New Mexico to California

Guess where we are!

New Mexico didn't have a Welcome to New Mexico sign where we crossed from Texas to New Mexico.

Instead we were welcomed to Eddy County.

Our "campsite" at Chosa Primitive Campground near Carlsbad, New Mexico.

This was just a large fenced area, but it was a very pleasant and quiet place to spend the night.

Looking at the circle of 15 campers at Chosa

Some pretty grass at Chosa

Making it to New Mexico meant we have now been in LesThora in all of the "lower" 48.

We won't make it to Hawaii with the RV, and mostly likely not to Alaska.

But we plan to head to Alaska next spring via ship, plane, train and bus.

Guess we'll have to plan for a trip to Hawaii some day too.

The natural entrance to the caverns.

Looking out the entrance.

If you look close you can see the sparrows leaving for the day to catch insects.

The signs say the Sparrows do day duty and the bats do the night shift.

So many awesome formations!

Here's another one.

And another.

And one more to share.

Our resting spot for the night at the Carlsbad KOA.

In the beautiful Sacramento Mountains of New Mexico.

A tunnel in Lincoln National Forest.

That white at the base of the mountains in the distance is White Sands National Park.

We were startled to see the white expanse in the desert as we started to descend from the mountains.

Some of the white sands in the National Park.

It looked like we were driving through the snow.

More of the unique White Sand landscape.

LesThora in the white world of White Sands National Park.

Looking at the mountain ridge beyond the park.

After leaving White Sands National Park we continued west into Arizona where we would spend two nights and enjoy the Sonoran Desert, including two days at Saguaro National Park. The park has an East side and a West side, and we camped at a wonderful county park in between enjoying the two parts of the park.

At the rest stop we stopped at nor too far from the Arizona state line.

Florida is not the only state warning about their venomous critters!

Sunset from where we camped on Saturday, November 12.

This was a Harvest Host location: Cattle Rest Saloon.

It was just a field in front of the saloon, but a quiet and nice spot for the night.

The eastern sky at sunset on Saturday night.

Sunday morning sky when I went for a walk in the nearby fields.

Driving through this kind of country can seem boring,

but when you walk around it's easy to see the beauty.

This tapestry was in the bathroom at Cattle Rest Saloon.

Putting it in the corner made the horses seem like they were really moving.

At the entrance to the Eastern part of the park.

A beautiful ceramic mosaic at the visitor center.

We rode our bicycles around the wonderful 8 mile loop.

The weather was perfect for our sight seeing ride.

Some of the amazing Saguaros.

Us and the Saguaros.

This one's really tall.

Now you can see just how tall!

Our campsite at Gilbert Ray Campground in the Tucson Mountains.

After we left the East part of Saguaro National Park we headed toward the West part, figuring we'd take in both parts of the park on the same day, but on the way, less than five miles from the West entrance we checked out this campground and decided to just quit for the day. We don't need to cover many miles at this point since we are picking up two granddaughters in southern California on Sunday, November 20. This campground was beautifully situated amongst the Saguaros and even had trails for me to hike. Yeah! On Sunday afternoon my short hike lead me to Old Tucson which is a western town movie set. Lots and lots of movies have been filmed there since it was constructed in 1940. It hosts seasonal events, but was closed when I happened on it.

Monday morning we headed to the West part of Saguaro National Park, went to its visitor center and watched their film, and walked around a short nature trail before we started heading further west.

Is that bump the beginning of an arm? I'm not sure.

Saguaros aren't the only kind of cactus here.

The cactus are even on the mountains.

I figure they go up as far as the hard freeze line - they don't often survive below freezing temperatures.

A pretty one with lots of arms.

A weirdly shaped Saguaro/

Monday night we found a wonderful campground on BLM land a few miles off the freeway. This campground was at Painted Rock Petroglyph Site near Gila Bend, Arizona. It was an established campground with a camp host, pit toilets, tables and fire pits and with our National Senior Pass cost us a whole 4 dollars! We were actually more spread out from other campers than what we have been in the free dispersed areas. There were interpretive signs there about the history of human use in the area, including the same stage route we saw at Guadalupe National Park in Texas. And there were lots of petroglyphs made by the indigenous people of the area hundreds of years ago.

LesThora with other campers in the distant background.

One of the petroglyphs in a protected area behind a fence.

More petroglyphs.

Lots of them here.

See the snake?

One of the interpretive signs showed the dozen or so different kinds of Arizona Rattlesnakes!

Another desert sunset.

Nearby mountains I saw on my morning walk on Tuesday.

This was my "trail."

I only walked a couple of miles, but I could have walked all day I'm pretty sure.

A cool skeleton, Wild Life Tree.

On Tuesday we planned to only go a little past Yuma, Arizona into the desert of California. There were a few BLM campgrounds according to my campground App, but when we checked them out they weren't all that appealing - right next to the freeway, and one of them was designed for long term stay. We could have stayed one night, but it would have cost the minimum $40 which was for two weeks. We kept going and ended up at a Harvest host location in the mountains of San Diego County. The Harvest Host, "Simply Natural Hub" was actually at a KOA Campground, but they offered one night free without hookups. We ended up staying two nights because of high winds predicted in the San Diego Mountains all day Wednesday. We didn't want to drive in them if we didn't have to. The second night we moved into a regular KOA campsite with electricity and paid for that night. It was a very interesting place, complete with a beautiful, huge labyrinth, and lots of little trails in the high desert.

Driving through the mountains before we got to our campsite.

This terrain was very different from anything we'd seen so far.

Our free "Harvest Host" campsite.

Right behind LesThora is the labyrinth.

The labyrinth at our campground on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, November 15 and 16.

I enjoyed walking it multiple times.

A view from up on the hill in the campground.

Some of the pretty rocks.

Three woodpeckers on a post in the campground.

The sun going down on my last day of being 71.

Sunrise sky in the west on my 72nd birthday, November 17, 2022

I went up to the high point in the campground to greet the rising sun, but all I could see was its reflection on higher peaks. Over 20 minutes later on the labyrinth I saw the sun itself.

Here comes the sun!

We had reservations at Palomar Mountain State Park for two nights. I was really looking forward to spending my birthday at a park we had been to a couple of times about 50 years ago when we lived in Oceanside. Most of our camping when we were young marrieds, and poor, was in forest service campgrounds way out in the boondocks that were free or just a couple of dollars. To us the California State Parks at $15 a night then seemed like a big extravagance. When our oldest daughter Sheila was a baby we decided to splurge and go to the State Park on Palomar Mountain, but it rained, and it was freezing cold. Sheila was bundled up and warm, and Rob and I sat in the tent playing dominoes until we'd get too cold so we'd get in the car for a bit and turn on the heater, then back to the tent until we were too cold again. Finally at 2:00 in the afternoon we decided to pack up the wet tent and go home to Oceanside. Driving out of the campground over the mountain, the trees and and bushes were draped in ice! We set up the tent in the backyard to dry out, and had to leave it there for a week because it kept raining even in Oceanside where it hardly ever rained! We camped at Palomar Mountain one more time when we now had Sheila and Scott, and had much better weather! At the campfire program I remember the ranger sharing pictures of raccoons and talking about how powerful their jaws were and warning us not to leave food out. Uh Oh, we'd left the marshmallows on our table and sure enough when we went back to our campsite there was a raccoon on the table eating the marshmallows! In the RV now we don't worry about rain, and we never leave food out anymore!

On our way to Palomar Mountain on November 17, we stopped in the little mountain town of Julian to get some groceries and have lunch. We also got a special birthday hot fudge sundae at the old fashioned soda fountain. The road to Palomar Mountain was more windy and narrow than I had remembered it, but it was a beautiful drive there and we arrived in time for me to take a short birthday hike on one of the many trails in the park.

Our campsite was not very level, but we made it work!

Part of the nature trail where I took my birthday hike.

A beautiful old growth Cedar tree along the nature trail.

Friday morning before breakfast I planned to just walk around the campground for my morning walk because Rob and I were planning a 6 mile round trip hike to the fire look out above the campground, but I ended up hiking 2 1/2 miles round trip on a fire trail that lead out of the campground - I just couldn't resist!

The fire trail.

A totally cool tree along the trail.

Me with the tree behind me.

The fire trail went up and up, and here I could see the ocean.

When I got to what I thought was the top of a mountain, all I could see was more mountains to the south and east!

Looking toward the mountain with the lookout where Rob and I would hike later.

See the cell tower up there? It's right next to the fire lookout.

See Rob at the base of this oak tree?

This was near our campsite as we began our long hike.

There were many old growth Oak Trees at Palomar Mountain - some were really huge!

A Cedar tree storing acorns for the woodpeckers.

We heard woodpeckers most of the way up and down the mountain.

A monument to the work of the CCC.

We saw evidence of CCC work across the whole country!

We made it to the lookout!

As luck would have it there was a volunteer in the lookout and she invited us to come up and have a look.

Looking out across Oceanside and Camp Pendleton.

It was clear enough to see San Clemente Island and Catalina Island.

A hang glider below us.

The trail on the way down.

Our route turned out to be 7 miles round trip, not 6.

It was the first real good hike I'd taken in a while.

There were lots of trails at Palomar Mountain State Park that could be accessed right out of the campground - my favorite kind of campground! Saturday morning before breaking camp I hiked two more short trails. After breakfast we drove out of the state park and went up to the Palomar Observatory where we were able to go inside and see what the huge telescope looked liked. We also happened to be at the museum when they had a guest lecturer via Zoom. His topic was a new array of radio telescopes in the works to be placed in a valley in Nevada - a place that will not be corrupted by cell tower radio waves. It was all very interesting, but most of the details were way over our heads!

Palomar Observatory.

The Hale telescope.

Looking north to snow on the mountain top from the Observatory grounds.

I'm thinking that may be Mount Baldy above Claremont.

After our time at the Observatory (5500 feet elevation) we headed down the windy steep mountain road toward the coast where we had a one night reservation for South Carlsbad State Beach. We've made it to the Pacific Ocean after almost 11,000 miles of touring the country. Tomorrow, Sunday, November 20, we will pick up our granddaughters Katie (17) and Helen (14) who arrived in L.A. on Friday to visit friends they have been in an international Zoom group with. Then we will head north with them to join family for Thanksgiving and end up at Samuel P Taylor State Park by December 1 to begin our winter season of campground hosting. Traveling has been good, we've never gotten tired of it, but it will be good to "settle down" for a bit.