Desert Tripping

It was quite a road trip, so much better than my last US road trip with my daughter some years ago, mainly because IT DIDN’T SNOW! We set out for Indio, California for the Desert Trip concerts – Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Paul McCartney, Roger Waters, and The Who – killer lineup! My friend M. went with me on the road, as did Nash and two other friends flew down to meet us in Indio. Here are the highlights from the epic adventure:

·        We covered about 6500 kms in 15 days, with 4 days of no-driving while at the concerts.

·        We drove through 7 states – Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and California. Idaho and Utah were new for me.

·        We saw the Grand Canyon from the North Rim, which I had not done the last time and it was simply amazing. Then we drove down into the Canyon and back out the other side – bloody spectacular!

·        We camped at Wal-mart about 4 nights – free and easy to find.

·        We visited the Calico Ghost Town, pretty cool, but not as ghosty as I had hoped…

·        Lost a muffler when it came unattached from the RV on one of the two clip/mounts. So I sawed that bugger off and threw it on the side of the road. I knew it wasn’t my current muffler as I had been shown when I bought it how they rerouted the muffler and installed a better pipe. I thought it was just the old one, but it turned out to be the muffler for the generator box. I don’t have a generator so I was fine leaving it behind.

·        The campground was pretty amazing but not as lush as I had initially thought it might be. We were just lined up on a big grassy field. My cord didn’t reach to the power supply, so we used just solar, which turned out to be fine as it was hot as hell and sunny every single day.

·        The music was simply amazing. I had seen all of the acts once before, and now I got to see them again. I think Neil Young was my favorite, with Roger Waters close behind. They were definitely worth the trip to see all six in one place. At one point, Neil Young and Paul McCartney were belting out tunes together, Give Peace a Chance and Rocking in the Free World. Epic.

·        The venue was quite well done and we had no real glitches other than having to leave our glowsticks behind at security – stupid fucking rule. We saw tons in there later.

·        We didn’t see any vendors other than the food and drink ones. Bummer. Had hoped to do some Christmas shopping there.

·        We went to Santa Monica Pier for an evening to watch the sun go down at the beach and then checked out the Pier, rode the roller coaster and the Ferris wheel.

·        Camped at a gorgeous campground perched atop the cliff in Malibu.

·        We had to stop in Hollywood to check out the Walk of Fame and the Chinese Theater footprints/handprints of the stars. We also tried to get as close as we could to the Hollywood Sign. That was a bit tricky. It was a very windy bendy road area where the roads were quite narrow and wound themselves around the big houses there. Then I hit a low overhung palm tree with the RV and ripped the awning clean off the RV. It was a mangled mess on the ground. Seeing nothing to salvage, I threw it on the front lawn of the guy who owned the palm tree and got the hell out of there! It also popped off the top of my fridge vent, so I kept that, threw it inside and got moving. I called my roadside assistance to check out my fridge vent as I wan’t sure what had happened up there and I didn’t have a ladder. They took hours to get back to me and were going to charge a fortune, so I told the rude mechanic to bugger off and instead we went to Walmart and bought a ladder for $54 and popped that fridge cover right back on – no other damage other than a missing awning…then I returned the ladder at the next Wal-mart I stopped at, telling them it was too short for me. No prob. Fixing the RV turned out to be free.

·        We stopped at San Francisco of course, and hung out in the Haight-Ashbury district before heading into Golden Gate Park to hang out on Hippy Hill for awhile. Love San Fran.

·        We stopped to see the California Redwoods – amazing! We camped among them too but it was pouring rain the whole entire time so we did not get to see as much of them as we would have liked. They were gorgeous trees though and the smell – mmmmm.

·        Saw my first tumbleweeds! They tumbled right across the road in front of me, several times.

·        We saw a big herd of elk on the road and had to wait for them to clear before we could continue on our way.

·        The I-5 was just as annoying as it was the last time I drove it. Loud, too many trucks, not much to look at. We had been following the 101 up the coast, but then a typhoon was heading our way so we headed inland to the I-5 as I was not willing to risk our lives and my home to high winds.

·        Nash had an awesome time in the RV, but while we were at the concert grounds, he was boarded in a cattery. He didn’t seem to like it much and scratched anyone who came near. Poor fella. But it was impossible to have him at the concert grounds with 4 women in and out the door all day and night. There was also no room!

Hugo

·        My friend M. was the best co-pilot ever! She was back there mixing drinks day and night and got me whatever my little heart wanted. Beauty!

·        Hugo went with us and had a fantastic time. Hugo is a doll/creature/thingy that belonged to a friend of ours that couldn’t come. We dressed him up and took him everywhere, even in Walmart in the cart…we go so many stares and comments. M. also held him up to the window when we passed a trucker and waved to them. Some honked, some laughed, some didn’t know what to think…we loved it all.

So I guess I proved the old girl can really make a long road trip without issue, hot or cold climate. I was ever so glad to be back in Canada though. America is a great place to visit and play – would not want to live there.

Where's Waldo/Jude

Well, I know this is the longest stretch without a post since I started blogging way back in 2003, nearly 14 years ago. There are many reasons that I have not been blogging lately. Some reasonable, others complete laziness. Since my last post was in August, I’ll write a monthly summary for each month since then to catch everyone up.

September

I was getting ready for a huge road trip to California. Cleaning out the RV so I could make room for the 3 other ladies that would be sharing the space with me. This was no small task. I had to pack up so much stuff and drag it all into my friend’s bedroom (she was coming on the road trip with me). I also had to make sure we were clean to cross the border - they check for everything if they decide to inspect, so certain foods, crumbs, no garbage, herbs, etc.

I had training for several days for my fairly new position with the provincial government. I had been doing the job all summer, but we finally came together as a new team in September.

I went to a Permanency Forum in Richmond, BC. The forum was pretty good, but my first night there, I was in my RV parked behind the hotel where they had told me to park, and I had planned on sleeping in my room, but then decided to stay down with Nash that night. Good chance I did. Some fucking asshole broke into the RV while I was still in it. Yup, took a piece of rebar and smashed my front driver’s side window and grabbed my work bag from the front seat. It looks a bit like a purse, so I’m sure that’s what the asshole thought. Instead he got my gov issued laptop and my portable office stuff. He also took my feeling of security. I keep hearing that smashing crash sound which also reminded me of the night my house blew up and burned to the ground. Then to add insult to injury, I was parked at the front of the hotel after that, and some stupid taxi driver parked right behind me facing away from my RV. I had been rather upset and emotional since the breakin and finally decided to call it quits and head back to Victoria. I did not see said jerk taxi driver parked behind me as he parked just after I got into the RV, and he was in my blind spot. Asshole. I rammed right into him and because I thought I was on the curb and it was giving me the resistance, I slammed into him a few times, damaging his bumper. He came racing around, hollering at me so I stopped. I was less than impressed and gave him a piece of my crazy mind when he refused to move his stupid car out of the way so I could finally leave the ugliness of Richmond behind and make the next ferry. So I had a meltdown right there in front of the hotel. I gave him my contact info but he wanted to call the police – for a fender bender of all things…I told him to move his stupid car or I was going to RUN IT OVER. This was repeated several times…finally the manager came out and I explained to him that I had already given the asshole my info and he was refusing to move his car. Asshole finally moved his car from the NO PARKING zone behind my RV and I peeled the fuck out of there and just made the ferry. I won’t be going to Richmond again if I can help it.

The break-in was very stressful and created so many issues – because I had lost a government computer with very sensitive information on it, I had to go through a privacy breach investigation, and this was two days before I was to leave the country on my road trip. So a dozen or more phonecalls and emails explaining what happened. I was cleared because I had followed procedures for passwords and there were no files in the bag. The other big issue was the damn window – I could not possibly consider driving through the US with plastic taped over my window so I had to quickly organize to get a new window – managed to find the last one in the province to fit my old girl, AND to get it in before I left for America. It threw my prep schedule off by having to waste 6 hours at the shop when I should have been out gathering what I needed and packing up the RV.

October

This was Desert Trip month, which I’ll cover in a separate post or this one would go on forever. Also in October though, I began working from the provincial office in Victoria and my road trips for work were winding down as we shifted who we serviced. I also had carpal tunnel surgery on my right hand, which I am still recovering from. The pain afterwards was absolutely excruciating and I had to get some Oxy from my surgeon who had discharged me without any meds…so back to the hospital I went. The healing was painful and annoying as hell. I still do not have full function back. I have the range of movement but almost no strength to squeeze or grip. I’m hoping that comes back. Until then, I am not even considering getting my left hand done.

November

November was when I finally gave up on curbside parking and headed to the West Bay Marina and RV Park in Esquimalt. I had been parked for a couple of weeks while my hand recovered as I could not drive it. Parking Enforcement asshole would seriously wait until 10:00pm on the dot and then slip a ticket under my windshield wiper – WHILE I WAS SITTING IN THE DAMN RV! Jerk. So I gave up and called the Marina and they had room for me. I’m going to stay there until the end of February, if not longer.

I absolutely adore the RV Park. I am surrounded by the West Bay harbour, and tons of cool houseboats and dozens of yachts. I have power, water, sewage, cable, and I signed up for Shaw wifi and Netflix – so all the comforts of a regular home. My solar works very well in the warmer sunny months, but once the winter rains set in, I struggled to have enough to watch even one television show. If possible, I hope to winter there every year, though the rumor has it the Songhees Nation did not renew the lease for the RV park, so we technically have to leave by February 28^th. I’m hoping they will simply just take over the RV park and run it themselves. At least I’m there for the next few months.

December

December brought us a few snowy days, but it didn’t last, as this is Victoria and it rarely snows and never stays. I was thankful for power so I could run the furnace and a cube heater to keep the chill out of the RV. It’s also my birthday month and I’m turning 50 – the big 5-0. Holy shit where did the time go??

I’ve been having issues with the Blogger app, so normally I would blog on my iPads and use my wireless keyboard. For some reason, the app is being an asshole, so each time I tried to blog, it crashed the program. I can use my laptop, but that means I couldn’t watch my downloaded shows while I write. Lame excuse I know, but it just frustrated me too much to even consider writing after that. I also had limited use of my right hand, so typing was a challenge enough as it was and I was mousing with my left hand.

So with Christmas around the corner, I’m pretty much all ready. I sent all my parcels out and have just my secret santa left to buy for.

So that’s it – nothing too exciting except for the Desert Trip. Let’s see what 2017 brings for us all.