On the Road Again

In December, I published a post about some of our New Year Aspirations. So far, we've been able to do all the fun stuff we hoped. We left town, knowing that much of the westward journey would be boring.

Our first night was a nice boondock spot just outside (about 600' from) the south side of

Joshua Tree National Park. It was easy access from the highway, but far enough that road noise wasn't an issue. There were just two of us when we pulled in, but the next morning when we left I could count reflections of five other rigs scattered across the desert.

We left Joshua Tree about 8 a.m. with the idea that we would try to minimize traffic across Los Angeles by getting there right after the morning rush hour. I was more than a little shocked to experience this overwhelming traffic on the 210 as we approached the 215 interchange.

It was especially nice to have BJ with her moving map display working in concert with Kate, our British voiced Garmin Nuvi, to keep track of where we were and which lane we needed to be in.

Traffic did come to a full stop for about 15 seconds one time in Pasadena and got a bit messy around Hollywood, but it really was wildly better than I anticipated.

Home for our second night on the road was the Rincon Parkway Campground north of Ventura. There is a string of County Park along the beach here offering cheek-to-jowl dry camping for $40 per night. Rincon is 42' marked parking spaces along the old Pacific Highway where the spaces are priced at $28 (plus a dollar for Turk.) Nothing is cheap along the coast route, but we're making a game of seeing how cheap we can do it.

Here's a view looking north with the beach, rip-rap banks, RV parking, the old highway, and then the train tracks. Did I forget to mention the train tracks? Further to the right is the four lane Highway 101. Amazingly, the prevailing noise was the waves breaking on the beach.

The sky was quite overcast until about 5 p.m. when the sun and the blue sky made themselves known. Depending on the state of the tide, the beach can be quite narrow.

We had time to wander on the beach, keep BJ's Fitbit happy, and find a few caches.

And most importantly, we got a chance to enjoy our first ocean sunset of the year.

Next up, Monterey or there about - a lot of crooked miles - the best kind!