Palm trees in our Palm Springs rv park 2/14/20

We’ll wrap up our hiatus from the road in this post since we’re finally about to cover some miles. After some health delays, we finally left the San Diego region in mid-February and headed to Palm Springs (again) followed by visits to the Salton Sea and the L.A. area, ending with what was to be a brief stop in Bakersfield. From Bakersfield, we were to wander north via the coast (Big Sur and some wine country) and then the lovely string of national parks (Yosemite, Sequoia, etc…), ultimately hitting the Pacific Coast near Tacoma, WA and sliding down the coast back to Northern California. Plans were laid with the highlight of hooking up with our good friends for almost 3 weeks in SW Oregon. A potentially great summer.

Yeah, well, the best laid plans.

View from our roof 5/25/20

We saw the writing on the wall and decided that Bakersfield was the place to isolate for awhile. Our rv park had great cell coverage (needed for internet), beautiful monthly sites with blooming orange trees inches from the coach, and good infrastructure for food, mail, etc. We’ve been here since March 6 and it worked out well. Now we’re ready to leave.

And so leave we shall.

We’ve decided that it was safest to not move too often, so we’re going to bolt up the west coast to southern Washington near Mt. St. Helen’s for 3 weeks or so, then to the Oregon coast in Tillamook for a couple of months. It will be very nice to see green again and get some relief from the heat this week. The forecast is over 100 degrees for 5 days running, with one day’s high expected to be 111 degrees. Yeah, we’ll be happy with the Oregon coolness after that.

Here are a bunch of photos from between San Diego and Bakersfield. Hopefully, I can get back to shooting regularly soon. Stay safe, y’all.

Bombay Beach on what’s left of the Salton Sea is an odd place full of odd art. We liked it. 2/18/20

Sitting in someone’s yard in Bombay Beach. 2/18/20

Near Slab City, itself an odd place, is Salvation Mountain. All built with found & donated supplies, it’s pretty much the work of one guy. 2/28/20

Salvation Mountain 2/28/20

Evening at the Salton Sea 2/28/20

Some of the oil fields in and around Bakersfield. These pumps are everywhere, including business parking lots. 5/20/20

We had orange groves and vineyards to walk in next to the rv. Here’s one of several active wells in these fields. 4/4/20

Drilling for oil in the vineyard. 4/29/20

Our home. 3/21/20