Monthly Archives: January 2025

143 – Tuesday – Barstow, CA

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Here we are, level on a cement pad, safely tethered to power, sewer, and water at the Fam Camp on the Marine Corp Logistics Base Barstow. This facility is located just a little east of Barstow on I-40 (Route 66). Check the map here. There’s a ghost town a little further out of town that we plan to visit sometime during the week we plan to stay here.

Getting here was a breeze. As noted yesterday, I navigated the solution for allowing us to tow the car so we had each other to talk with. When Diane drove the car, however, she had the convenience of listening to satellite radio while all I had was the wind whistling on the driver’s window because I didn’t latch it. It was good to have company for the 2.5 hour trip, mostly uphill.

The uphill part, added to towing the car was an increased danger of the RV engine overheating. As it turned out, it wasn’t a problem. We went up and down a lot and the rig got along just fine. Jerrie is happy. I have new belief that replacing the leaking overflow tank will resolve the overheating problem for good. We may never know for sure because we hope to sell the RV when we get home and probably won’t be taking it on any more long trips. We’ll be taking short trips to the beach via other means.

There’s really not much to share about the trip to get here. Since I was driving the entire way, I couldn’t take photos. I think Diane may have taken one photo, but I haven’t seen it. I think I may have suggested that she take the shot, but don’t remember what it was. Oh wait. Here it is. It just magically showed up.

The reason for this photo is to let you know that 29 Palms has many, many barbers available along Adobe Dr., the road that takes you to the main gate at the base.

Max was happy for the short trip and we got to walk around a bit before dinner. Diane was the cook today and we had a pork loin, fresh beets, and baked potatoes. It was awesome. Should have taken a picture, right?

Oh, another thing we discovered is that the RV furnace works nicely. So far, the electric fireplace heater we have has been the only source of heat. Although it works Ok, it’s difficult to heat up the place when it’s 45 degrees inside, and 28 outside. We were a little leery about using it considering the dusty nature of our environment. We figured if it did work it would blow dust everywhere. That didn’t happen so that’s going to be my solution for the mornings. We’ve even agreed that we should have the furnace set to run at night to keep it from assuming the outside projected temps of 28 degrees. We figure 60 degrees at night is better for us than 45.

Right now it’s 1900 and we’re nice and warm inside. It’s 46 outside but will drop to around 27 tonight.

I’m sure talking about temperatures is very informative and entertaining for you. That’s a facetious statement so I think I’ll stop now before the hole gets any deeper.

I mentioned that Diane did our laundry yesterday. She does that once in a while. This time it was different because she had to compete with active-duty Marines to get a washer and dryer. She said the young male Marines were very accommodating, but the female Marines weren’t. She brought the clothes back all folded up, in the back of her car.

I can vouch for the willingness of young marines to help a young damsel in distress. When we stopped to get fuel before starting today’s journey, we were working at two pumps. Diane begged off reporting that she doesn’t refuel vehicles. The young man next to the bus immediately volunteered to get it going for her. She was pleased and grateful for his help. He was pleased, too.

See you tomorrow.

Day 142 – Monday – Wash Day

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The first thing I did this morning, late this morning, was bundle up and go to work on the 7-pin to 5-pin wiring that connects the car to the bus. I may have mentioned that, since we’ve only been making short little trips as we head north, we were OK with driving both rigs. So, I didn’t both with the plug. Here’s what happened …

While hooking everything up prior to leaving the Bone Yard, I must have tried plugging the 5-pin end upside down. As a consequence, all of the pins inside were pushed through the back of the plug making it impossible for any of them to make contact. Therefore, there were no lights on the car while towing. So, we didn’t tow it.

Yesterday Diane let me go to an auto parts store off base and I found exactly what was needed so I was obligated to make it work.

My main concern was pulling the old plug apart in such a manner that I could copy the proper order of how the wires were to be attached.

Then, this happened.

At this point I was a bit concerned that I’d never figure it out, but there were only 5 wires, right? Since it wasn’t plugged in to the bus, the only hot wire was red, and I had already disconnected it at the battery. So, what could go wrong if I got them mixed up a few times?

After giving it a little bit of thought I figured I should probably look at the wiring diagram that came with the new receptacle. After doing that the first thing I noticed was that the diagram matched all the colors perfectly. Originally, I thought it was different. but I’d mistaken a green wire to be blue. After studying it a little while I decided that it was definitely not blue. Believing it was green made me brave, so I just went ahead and wired it up, reconnected the red wired, and plugged it into the bus.

It worked perfectly. The first time. Amazing.

Tomorrow will be the test because I’m hooking it up to tow so my bride and ride shotgun with me. We’re only going to Barstow, a couple of hours away, so it will be a good test, both for the car, and for how well we get along with each other.

I don’t think I’m color blind.

I hope I’m not color blind.

I’ll let you know tomorrow if I am.

Day 141 – Sunday – Joshua Tree, CA & Noah Purifoy

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Before we go there, I must share one photo.

Max sleeping in his Serta Perfect Sleeper that’s full of his toys and perched on the steering wheel. Normally, it’s on the floor but he doesn’t sleep in it there. It’s been on the steering wheel lately to get it out of the way. He still gets his toys out of it once in a while, but this is the first time he’s slept in it;.

The trip to Joshua Tree only takes about 20-30 minutes because it’s just down the road a little bit. The road is California 62. That’s the main artery in this neck of the desert.

When we got to town Diane spied a lot of craft vendors at the western-most part of town, so we stopped to have a look. This is a relaxed young lady and some of the things she made. The was way more than you can see in the photo, so it was evident that she’s been very busy. I didn’t ask for a name so I can just make one up even though this is the only photo I have of her. let’s call her Laidback Lilly. That would be LBL for short.

This Winnebago was parked across the side street from the vendors. It’s a 1986 Chieftan. I wanted to stop and look at it as we were leaving the area, but Diane was driving and just ignored me. We just whizzed right on past it. The best choice, for sure. Besides, it’s priced well beyond our $500 limit. Or is it a $300 limit? Les?

Our next planned stop was to visit the Noah Purifoy Outdoor Desert Art Museum. Turns out it’s located off the beaten path almost in the middle of nowhere. The road was paved for most of the trip, but toward the end it got real nasty.

You can check the link above for specifics and I’ll just toss out a bunch of photos I took. All of the art appears to be made from things you might find in a hoarder’s garage. Stuff that’s been laying around for a long time. In the weather. Since all of it is exposed to the elements, all the time, it just keeps adding to the ambiance. So, here come the pictures. You will probably recognize most of the stuff for what it is but if you’re like me, the reasoning behind how the pieces are welded, bolted, screwed, and nailed together might take a little concentration.

Which way to start?

This one is called the “Band Wagon”. They all have little signs for the names and date made, but most of them just read” no name”Untitled”. I kinda understand this one.

Not true for many others.

The home office, I presume.

The music studio.

The communications room.

The sports bar.

Spare parts.

Diane said this one looked like a wine bottle cork. It’s made from metal shavings from various size drills. Maybe from a lathe.

In my head I visualized Mr. Purifoy spending hours pondering about each piece, placing each of them exactly where they belonged.

Max was even confused by some of them, and he may have blessed them when I wasn’t looking.

I knew this was an igloo right away!

That’s all I have.

Day 140 – Saturday – Twentynine Palms

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I’ve been enlightened. Until recently, like two days ago, I plodded down a path where I believed that the base we are currently living on is a Marine Corps Air Station. I believed that in spite of the signage displayed at the base entrance was specifically Not MCAS but is MAGTFTC/MCAGCC. Digging a little deeper revealed that this base is the largest marine corps base in the world. Although I cannot find any information that this was, at one time, a MCAS, I will probably go to my grave believing I’m right.

Now, about Marines and integrity in general … it is our belief that pretty much everyone allowed on a military base (including us) are good people. I base this claim on one simple observation. At the base exchange, there are no shopping carts littering the parking lot. When the patrons are done with them, they put them in their proper place. I made it a point to look. As for including ourselves in with these stellar humans, we always put our carts away. Sometimes, off base, I put the carts near me away, also. It’s not difficult, and it’s the right thing to do.

OK. Enough of that.

Today we drove up Adobe Ave from the main gate to visit the 29 Palms Farmer’s Market.

It wasn’t hard to find because that’s where the traffic led us. We were able to find a parking spot close to the market so we wouldn’t have to carry our purchases very far.

In addition to many vegetable and fruit stands, there were also many craft displays. This one caught my eye. They are 3-D printed dragons mostly. The vendor said it takes 6-8 hours to print each one.

It’s like going to the fair in St. Helens where everyone brings out their best stuff for the public once a year. Here they do it every Saturday. How handy is that? We got some radishes, carrots, and beets. We also ate lunch at one of the many food vendors available. Sadly, I did not take any photos of what we ate but you can trust me when I tell you it was really good. We had a teriyaki chicken rice bowl. The rice was wrapped and cooked in seaweed which I tried, but I don’t recommend it. The chicken was awesome. Max got a taste, too. It was fun and all the people were very nice. That’s a plus.

After leaving the market, we wandered around town to see some of the murals painted on the buildings. There are a bunch of them, but I’ll only share a few of them with you. If you want to see them all, you’ll just have to plan a trip to 29 Palms.

Here is the description that you can see on the far fight of this one.

I think you get the idea. The artwork is amazing and many of the murals share historical information.

On the way back to the base, we took the road to the main gate and drove eight by Twighlight Dunes RV Park.

That’s our bus on the left.

This is the Marine who deemed us worthy of entering the base.

There’s no laundry facilities in the park, but there is a laundromat in the building where we gassed up Diane’s car. We peeked in and discovered it’s a popular place for Marines stationed here. Diane figured it won’t be so during the week. It’s convenient, too, because the machines accept credit cards, instead of quarters.

I was tasked to wash the bus windows. so I got busy at one point in time and did 3 of them. That means I’ll probably be done with all of them in a couple of weeks. Oh, wait! We’ll be traveling so it will take a lot longer. I suppose I should have washed them in Tucson. I suspect It was suggested, more than once, that I do that, but the timing was never right. Besides, it was dusty down there, so why bother. They will get done eventually.

Diane went to the commissary and exchange when we got back but Max and I stayed home and didn’t do anything. We just hung out. I sat in a chair in front of the bus where the breeze wasn’t blowing so I could stay a little bit warm, and Max could watch folks who happened to be walking past. He’s a real dog watcher.

That’s it.

Day 139 – Friday – Palm Springs

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Today we took a trip off the base to visit Palm Springs. We stayed there for a couple of weeks years ago and found that we really like the city and the people. So, we were looking forward to visiting again.

We were concerned about smoke blowing in from the LA area and as we started down the road into the Palm Springs area, we could see it. Diane’s health was our primary concern for this trip, and we monitored each other as we got lower into the valley where Palm Springs lives. Good so far. No sign of smoke yet.

The closer we got, the more evident it was that the smoke had indeed made it to the city. At this point, however, we could not smell it, so we kept going.

The road took us north of the hundreds of wind turbines that cover a lot of acreage west of town, then took us down the middle of the array to the main road into town. All of the turbines were turning full blast, faster than we’ve seen them turn at other wind farms. You can see where the strong winds created havoc along the foothills which isn’t a good thing because much of Palm Springs is in that area.

We almost made it to the center of town before the smoke became heavy enough that we decided to turn around and head back “home”. The above photo looks OK, but the smell was in the air and Diane’s lungs started objecting. It was time to vacate the area. We stopped first, however, to let Max leave his markers. It was the right thing to do. It was a 3-hour round trip so we couldn’t just turn around and leave without doing something in town. No photos, of course because although he’s not shy about PIP*, he’s very concerned about his on-line image. I honor that as best as I can.

Going back up to Twentynine Palms was a relief as the air cleared quickly, but we could see the smoke being blown over the mountains to the west. The wind was blowing very hard from the west, just like the news folks said it would.

Heading for the hills the air looked much better.

We thought about stopping for a sandwich somewhere but decided to just go back to the bus and cook something. Then we got routed to the main gate which meant we would have to drive right by Carl’s Jr. on our way to Twilight Dunes. Stopping for another hamburger just seemed like the right thing to do, so we stopped. Turns out we really like their food.

We took our food home and had a good late lunch. Max had his, too. Before eating mine, I diced about 1/2 a pound of his new favorite refrigerator food. He still did his prairie dog trick for a couple of French fries, but he finished off all his food.

It was good to be back in the clean air but there was a moment when we were reminded that maybe we should have left Diane at home. Thankfully, she got past a coughing spell quickly.

Now I must quit before I get in trouble. Again.

*Poop In Public

Day 138 – Thursday – Pioneer Town

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The trip for today was Pioneer Town which is located about 20 miles away from 29 Palms. The car GPS likes to take back roads so driving time was 43 minutes or so. It was a good drive. I can say that since Diane was the driver, but she would agree.

If you access the link for Pioneer Town, you will know that this place was built to serve as a permanent western movie set. When we got there nothing was going on and it was time to eat, so that’s what we did at Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneer Town Palace. Here’s proof by way of one of my better selfies.

I chose steak nachos

Diane had a fish sandwich

The interior was pretty much covered with vanity plates from all over the country.

It was cold so we didn’t want to eat outside and left Max in the car. He does real well staying in the car because he doesn’t chew anything, he just sleeps. When we got back to him, this was his greeting.

The trip back to Twentynine Palms was all downhill,

and darkness quickly descended on us as we returned to Twilight Dunes. The day’s ending was quite stunning.

It was a nice ending to a nice day. Sadly, I think the incredible color was amplified by the fires west of us.

Day 137 – Wednesday – Twilight Dunes RV Park

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This morning, we woke up to frozen water lines so couldn’t make coffee or flush the toilet until I remembered that we have a full tank of fresh water. All I had to do was turn on the water pump and we had running water. Thankfully, the water line (garden hose) didn’t burst so our next objective is to get some pool noodles to wrap the exposed hose. I don’t know what the temp was outside but inside the bus this morning it was 40 degrees. That’s a bit too chilly for me. I think I convinced Diane to leave the heater on during the night so we can avoid these low morning temps in the future.

We didn’t go anywhere today so the water hose didn’t get wrapped in pool noodles. By unanimous vote, we chose to take a day of rest. I did, however, give Max his long overdue bath. He asked nicely and it’s hard to turn him down. Bathing wears him out.

Twenty-nine Palms lives in a shallow valley and most of the buildings on the base are snuggled up against the eastern edge. This is what we see from space 72. First photo is looking north, second is looking south.

In the above photo, the main gate is the closest structure. The road from there to the next stop sign is a racetrack where motorcycles can easily attain 100+ mph. That’s done by those who are released into the public domain after their day shift is over. It doesn’t last long.

The structures in the middle are base housing. I have no idea what the other buildings are for. I do know that somewhere on the left side is a gas station, Carl’s Jr., and a bunch of other stuff.

The tire tracks up close on the left side of the photo is the path for getting into the RV park. It takes you across a fairly high curb to the paved street and causes a lot of rock and rolling to ensure that anything that’s loose will fall on the floor and cupboards that do not latch shut allow their contents to join the items already on the floor. It makes a tremendous racket. Amazingly, nothing broke. I’m pretty sure.

That’s our bus across from the kid’s playground and the dog area. Across the street from us you can see the individual carports at each site. I’ll get a better photo of our spot soon.

A neighbor moved in next to us, on the other side of the above photo. His name is Rich, and his wife is Susan. Their car and trailer are licensed in Oregon but they both grew up on Oahu. Their kids went to Mililani High School. This is interesting because that’s where our son, Jeff went to High School for a while. Rich is retired Army. That’s not pertinent, just another interesting aspect of our visit. We just had a short visit, but we hope to talk with them again.

Now I’ll stop.

Day 136 – Tuesday – MCAS Twenty-nine Palms, CA

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We vacated Quartzsite early this morning and headed west to California. Our next stop was the Marine Corp Air Station at Twenty-nine Palms. When we pulled out of our RV park, a left turn would take us to Parker on Highway 95 and a right turn would take us to I-10. Diane’s GPS had her turn left, and mine had me turn right so we got separated in the first 2 minutes of today’s trip. Diane thought I was going to follow her, but the RV GPS is a trucker’s Garmin that computes routes based on the size of our RV. That’s why I turned right. It was a risky move on my part and caused considerable anguish for a while.

We both stopped within a few minutes and started calling each other to find out what to do. We eventually reconnected before getting free of Quartzsite and got headed the same direction.

The road was long and mostly straight all the way to Highway 177 where we turned right and headed north to Highway 62. Had we both turned left from the Quartzsite RV Park, and driven to Parker, we would have turned left on Highway 62 and arrived at the corner of Highway 177 and Highway 62 fifteen minutes sooner.

Highway 177 was very straight also, and I could see how the road slowly climbed on the other side of the valley. It was about a 20-mile stretch, straight as an arrow. If the wind hadn’t been blowing so hard, I probably could have taken a short nap or two.

Once on Highway 62 Diane took the lead and got us to Twenty-nine Palms at 1311 (1:11 pm) and drove on base about 1331. The park is adjacent to some of the base housing and is pretty nice. We’re in space 72 next to the only dog area which is handy. Max was more than ecstatic to have grass to run on for the first time since September. His little toes have got calluses from walking on rocks and asphalt all that time. Poor little guy probably couldn’t tell how soft the grass really is because of his crusty feet.

Each parking space has a small Tuff Shed and a carport. So, we have a place to park the car our of the sun and we can empty the car and all the basement cubbies into the shed just for fun. I could also install a rack to hang clothes and use the shed as a closet.

Our supper was from Wendy’s which is on the base. Back in the Bone Yard they had Burger King. After the Wendy’s meal we learned that it has BK beaten for flavor.

I don’t know if I mentioned that Diane lost one of her favorite earrings on Luke AFB. We searched everywhere for it but it just wasn’t there. So, guess what! She found it here in California. Isn’t that amazing? She was pretty happy, as was I.

Getting the bus into its assigned parking space involved a lot of bouncing around because of the curbs we had to cross. This caused a great deal of commotion with everything that wasn’t tied down inside the coach. It was just nature’s way of shaking things up to get everything on the same level, and filling spaces that needed filling. It was very annoying but nothing broke, which is amazing. It was a very noisy process. Amongst the tosseled items were many containers of various spices that escaped from one of the overhead cupboards. Two of the small ones saved themselves from the terrifying fall by hanging on to the shelf and allowing the cupboard door to hold them in place until they could be rescued. Boy, were they lucky.

I took a few photos of the trip but none of them were interesting. Just a bunch of cars, trucks, and lots of desert. So, I looked back a couple of days and found this one of Diane sewing up Max’s favorite toy, a long green worm. She’s done this a few times. He finally wound up destroying the first one and I was happy to find an exact replacement which he adopted right away. It’s his favorite, as you can tell as he waits patiently for Diane to finish so he can commence destruction once again.

This day is done.

Day 135 – Monday – Quartzsite, AZ

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Getting ready to vacate Luke AFB was a snap because I disconnected everything except electricity. That allowed us to get on the road in record time. We even stopped to fill the bus with fuel before leaving the base. We were going to pull the car once we find a place to do so after leaving the base.

Diane took off using the GPS and I followed with the Garmin. I think we made it almost two miles before we got separated due to a misleading interpretation of one of our GPS setups. It took us about an hour to reunite at exit 121 on I-10 West. That’s where I finally tried to connect the car to the bus and discovered a problem that will require us to drive both rigs all day tomorrow. That’s unfortunate but fixable. Just need time and patience and a stop for longer than one night like we’re doing at Quartzsite. So, the fix will happen at Twenty-Nine Palms.

So, after over an hour of driving aimlessly around Phoenix, we finally got aimed west on I-10. The drive was just fine until we got within 11 miles of Quartzsite where road crews were busy putting a new layer of paving on the west bound lanes of I-10. For about 20 miles the traffic, which included about 1700 semi-trucks, were slowed to two lanes of traffic going between 2-5 mph. Many times, we had to stop for random periods of time. Making it worse, at the end where the equipment was working, the lanes were trimmed to 1 right at a very long entrance filled with more trucks. So, we went from 3 lanes to 1 lane. It wasn’t difficult since it was all done in slow motion.

Once past the heavy equipment, the lanes opened up and we were off like bullets all the way to Exit 19 where Quartzsite lives. It was only 3-4 miles from where we got to speed up after the slow down.

But, we made it safely and got checked in and parked.

At this point in time, we’ve had dinner and we’re winding down watching all the horrendous fire reports knowing that we’re driving right toward it. We have a plan, however. If we encounter smoke, we’re going up through Nevada. If the smoke reaches that far, we’ll head for Utah. One way or another, we’ll get home safely.

To recap, the trip today should have taken us between 2-3 hours. Instead, it took us 6 hours.

Day 134 – Sunday – Peoria, AZ

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This morning I turned on the new heater because it was so cold. The fake fireplace heater was already running but I was curious to see how much quicker the bus warmed up with both of them running. What I learned was that they worked well together until I turned on the coffee pot and popped the circuit. I actually found the problem quickly and fixed it. It was the circuit breakers on the inverter which is located in the outside aft starboard cubby. I reset them and went back inside just as Diane did the same thing. So, I went back out and reset them again.

Then the coffee pot wouldn’t start. I fiddled with it a bit and convinced it start like normal, then everything was OK, but I can’t deny there was just a little moment of panic when the pot wouldn’t brew and much joy when it was resurrected.

Can’t have two heaters running and make coffee at the same time. I might need to make a sign.

This morning, Diane went to the commissary, which is literally right next to the Fam Camp we’re in, so it was a short trip. While she was gone, I took Max for a long walk because he was assigned guard duty for the bus while we went to visit Julie & David in Peoria. Julie is Diane’s cousin, and she grew up in Warren, Oregon, just like Diane did. Kinda handy, right?

The drive over was nice. It was about 10 miles away and many of the roads in and around Phoenix are long and straight, so we only had to make about 6 turns to get there. You could almost take a nap between turns.

This is Julie and David.

They live in a 55+ community and it’s pretty nice. They actually have grass in the neighborhood which is a treat. Their home is beautiful and there is one entire wall of mirrors that is quite stunning.

One of my favorite features were a couple of windows. This is looking out.

This is from outside.

We had a wonderful visit and got to know David a little better. Previous visits have been short. This time we had time to actually visit and learn stuff about each other. The fun thing I learned about David is he has a very large family. Here’s proof.

His mother is in it on the left side, row 12, 26 to the right. He put his finger on her briefly so I’m really guessing about her position. She had dark hair in the photo. She doesn’t have it anymore because she’s 90. I know that’s true because we got to meet her.

Max was alone for about 4 hours and he did his best to make us feel really bad about it, but he was OK. He generally sleeps while we’re gone. He gets over our absence quicker when he’s given a treat, a good back scratching, and a long walk.

That’s it.