Titus Canyon and Trouble

Wow, can that wind blow. It was windy yesterday but had calmed down some during the evening. Then about midnight a HUGE gust of wind blew thru the valley, we suspect 40-50 mph, and kept us up most of the night. We eventually had to close all the windows to keep the dust out!

The clouds are thick all around us and the wind is blowing 35-40 mph but no rain so far. We checked at the ranger station about the rain and Titus Canyon and he didn't seem to think we would have much trouble this morning. The road thru Titus Canyon is a one-way road that is gravel, pretty narrow and very winding as well as high. It goes thru a 5250 foot pass.

The beginning of the canyon is across a flat plain then thru rocks that hold fossils and climbs pretty fast. As we are climbing the rain starts falling but not so hard that it causes problems. At times the canyon walls close in on us and then it widens out and opens up somewhat. There used to be a mining town called Leadfield where they mined lead for about 9 months and then it closed down. As we move down Titus Canyon to its eastern entrance, we keep searching for bighorn sheep but don't see any. We stopped for lunch when it started raining harder and then sleeting. We had to travel slower due to slick mud so John geared down the Jeep into low.

The last mile and half is when the canyon is the most narrow. At some points it is only 20 feet across. It is hard to explain how this feels and even harder to express in pictures but we tried.

At the end of the road is a rest area where we pulled off to use the potty. That is when trouble struck. This has been one of our better trips with little or no mechanical problems until now. John had the Jeep in 4-wheel drive low so he put the car in neutral to take it out of low and something snapped! The Jeep is now in neutral and will not go into any gear! We have no cell service, no internet, no nothing!

But luck is on our side. A group of motorcyclist informed us that due to the rain and sleet, a ranger was coming behind them to close down the canyon. When he showed up, he was able to radio another ranger and they called a tow truck for us. An hour and a half later we were being towed back to the RV and the Jeep was going to be towed to a Jeep dealer in Pahrump, Nevada and we were short $600 for the tow.

The wind had not stopped blowing all day. The dust flying up the valley, at times, obscured the mountains on the other side. The RV was one big dust ball and our mat and BBQ table were gone (a friendly neighbor caught them for us) when we returned. There is no way John can cook outside so we went across the street to the bar!

Castle, Crater & Racetrack

On the north end of Death Valley National Park is a home that gained notoriety as a castle that was built over a gold mine, but what most people think is remarkable is that a home of this size and beauty was built near Death Valley. The house was built from the 1920's - 1939.

Walter Scott was a cowboy from Kentucky,a showman with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and a con man. In 1902 Scotty started convincing wealthy businessmen that he had a gold mine claim in California and they should invest in it with him. During his time with the Wild West Show, Scotty learned how to promote himself and his schemes to make money. He was very flamboyant, out going and told a good story. And that's how he sold shares in his secret gold mine in Death Valley, CA. One gentleman who invested with Scotty was Albert Johnson, a millionaire businessman and former architect from Chicago. Albert's health was not good and he was encouraged to seek warmer climates so he decided to visit his "investment gold mine". It soon became very obvious that Scotty had no gold mine but Albert didn't mind. He enjoyed Scotty's company and loved the California desert. When his wife wanted to join him on his vacations to Death Valley, Albert decided to build a vacation home at Scotty's "gold mine" .

So with Scotty on site and Albert working with an architect from Chicago, the Spanish-style castle-in-the-desert was built. Albert had to be self sufficient in the harsh desert so he used solar panels to heat the water and a gushing spring to power a generator for electricity. Special insulation was used in the walls to and water falls were featured in some of the rooms as a cooling mechanism. He also built a special room where they could watch silent films with a pipe organ for the music. The pipe organ could be played manually or with roller music. It has over 1,200 pipes. One huge piece of the home that was never completed was the swimming pool. The hole was dug but then the depression came along and they ran out of money. All the tile for the pool lies in piles in the tunnels. That is the other unique aspect of this castle is that Albert had tunnels dug under the home running from room to room.

At one point the house was used as a bed and breakfast. As guest were dining, Scotty would get a few of the servants to go to the tunnels and bang on pots and pans. The guests were told it was miners digging for gold underneath the house. Scotty had his own room in the house but only used it to fool people into thinking it hid the secret entrance to the gold mine. In reality, Scotty lived in a small cabin about a mile away from the castle. It became know as Scotty's castle after Albert and his wife passed away. Their estate paid for Scotty to live there and be cared for until his death.

Just down the road from the castle was Ubehebe Crater, a 770 foot deep crater created when a steam-explosion occurred and blew out this hole.

We then aired down the tires on the Jeep and drove 27 miles down a washboard gravel road to go to the Racetrack! On the way we passed Teakettle Junction.This is probably the slowest race you will ever see on earth. The track is actually a playa created by a dry lakebed. The racers are boulders or rocks that move mysteriously across the lakebed leaving furrows in the mud. Some of these rocks weigh up to 700 pounds. The furrows show how the rocks have wiggled, jiggled, zigged and zagged across the perfectly flat bed. Geologists have a theory that rain may make the mud bottom slippery and that wind "pushes" the rocks along. No one has ever seen them move so no one knows how or why they move. It was a long drive back on the washboard road!

Death Valley National Park - Day 1

Everything in this park is a long way away. Our original plans had been to move campsites but the ones near the Visitor Center were not much nicer so we decided to stay where we are. Since we drove 30 miles to the Visitor Center we opted to explore this area today so we drove another 3 miles to Golden Canyon Trail. It was described as an easy 2 mile round trip but the sign at the start of the trail indicated that we could add some other hikes and extend it to 4 - 5 miles. So we did that! The Golden Canyon trail went up between two gold colored walls but you could see the Red Cathedral Cliffs behind them. As we went further up the trail, the canyon became narrower to a point where we scrambled over large rocks and boulders to access the end of the canyon. And it was worth it as we were right up against the Red Cathedral Cliffs. They were beautiful!

We walked back about 1/2 mile and then took the Zabriskie Point trail that rose up about 500 feet to a view point overlooking many, many alluvial fans scattered across the valley. Then we walked down thru Gower Gulch along a wash, across two dry falls of rocks and then a long path at the base of the mountain back to the parking lot. We estimate about a 5 mile walk.

After lunch we drove down to Badwater, another 14 miles down the road. Any water found in Death Valley is full of salt and minerals. When this area was discovered the miner's donkey would not drink the water so he named it Badwater. This is the lowest point in North America at 282 feet below sea level. We walked about 1/2 mile out into the salt flats which are not really flat but mud and salt broken ground. On the way back towards the Visitor Center at Furnace Creek, we stopped at The Devil's Golf Course. The ground here looks like freshly turned soil except that it is all salt crystals which are hard and very sharp. Someone made the comment that only the Devil could play on a golf course like this. Then near the visitor center we discover a resort with a golf course! Can you imagine playing golf in Death Valley? Maybe Saturday!

The drive back to the campground was about 30 miles. We took a short break, cooled off (the temp was at 86°) and then took another hike thru Mosaic Canyon which was located just across the road from the RV. The beginning of this trail took us thru polished marble walled canyon. It was so pretty. The upper end of the canyon was quite wide but narrowed towards the end. We did not go all the way to the end as we were pretty tired. We estimate it was a 2.5 mile hike.

Hot showers, Ahi Tuna for supper and an ice cream treat. Great Day!

Headed East

The rain that was forecast for today has not materialized and we are happy about that but all the wine growers will be sad -- they really need the rain in this area.

At times it was an eventful drive and at others it was quite boring. As we left Paso Robles we drove thru miles and miles of almond trees. Some were in bloom while others hadn't even budded out yet. Then as we neared Lost Hills, CA we began to see a forest of oil wells. Hundreds of them for about a mile along the highway and extending as far as the eye could see north and south. I googled it to find out that this is one of the largest oil fields in North America. It was discovered by accident when farmers drilling for water struck oil in 1922. It had its peak production in the 30's then started slowing down until 1976 when new technology found better ways of extracting the oil. Today production is still increasing.

We took Hwy 395 up the west side of China Lake Naval Air Weapons Center and then cut across to Death Valley National Park. It was after 4 when we arrived at the first campground at Stovepipe Wells so we made camp in the parking lot like camp area. We picked the path all the tent campers took to the only restroom on the grounds so foot traffic was heavy most of the evening.

John fell asleep at 9 PM in his chair -- long day!

Great Wines

I got to thinking that you might like the names of the wineries we have visited in the Paso Robles region. Yesterday we were at Croad, Changala, Dunning and Pipestone.

One of our favorite wines is a zinfandel made by Turley Winery. That was our first stop this morning and we were not disappointed! They only grow the zinfandel grape and the quality of their wines proves it. The vines are never staked up and they do not irrigate their fields because they don't have a water source. Some of their vines were planted here in 1922 and are still producing grapes today. The vintner owns 23 vineyards so he really knows his 'stuff'. We came away with 2 cases of wine to be shipped home.

After lunch we stopped at Pear Valley, Tobin James and Chumaia (pronounced koo-may-a). Pear Valley had some nice wines so we bought a couple of bottles. Tobin James is a larger winery but still has estate wines. We overheard one of the servers tell another couple that the bar came from Blue Eye, MO and that pricked up our ears! Of course, we had to say something and I think we got some preferential treatment because of that. We must have tasted 8 wines with the last 4 being reserved bottles that not everyone gets to taste. We bought 3 bottles. The last stop was a very small vineyard whose tasting room was in the same place as their tanks and barrels. The owner came walking in shortly after we arrived from one of his fields. We liked his wines as well and we liked the owner. He was a real talker and seemed to enjoy telling stories of his trip to China where he sells some of his wines. We laughed a lot and stayed longer than normal and bought a bottle.

Tonight we are going out to eat at a highly rated restaurant named Artisan's. Tomorrow we go back to "roughing it in the wild" as we head for Death Valley.

Paso Robles

After we left the Castle yesterday, we stopped in San Simeon for a wine tasting of the Hearst wines and then spotted a vista point with a lot of cars so stopped to see what was going on. This is the area of the California coast where Elephant Seals come to mate, give birth and molt. Right now the mothers have finished feeding their calves, have mated and left to head for Alaska. The babies are left on the beach to fend for themselves. They have to learn how to swim and how to find their food before they will take off to go up the coast. Some of the huge bull seals are still hanging around but they will be leaving soon as well. Certain groups of the seals will return throughout the year to molt before heading out again to hunt.

We spent the night in a state park and then drove thru dense fog into Paso Robles, another of California's wine valleys. We got set up in an RV park and after lunch tasted wines for most of the afternoon. Most of the wineries grow the Zinfandel grape but we found some other nice red wines and a few whites. John had picked out a few wineries he wanted to visit, focusing on the small boutique wineries or ones who bottle from their estate grown grapes. Three of these focused on the Rhone style of wine making.

We were not real impressed with the first winery but at the second we visited the hostess was very friendly and recommend two other home wineries up the road. We enjoyed both of them and even bought a case of wine to be shipped home. None of these wineries produce more than two or three thousand cases a year and one of them only 700 cases.

We walked around down town for a bit, stopped for a cocktail and appetizer before heading back to the RV for the evening.

Hearst Castle

Oh, man, are we sore today! We either haven't been getting enough exercise or that was a much tougher climb than we thought yesterday! Or a combination.

We broke camp early and drove 30 miles up the coast toward San Simeon and the Hearst Castle. William Randolph Hearst's father, George, was a miner from Missouri when he came out to California during the gold rush. He did not find any gold but he did discover a huge silver deposit and made a fortune. He also fell in love with this part of the California coast. With his first money he started buying land, and more land, and more land. He married Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson Hearst and they had one son, William Randolph. The property that George bought was a favorite camping spot as Willy was growing up. At the age of 10, mother and son took off on a year and a half world tour of all the wonderful European churches, castles and art museums, which shaped Williams ideas of what an enchanted home would look like.

William worked hard, and built his own fortune on top of his fathers, starting off in the newspaper publishing business but adding more businesses all the time. At one point he owned over 45 companies. At the age of 40 William married a New York dancer and they had 5 sons. But it was not a happy marriage, but since divorce at that time had a bad stigma, he never divorced but he did have another companion. William did not like the east coast and was drawn back to the Hearst Ranch where he envisioned his enchanted home. He met a female architect, Julia Moore, who came to share his vision for this castle. It took 15 years to build and is still not completed and will never be finished. William died at the age of 88.

The castle is truly magnificent! It is built on the top of a 1600 foot mountain and looks like a Spanish Cathedral on the outside with two bell towers towering over the rest of the mansion. The Casa Grande, grand house, is surrounded by three other cottages where the family lived as the main house was being built. They are not really cottages but two and three story houses with 10- 15 rooms each.

The main house -- Casa Granda -- has 69,000 square feet of living space, 1,000 sq. ft of closets, 115 rooms, 38 bedrooms, 42 bathrooms, 14 sitting rooms, a large living room with 2 pianos, a game room with 2 pool tables, a huge kitchen, 2 libraries, 2 heated swimming pools, tennis courts and a movie theatre. We toured the main body of the house. One wing was for visitors and the other wing for the staff but they are not open for tours. At one point Mr. Hearst had 80 paid staff running the house. The bedrooms were grouped into suites with a sitting room and two bedrooms. The bathrooms and closets were across the hall. Construction was started in 1919 and the Hearsts moved in around 1928. Work stopped on the house in 1947 and William died at the age of 88 in 1951.

The whole house was built as a museum with ancient art and modern art pieces throughout. Almost all the ceilings were imported from Europe, the walls were covered with ancient tapestries or choir chairs from churches in Europe.

I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story:

Valencia and Oats Peaks

This morning as we were preparing our hydration packs for an all day hike, we discovered a leak in one water bladder. That created a mess and it took us awhile to get going after cleaning up from the leak. We drove over to Los Osos and then to Montana de Oro State Park. Our friendly chamber lady said this was a great place to hike with lots of trails and wonderful scenery.

We chose two trails with lots of elevation change to get ready for our Grand Canyon trip. It was two miles up Valencia Peak with the last mile being the steepest up to about 1300 feet. We then came down one mile and took a connecting trail over to Oats Peak Trail, stopped for lunch and then climbed back up to 1300 feet again on Oats Peak. We took the easier trail back down to the Jeep. We estimate that we hiked about 8 miles today.

The views from these peaks were awesome. We could see the coastline with crashing waves on steep cliffs. There were lots of other high peaks and steep valleys throughout the area. At one point we spotted two birds that were either hawks, falcons, or eagles. We don't know which, but they were awesome to watch. The breeze was stiff at times but hiking creates a lot of heat so we didn't mind the cooler temps and wind too much. We met up with a boy scout troop taking a hike and a couple from Canada stopped to take our picture and visit for awhile.

After showers, John was nice enough to take me out to dinner so I didn't have to cook. Unfortunately, we did not get to watch the sun set into the ocean due to clouds. But it was still a nice evening.

Morro Bay

We drove thru Los Angeles today at mid morning but we couldn't tell it by the traffic. At least twice we had to slow to almost a dead stop due to a busy interchange but we made it thru and got to Morro Bay which is north of Santa Barbara and near San Louis Obispo. We are camped at a State Park right outside of town. The ranger that checked us in has zero personality and we were almost ready to move on because of that. But we found the Chamber of Commerce and Sharon was an enthusiastic ambassador for the area. She had information for hiking and biking and dining that we have found to be right on the button.

The weather has been rather cool. It was supposed to have gotten up to 65 today but it didn't make it much past 60 which wasn't too bad with the sun shining and the wind calm. We rode our bikes up the huge Black Hill thru the state park golf course -- not bad but a bit on the pricey side. We then toured the town, riding up and down several side streets as well as the tourist district. Sharon from the Chamber said that riding bikes on the sand was lots of fun, so after watching the surfers, we took off for about a 3 mile ride down the beach. She was right, it was almost like riding on soft concrete. On the way back to town, we found a nice bike path after riding along the freeway for a short distance.

Lunch was at the local fish market with an Italian name - Giovanni's. I had a really good soft shell blue crab sandwich and John stuffed himself with a fried seafood combo plate. We walked the tourist district before heading back to the RV. It was a total of 15 miles on the bikes.

Journey Golf

It rained off and on last night but dawned sunny and cold. The day started off with a breeze that died down as the day wore on. We had a 10:40 tee time set at The Journey at Pechanga Golf Course. Our RV looks out over part of the course and it is beautiful. It was a difficult course built onto the side of a mountain so a number of the holes had very elevated tee boxes. Their signature hole #6 has a 175 foot drop. The views from these tee boxes was awesome. Off to the west we could see snow topped mountains and toward the east we knew there was an ocean but couldn't see it. I shot a 100 which is pretty good for me but John doesn't want to talk about his game.

This is a quiet evening in the RV while we make plans to move on tomorrow.

Temecula Valley

Temecula Valley is in the Southern California Wine Country. There are over 40 wineries from the small boutique vintner to some full-service wineries with resorts. We visited Old Town to get some visitor information, coffee, cheese and chocolate covered bacon, before heading out on the wine trail to do some tastings. We had no idea which one to choose as we hadn't heard about any of them so we just stopped at ones that looked interesting.

We didn't care for the wines at Leonesse Cellars. The hostess seemed more interested in selling us a club membership that touting their wines. We stopped at Monte De Oro because of the size of their tasting room and restaurant. We liked some of their wines, but they are very young wines as they just recently opened. But we could taste the potential, so we bought three bottles. We drove past Falkner Wines to check out their parking lot as they are on the Harvest Host list of places to possibly spend the night. We then stopped at Baily Wines because we wanted to find out about the actual grape vines they had along the road. The vines looked very old and gnarly and John said they were probably an old Zinfandel grape. This is a very small, boutique winery that has been around for a long time. Once we started tasting their wines, which were actually pretty good, I asked our wine connoisseur if he knew about the vines. He said that most of the vines we could see were cabernet sauvignon and were, indeed, very old.

John was very good to me tonight and took me out to eat at Lucille's BBQ. Their ribs are almost better than those at Bandana's and that's GOOD.

Moving On

The weather reports for this area predicted very high winds with gusts up to 70 mph starting on Tuesday so we decided to not be in the desert when that event occurred. Therefore, we will not be taking the 12 mile hike and abusing ourselves.

We chose instead to drive to Temecula and to stay at a full service campground. We are on the Pechanga Indian Reservation in the middle of Temecula, staying at the Pechanga RV Resort that is part of the Pechanga Casino and Resort. Once we got settled in, we walked around the area and then walked thru the casino. I think we were lost in there, but John says he knew where we were the whole time, we just couldn't find the door to the hotel where we had entered. I don't understand the attraction of slot machines. One just sits in front of the machine and punches one button over and over and over. They don't even have any "arms" any more! I saw no signs of excitement, anticipation or energy on any one of those people.

We made a tee time on the Journey Golf Course for Wednesday.

Hellhole Canyon and Maidenhair Falls

Because we didn't have anything else to do today except laundry, we loaded up our new hydration packs and took a six mile hike up Hellhole Canyon. The first part of the walk was along the desert floor with a slight rise as we neared the canyon entrance and then it got interesting! The description of the trail said "some rock scrambling required." Well, they got that right! We kept losing the path in the rocks, making our own path thru the rocks or backing up and trying another route over the rocks. As we neared Maidenhair Falls the route got more complicated because we had to cross the creek back and forth a few times. At least we were in the grove of palm trees where it was much cooler.

We found a large rock upon which we ate lunch and then we actually found the falls. For whatever reason, the way down was much clearer and seemed easier until I slipped on top of a rock and bruised my shin really well! I'm sure I was a funny sight with my butt up in the air and my face down on the rock! John didn't think so.

Now we need to decide if we will stay and do the 12 mile hike or move on. They have posted a high wind warning for the mountains starting Tuesday noon so we will be leaving before then for sure.

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park

This state park is HUGE. We saw a list for hiking trails that had over 25 named trails and that is not all. A volunteer told us that there is over 500 miles of dirt roads in the park, some easy and some very, very hard. We walked a little over a mile to the visitor center and then there is a 3 mile round trip trail out of our campground. It leads up to a grove of palm trees and a waterfall. We had to do some rock climbing to find what we thought was the water fall but not really sure since it didn't have much water.

We got to video chat with our grandson's and their parents today. It was so good to see them all even if the connection was not the best. We also rode our bikes into Borrego Springs since it is only about 3 miles from the campground. This is a very touristy place and has lots of RV parks and hotels. We also saw lots of jeeps.

It was a perfect evening for a campfire but we are really pooped and won't stay up late.

Crossing the Border

At breakfast this morning, Mrs. Miller was very excited about the birth of a new colt. At first she thought it was a female but found out after breakfast that it was a boy. We got to go out into the field to see this new addition to her ranch.

We arrived at the border crossing around noon and had about an hour wait to get to the US side where we were pulled over and boarded. This part took about 90 minutes. They took my pears but left the ham and bacon, which is opposite of what I thought would happen. The hang up came with the agents trying to figure out how much duty we had to pay for our 15 bottles of Mexican wine. Another couple in our group had 8 bottles and were not charged a dime. Too bad the US can't get all their information together. We paid $26.80.

We drove back to the RV park to pick up the Jeep, then we dumped and filled up with water. We have a '100 mile rule' when we don't tow the Jeep if the drive is shorter than 100 miles so I drove the Jeep and John led in the RV. We thought the drive would only take about 90 minutes to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park since the total distance was about 80 miles but we didn't factor in the very winding, mountain roads. When we got to Borrego Springs, I stopped at the grocery store for a couple of things while John located the park. It was after dark when we finally located a site in the state park. Lucky for us they had just opened up a loop of campsites that had been closed due to budget cuts. Our dinner was late.

Adobe Guadalupe

Today we were scheduled to tour Ensenada and have lunch in the Fish Market but we did that on Tuesday instead of going out whale watching so we stayed at Bodegas San Rafael until late morning. Some of us hiked up the big hill behind their house and enjoyed a great view of the valley and all the vineyards surrounding us. We then drove to a beach area south of Ensenada where we ate lunch and John and I took a brisk 30 minute walk on the beach.

The drive to Adobe Guadalupe took us through the city again and then on north past some of the vineyards we had visited on Monday. We turned off the main road and went down a long lane to the Adobe Ranch. Our campsite was a huge parking lot just outside the gate to the house.

This ranch is owned by an American couple who have lived here for over 35 years. The Millers only son died unexpectedly when he was 21 years old. Because of their loss, Mrs. Miller has placed angels all around the property and all of their wines are named after angels. They also bottle their own Mescal and name it Lucifer (the fallen angel) and it does have a bit of fire to taste. After tasting their three wines, we found out that the one John liked best was recently rated 93 by Wine Spectator and the other two had 90 and 91 ratings.

The house is also a bed and breakfast so we will be having breakfast there in the morning. We were given a tour of the house and nearby grounds. It is beautiful with an eclectic collection of antiques, art and Mexican pottery. They also raise a breed of Mexican horses for show. After the tour we gathered at the RVs and had a rousing cocktail hour with good food and Adobe wines. The Millers have four Weimaraner dogs who have adopted us as family. One dog even wormed his way into one of the RVs for the night. They are really sweet dogs.