Sequoia National Park

We knew visiting Sequoia National Park would be risky when we came this way, but thought we would take our chances anyway.  It was a bit of a drive from our RV to the entrance to the park but that's ok.  The drive there was nice, lined with orchards of oranges almost all the way, and we enjoyed the view of the mountains of Sequoia National Park in the distance.

The morning drive

There are not a lot of roads in the park and the ones that are there are narrow winding mountain roads.  We learned that there was road construction about 15 miles in and beyond that it is required to have chains on your car tires because of snow in the higher elevations.  This is something that can change daily, so perhaps tomorrow or the next day we can go without the chains.  We were not interested in doing the tire chains thing so we just drove up to where the construction began and parked there and hiked around.  The weather was cool, but not too bad for a hike. We walked down a road that led to a campground that was closed for the season, so there was no traffic allowed on it.  

  

Bernie thinks he can do some rock climbing.

There were some nice views.

Tunnel Rock is a huge granite boulder beneath which the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps - a public work relief program during the Great Depression) dug a tunnel for the roadway in 1938.  The road now bypasses the "tunnel" but visitors can walk beneath it.

Tunnel Rock

On the way back to the RV we chose to take the back roads.  We drove past miles of groves of oranges and plums and olives and lemons and grapefruits, stopping to take a picture of the blooming trees.

Trees in bloom (Almonds?)

We did not see a Sequoia tree.

Kingsburg, CA

Before we left Bakersfield we went to get a picture of this shoe-shaped shoe repair shop.  It was built in 1947.  It's had a few owners over time, but you can still get your shoes fixed here.

Big Shoe Repair

We went 90 miles north to a Passport America RV park not too far from the entrances to Sequoia National Park.  We'll go check that out tomorrow.  After we got settled we drove to the nearby town of Kingsburg.  To keep up with the town's Swedish history they have most retail businesses designed in Swedish architecture.  They even have a Swedish coffee pot water tower.

Kingsburg, CA

 The drive to Kingsburg was mainly flat agriculture land.  We saw many fields of grape vines, oranges, nectarines, peaches, cherries, walnuts, pistachios, almonds.  They signed the fields!!  I loved that!  Also, Kingsburg is where the headquarters for Sunmaid Raisins is, perhaps we will explore that tomorrow before we go look at the big trees.

DelMonte

 Also nearby is a tourist stop, Bravo Cheese Shoppe.  The usual souvenir place with nuts and dried fruits, jams and jellies, etc. loads of antiques, and a restaurant, but with lots of character.  You can also look through a glass window and watch them make cheese in the next room, but not today (Sunday).  This is also California Dairy country, we did see several large animal factories, with thousands of milk cows.

Tree House at Bravo Farms

Bravo Farms

Hello

20 Mule Team Borax

Remember 20 Mule Team Borax?  On our way to Sequoia National Forest we went through a little town of Boron, CA, and saw this mining operation off in the desert.  We found out that it really is where borax is mined.  

Borax Mine

In the 1880's the 20 mule teams used to haul borax from a mine in Death Valley to a railroad junction near this place.  Then in 1925 a huge deposit of borax was found here near the town of Boron.  Mining here replaced borax mining in Death Valley.

20 Mule Team

So there you have it, everything you didn't know you wanted to know about 20 Mule Team Borax.

Gas is going up!  And the tricky signing...the big prices are the "cash only" price... but look down at the little sign and you see the credit/debit card prices are quite a bit higher.

$4.15 cash price
$4.25 credit card price

There is an In-n-Out Burger joint behind us.  Since the press made a big deal about Barack Obama eating there, and we saw Rachel Ray make her version of it on her TV cooking show, we thought we should go have a burger and see what we've been missing.

In-n-Out is a California chain, with a few stores in Arizona, Utah, and Texas.  The menu is very simple:  hamburger, cheeseburger, or double-double, as well as fries and beverages, that's it.  They make a big deal about quality and freshness, nothing ever thawed, zapped or kept warm, they don't have any freezers, microwaves or heat lamps.  100% pure American beef, without additives.

In-n-Out Burger

We splurged and shared one $1.90 hamburger.

Hamburger

We drove about 200 miles today, stopping for the night in a Walmart parking lot in Bakersfield, CA.

Yucca Valley

It was nice having civilization and full hookups at the RV resort in Twentynine Palms but at $35 a night we thought we should move on.  Before we left we had a look around the town.  They have a lot of really nice murals on several of the downtown buildings.  This one is my favorite..it looked so real... a mural of a man painting a mural!  Love it!  Even the stone wall sections (see the bird?) on the left and on the right are part of the painting but look three dimensional, don't they?

Mural of a man painting a mural

It is expensive in California.  Gas is around $4 here, while only around $3.39 at home.

$4.05 credit card  /  $3.95 cash price

And when you buy any beverage at the store they charge you a CRV (California Redemption Value) fee.  But you can get that back when you turn in your bottles and cans at a redemption center

Sales tax can be any where from 7.25% to 9.25%, the highest in the country.

CRV fee $1.20 (taxable!)
7.750% Sales Tax

We are parked in a Walmart lot in Yucca Valley tonight, only about 15 miles from where we were last night, but, hey, it's free.  Tomorrow we will drive through more desert and mountains, no towns, to Sequoia National Park.  Don't be surprised if there is no blog tomorrow, we may not have Internet or cell phone service for a while again.

Joshua Tree National Park

The last few days we have been at Joshua Tree National Park.  We should have known we would not have Internet service, or TV, or cell phone service, so that's why no blog from me for the last few days.  We saw and did so much and I took over 100 pictures the last few days, but this will be a condensed version.

Joshua Tree

This is a beautiful park, with desert, mountains, Joshua Tree forest, and spectacular views.  We did a lot of hiking to see geographical and historical sights.

Gold Mine

I wish the photographs could portray the awesomeness of what we saw. The picture below shows just a small portion of what we were looking at.  The haze in the valley is due to moisture, dust, and smog from Los Angeles.  This was a "clear" day.  If you look in the center of the picture, there is long ridge in the valley floor.  This is part of the San Andreas fault, the one that will probably break California off into the ocean some day, so they say.  1906 was the year of the big quake that did a lot of damage. We tried to drive down to see it closer, but there are no roads.  You can hire a jeep tour in Palm Springs if you want, but we didn't.  

San Andreas Fault Line

Down in the desert, not in the park, near the Salton Sea, a man by the name of  Leonard Knight, who discovered God after a life-altering event in 1967, created Salvation Mountain.  He has been building and painting on this since 1985, and just recently moved into a care facility.  Up until now he had been living in his painted-up truck here at Salvation Mountain.  We had to go see it.  Very interesting.

Salvation Mountain

An art truck near by

A popular thing to do in the desert is to go off-road.  We met a caravan of 10 Volkswagen off-road vehicles.  What fun!  

Back to the campground.  It's a beautiful place to camp, however, at the top of a mountain there are no services, no Internet, TV, electricity, water, or sewer dump, but for the $5 it cost us we didn't complain.  The weather had been cool which was perfect for all the hikes we had been doing.  But then we woke up to all this snow in the morning.  

Snow in the morning!  

 We had to wait until the Park Service cleared and re-opened the roads before we could leave the mountain and then we moved to a RV park in the town of Twentynine Palms near the entrance to Joshua Tree National Park.  It's a bit warmer here, and now we have civilization again.

Twentynine Palms Resort

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, one of the first things we saw when we got to the park was this poster about the killer bees in the area.  Fortunately we did not see any.

Killer Bees Alert

Snow!

Joshua Tree National Park

No Internet, no TV, no cell phone service. Maybe no blog for a few days.

Palm Springs

Palm Springs is only 15 miles from the casino where we are so we drove the car over there to explore it.  This used to be a real hot spot for celebrities, but not so much any more.  Palm Springs has long been considered California's ultimate desert playground for the gay and lesbian traveler.  The visitor center had a whole rack of brochures specifically for the LGBT community.  There are gay-owned bistros and restaurants and world-renowned LGBT events.  There are 25 gay and lesbian resorts and inns here.  Some are women only, some are men only, and many are clothing optional.

It's not a big city.  We parked and walked up and down the main drive, it was very beautiful and there were several very nice restaurants and gift shops.  Celebrity stars are inlaid all along the sidewalks on both sides of the street.

Downtown Palm Springs

Downtown Palm Springs

We found a statue of Lucille Ball.  There should also be Sonny Bono and Gene Autry here, and probably some others but we did not find them.

I Love Lucy

One of the many celebrity stars.

Outside of town is the largest wind farm I have ever seen.  There were thousands of them!  There is a tour available for about $35.  Maybe next time. 

Wind Farm

The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway was tempting.  This has the world's largest rotating Tram cars

 and travels up over two and one half miles in just 10 minutes to Mt. San Jacinto State Park, elevation 8,516 feet.  We went to look and seriously considered it, but when we heard it was only 35 degrees up there and very windy and there was snow, and it would have been a one hour wait, we decided we would save the $70 it would have cost us to go up there.  Maybe next time.

Palm Springs Aerial Tramway

This is the parking lot.  The tram takes you up 2.5 miles to
the top of the farthest back mountain in the picture
elevation 8,516.

So, we headed back to the casino, only about 10 miles from the Tram.  About two miles into it the traffic just stopped!  OMG, we were stuck in that traffic for TWO HOURS.  There were no exits.  Most people were patient, but we saw no less than ten cars pull over to the bushes for a potty stop.  Some people try to move up in line by passing on the right shoulder which lead to some horn honking and gesturing by the law abiding drivers.

This is why we go potty before we leave.

Finally, we got onto the frontage road that goes to the casino, but that, too, was backed up. 

This lady pulled over to feed and water her horse.

As I'm blogging this, we can see the I-10 freeway in the distance, it has not improved, and we've been back for over two hours.  We learned traffic was backed up for 22 miles.  So glad we weren't in it any more than we were.

Dinosaurs and Outlets

Up early this morning and out to explore the area.  Near here are some really big dinosaurs.  These have been around several years and have been in Coke commercials, rock videos, and in the film Pee Wee's Big Adventure.  There is a small museum in the bottom of the biggest one and you can climb steps up the inside and peer out little windows at the top.  It was closed when we got there, not sure if it's because we were too early or some other reason.

Cabazon Dinosaurs

 The day started out sunny and cold and now we see the clouds are rolling in.  And with the clouds came the wind, it's blowing us away.

Clouds rolling in behind the casino/resort.

Across the road from the casino is the Desert Hills Premium Outlets.  It has 130 stores and plans for 65 more to be added next year.  People come by the bus loads from LA to shop here.  It was still early morning when we got there so not many people around yet, but the buses were just beginning to arrive. We looked around and didn't buy anything.

Desert Hills Premium Outlets

On the way back to the casino we had to stop at Hadley Fruit Orchards, a tourist attraction

along the freeway.  Inside we found the usual dried fruits and nuts, jellies, jams, candy, and pickled things you usually find in these kinds of places.  We left with a bit of sticker shock as we felt the prices were terribly high, and bought nothing.  But that didn't stop the other people, who apparently have more money than we do and were filling up their carts and baskets.

Hadley Fruit Orchards

 All morning we haven't spent any money, except for one cup of coffee at McDonald's for Bernie.  We returned to the RV, freshened up, and waited for the casino free shuttle to come pick us up.  We still had our two $10 coupons for the buffet so for $2 each we ate there for lunch.  The restaurant was beautifully decorated and they had a huge assortment of food. However, I thought most of it was cold and bland.  Even the deserts were beautiful to look at but nothing to brag about.

Then we walked a couple laps around the slot machines and went outside to look at the pool area.  There wasn't anyone there, probably because of the cold and the wind.

Pool

Back to the RV to hang out, watch TV and blog this.  It's too cold and windy to do anything else.  Last night there must have been about 20 other RVs in the lot with us.  Many have left and more arrive.  There are some buses parked here with us too.  The casino has a few shuttle vans that cruise the different parking lots to bring people in and out and they have loads of security people cruising the lots as well.

The parking lot and mountains in the background.