners are having work done which required a trench to be dug, so our "pull through" site turned out to be a back in. Only we decided to approach from the side and leave the rig at an angle. We're in the end site, so no problem there. Tomorrow we will head for Williams, AZ.

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Albuquerque BioPark

Our destination today was the Albuquerque BioPark. It's a complex including the Rio Grande Botanic Garden, Albuquerque Aquarium, Rio Grande Zoo, and Tingley Beach. Our combo tickets gave us entry to all of these venues, but we didn't make it to the beach. The so-called "beach" is actually a series of recreational ponds along the Rio Grande River. They are used for fishing, boating, and hiking.

We spent most of the morning in the botanical gardens. Many of the plants were in bloom, including a variety of beautiful irises.

One of the most unusual sights we saw was a large complex built for small trains. It's called a "garden railroad." The whole layout must be sturdy and weather resistant.

This bird looks like some kind of kingfisher to us. One issue we ran into at the BioPark is that many if not most exhibits are either not labeled or lacking in pertinent information.

This dragon guards the entrance and the castle of the children's garden.

When we left the botanical gardens, we paid a visit to the next door aquarium. That's where we saw this comical cuttlefish. Its long skirt like fin is soft and continuous. It is used to propel the animal through the water. Despite the "fish" in its name, this creature is a cephalopod, related to squid and octopuses.

After we had viewed the denizens of the aquarium, we drove to a nearby Subway for lunch and then to the zoo. The zoo has a meerkat exhibit--my favorite zoo animals. There are lots of "zoo babies," born at the zoo within the last three years or so, including twin chimpanzees and young orangutans. I never get tired of watching the apes.

These big cats posed for Ken and then watched us as we walked across the front of their habitat.


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Petroglyph National Monument

Today was Rebecca's birthday. She had plans to go to Universal Studios. Ken called and left a voicemail for her, and she later called back. She said Cathy was jealous of our trip to New Zealand. She had seen the photos that Ken posted on Facebook. We promised to bring more photos and stories with us when we visit next week.

Our outing today was to Petroglyph National Monument. We drove to the visitor center where we picked up a brochure and a map of Boca Negra Canyon. We watched a really well-done 23 minute film about the monument.  We drove first to Piedras Marcadas canyon.

We took a trail along the base of the escarpment which has many basalt boulders. Many of the boulders have petroglyphs etched into their surface. Some are easier to see than others. As we walked back into the canyon along the trail, we found ourselves surrounded by spectacular scenery and no hint of the city nearby. It was an awe inspiring experience.

Next we drove to the Boca Negra Canyon site. It has restrooms and picnic tables. We ate our packed lunch and then walked two short trails, the Cliff Base trail and the Macaw trail. By the time we were finished with those two short trails, both of us felt like it was time to go home. We were hot and tired, but happy to have seen so many of the petroglyphs. We came away with a greater understanding of the spiritual significance of the petroglyphs to local indigenous peoples and their ancestors.

Macaw at the base of the Boca Negra Macaw trail. Macaw petroglyphs are seen as evidence of trade because their range is not this far north.



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Enchanted Trails in Albuquerque

We traveled a bit over two hundred miles today. Enchanted Trails RV Park is located near I-40 west of Albuquerque.



We got set up in a nice spot, but we were disappointed to find that we had no view of the southern sky although we had been assured that the site was a good one for satellite TV. We were really looking forward to seeing this week's episode of Call the Midwife.

Scaled quail

The RV park is on Historic Route 66, so of course it must have its vintage car and trailer. Someone gives these vehicles plenty of TLC.



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