OFF WE GO ON ANOTHER SPRINTER VAN ADVENTURE!

CHAPTER 1 – CALIFORNIA TO COLORADO
September 4, 2024 from Rapid City, SD

HEADNOTE (as opposed to a footnote): Due to crazy-hot weather, then sketchy internet and then various computer glitches, we’re very behind on our blog posts, but alas all systems are now go! Thanks for your patience!        

We’ve driven over 2300 miles already in our trusty Mercedes Sprinter Van—our first camping trip since 2020. We had less than 3 months to prepare for this one, but fortunately we kept good checklists from 3 earlier van trips so it was much easier to prepare. The van is in pretty good shape and we still have all the plastic containers we use to store everything we need—clothes, toiletries, camping & cooking gear, tools, electronics, photography equipment, art supplies plus assorted blankets, cushions, towels, LOTS of water and some snacks and other foods. There are storage boxes on the back for our cook stove, mini BBQ and cooking gear. (For safety, it is important for propane to not be inside the van.) Gary planned all of this very well when converting an 11-passenger van to a camper, complete with queen murphy bed (and a very comfy mattress), drop-down table & bench (that comes down from the bottom of the bed per photo below), chest of drawers (on left, from photo taken at head of bed), compost toilet and refrigerator. It’s quite the set-up! Here are some pictures that might help you picture how we are traveling.

We left our very cool (68 degrees) coastal town of Los Osos, California on Saturday, August 24. This trip was inspired because, now that USC is in the Big Ten conference (football), Gary wanted to watch USC play Michigan in “The Big House”—a 110,000-seat stadium at Ann Arbor. We’ll also go to USC vs. Minnesota 2 weeks later and added a Kansas City Chiefs vs. New Orleans Saints home game on October 7. On the way to and from, we also plan to visit another 14 National Parks (to add to the 31 we’ve already seen) and we’ll get to see my two oldest grandsons (in Austin, TX and Flagstaff, AZ). We are very excited and are already having a grand time. We sure live in a beautiful country!

The drive to Las Vegas via Barstow is usually a pretty boring drive, but knowing I was going to write some more blogs, I looked at it all with fresh eyes. The first day we went from the coast and coastal hills through the abundant vineyards of Paso Robles and the iconic golden hills scattered with oak trees, then many nut tree orchards. (FYI, California grows 80% of the world’s almonds, 75% of walnuts and 98% of the world’s pistachios!) The road then gets into a pretty barren stretch of desert plus a very ugly oil field with hundreds of bobbing oil pumps placed very close together—sadly, less than beautiful!

Before getting to the “high desert” of Mojave where Joshua trees abound (below, left) and mountains reappear, I had forgotten how many other things of note are located along this highway, including Edwards Air Force Base (where Chuck Yeagar became the first human to break the sound barrier in 1947 in his X-1 rocket plane). Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake is nearby (“the most important place you’ve probably never heard of”) where many large strategic nuclear weapons, rocketry and guidance systems were and are developed and tested. We also passed Jeff Bezos’ (Amazon chair) Blue Origin facility—aerospace manufacturer, launch service provider and space technology, as well as aeronautical engineer Burt Rutan’s headquarters where he designed & built SpaceShipOne, the first private spaceship to outer space (2004) and experimental airplanes called VeriEze & Long-EZ (John Denver was killed in one in 1997). We passed several wind turbine farms, and, as we got closer to Las Vegas, we discovered a fascinating new solar installation at the foot of the Clark Mountains. It’s called the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility where the sun heats up these large heliostat mirrors atop huge towers and special boilers then create steam power. It was quite a sight to see! (Gary actually provided most of the above information as we were driving along. I continue to be in awe of how much he knows about so many things…I call him “Walker-pedia!”)

At any rate, we woke up early the second day in Barstow and had planned to camp out in Las Vegas, but frankly, we no longer enjoy this haven of glitter and its showy 4.5 mile “Strip,” (although we’ve seen some great shows there over the years, including our favorite Cirque du Soleil’s “O” water show), so we decided to keep driving and went all the way to St. George, Utah—274 miles. (It really helps that we take turns driving—switching about every 1 to 1.5 hours, especially when we have a long drive. Most drives on this whole trip are 2-4 hours—and rarely a maximum of 6. This rhythm works well for us.)

It was in southwest Utah that the landscape became greener and the weather got much warmer (as expected), AND, the scenery got better and better too. I’ve always been fascinated with the rock formations—their varying colors and shapes—so it was very enjoyable to take in this enchanting beauty as we made our way to Lake Powell and Page, Arizona (part of the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area). This is where we spent several days during our first Van trip in 2018 to the Grand Canyon, the nearby amazing Antelope Slot Canyons and Utah’s southern National Parks (Arches, Canyonlands, Capital Reef, Bryce, Zion)—all such stunning wonders of nature! The only confusion was driving in and out of Pacific and Mountain time zones several times as we crossed from Nevada to Utah, then through the NW corner of AZ (no Daylight Savings there) and back into Utah and back into Page, AZ…all in a matter of 4 hours! I suppose people who live and commute in this area have figured it all out.

We stayed at the Antelope Point Marina for 2 nights. This is where we saw our first “wildlife!”…a grasshopper perched atop a tube of Eucalyptus Body Scrub left behind in the ladies’ room! 🙂 The highlight of this stay was a boat tour up Navajo Canyon—one of 93 canyons on Lake Powell. We learned a lot more about the Navajo culture and also about the geology. (Did you know that a mesa is always wider than it is tall and that a butte is just the opposite—taller than it is wide? Arizona and Utah have an abundance of both.) The weather was VERY HOT (high 90’s) most of the time, so it was nice to get out on the water and feel a bit of a breeze. Here are some photos from that 2-hour guided cruise…note the white high water marks on the Navajo sandstone:

Temperatures remained in the 90’s all the way to South Dakota, so we were very mindful of staying hydrated. Before we left, we splurged on two large, heavily insulated YETI mugs ($40 each, below left). They keep the water very cold for several days and even ice remains for 2 days or more. Pretty amazing and worth every penny! Knowing we would probably be in hot weather, Gary installed a portable air conditioning unit on top of the refrigerator to use when the car is parked. What a huge difference that has made! We also have small fans on either side of our bed and another at the foot, so we’ve managed to sleep pretty well. They run off a small Goal Zero inverter that sits atop our chest of drawers. The solar panels and extra car batteries Gary had installed have allowed us to have all the power we’ve needed. We even have little touch lights beside our bed for reading. What a clever and creative guy he is and I so appreciate all the ways he’s thought through the van conversion. There really is a place for everything and it’s a pretty fun way to travel. Speaking of heat, when we got back from lunch and the boat tour (gone about 4 hours), I picked up the large bottle of Airborne Gummies to take one (to enhance immune system), and the entire contents had MELTED into one big blob! Yikes and yuck!

We had a fun drive through familiar territory from Page to Monument Valley and Moab, Utah to Grand Junction, Colorado (the junction of the Colorado and Gunnison Rivers). We stopped for lunch at Zax, our favorite restaurant in Moab, where Gary bought a shirt he “had to have,” reminding him of a jeep road adventure he took in 2019 down into one of the canyons. (See photo above right!) Our campground sat on the banks of the Colorado River—the same river that fills Lake Powell and powers its way down the Grand Canyon. It was was very peaceful walking there.

We then visited Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and it was like nothing we’ve ever seen. (On our way there, we finally saw some “real” wildlife—a very healthy coyote ran across the road in front of us!) “Black” is very appropriate for this awesome gorge in western Colorado. The canyon is so deep and narrow that in places sunlight reaches the Gunnison River at the bottom only briefly, at midday. Its narrow walls stretch 2700’ high from the bottom toward the sky. We drove the 7-mile long South Rim of the Canyon and stopped at several view points, astounded at the sheer cliffs (where elite climbers dare to practice their sport!), carved by the rushing snow-melt waters of the Gunnison, appropriately referred to as a “liquid buzz saw!” Wow! I lived in Colorado for 7 years and never knew it was there!

On our way to Lakewood, a suburb of Denver, Colorado, we drove over Monarch Pass (11,312’) and the Continental Divide, where waters to the West flow toward the Pacific and to the East flow toward the Atlantic. Monarch Pass was a favorite ski area when I was at Colorado College in Colorado Springs… about 130 miles away. In the late 50’s, it wasn’t well known except to locals, so, with no lines, we would make dozens of runs in a day and have a glorious time!

Our last stop in Colorado was in Lakewood where we opted to stay in a hotel near the Mile Hi Church (part of the Centers for Spiritual Living that Gary and I have been affiliated with since the early 90’s). We totally enjoyed everything about the service, sat next to two practitioners who used to live in Santa Cruz and especially enjoyed one of our favorite songs, “LET THERE BE PEACE ON EARTH…AND LET IT BEGIN WITH ME!” Yes!!! There was a chant sung at the beginning of the service that really resonated with me, as I continue to practice, radiate and inspire peace, love, joy, order and harmony in the world: 

            I CANNOT DO ALL THE GOOD THAT THE WORLD NEEDS,
BUT THE WORLD NEEDS ALL THE GOOD THAT I CAN DO.

The next chapter in this Sprinter Van Adventure will cover our travels through Wyoming to South Dakota and North Dakota and several more National Parks. Bless John Muir, and Presidents Grant, Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt for founding these treasures of natural wonder, together with all those who work to maintain and preserve them for all of us to enjoy. They do good!

As always, thanks for traveling along with us! More blogs to come sooner than later!!! 🙂