Follow Us In Our Travels

We left Holt’s Shell RV on 12/01/13 and moved on to Yuma. I can see a dentist there to fix my tooth (one fell out of my bridgework/partial) on Monday. A number of people on Facebook told me to go to Mexico, which a lot of people do, but neither one of us feels comfortable with that. When I talked to the lady on the phone at the dentist’s office, she said it would be $70, which is a good price. When I had one replaced in Oregon this spring it was $110, but they did make a new tooth. This one didn’t and they should just be able to put it in.

We decided to stay at Paradise Casino overnight, free parking for 24 hours. We didn’t get there until later afternoon, so should be able to get my dental work done and do the shopping at Lowes and Home Depot that Curt needs to do. Monday morning we dropped my partial off at 9:30 and it was done by 11:30. In the meantime we went to Lowes, Home Depot and the BLM office to look at their land maps.

Leaving Yuma and getting into California, you pass lots of sand dunes. Now that’s how we originally pictured a desert, rippled sand and dunes. We also were about ¼ mile away from the Mexico/USA border fence for a while driving on the highway.  We went as far as El Centro, CA for the night. We were going to stay at Walmart, but turned a block too early and there was an empty store lot that had about 6 campers in, so we figured we must be able to stay there for the night and pulled it there.  I think it’s an RVing group of some kind, because they all went to sit at a camper area and some of them had name tags on. We ended up staying until Friday morning and more campers came and went throughout that time.  We went to Target, Walmart, Lowes, Radio Shack, Harbor Freight. There are all kinds of shopping places within walking distance.

The weather throughout the country is turning cold due to a cold front going through, reaching all the way down to Yuma and southern Texas. They’re talking about trying to keep the citrus crops from freezing. It’s only for a few days, but I’m sure it doesn’t take much. The news channel states that the weather for this week is about 10 degrees lower than normal. We’ve been wondering whether we should go to a park for 50 amp plug-in or just tough it out here. We’re planning on going north to the Salton Sea and to Joshua Tree National Park. Up at Joshua Tree lows are only in the 20s, we’ve at least got the 40’s here now, but will getting into the 30’s. Curt decided that it’s suppose to be nice enough during the day that he can work outside and should be able to get the solar going in a few days if everything goes okay. We’re planning on going to a park for about a week for mail again, maybe next week. We’ll move on to the Salton Sea area and boondock for a few days.

 There were a lot of campers and trucks at this place. Busy all the time.

 Getting ourself weighed, Holt's Shell RV

 Huge feedlot

 Lots of bales for the cattle

 Concave solar panels

 Sign for gas at Sentinel, AZ - middle of nowhere it says (above & below pic)

 Lots of signs for land for sale

 Not sure if those are palm trees, or decorated poles?

 Someone got their Christmas tree this weekend

 Yuma ahead

 Irrigated land right to the edge of town

Paradise Casino

 Denture Discount, complete with chickens outside (above & below pic)

 On our way out of Yuma

Irrigated crop ?

 Lots of billboards for healthcare in Mexico

 Exit to Mexico

 This is a checkpoint going in to California - We got waved through this one, last spring we were stopped and asked if we had any plants or fruit or vegetables ??

 free camping on BLM land right out of Yuma, on the California side. Mexican border is probably about 1/2 mile away

 Imperial Sand Dunes - now that's how I imagined the desert to be ...

Border Patrol on his way to the border fence in the background

 Geothermal Facility above & below pic

More irrigation

 Miles of bales

 Field workers above & below

 El Centro, CA - below sea level

 Expensive diesel in California

Border Patrol offices

 The parking lot we parked in, along with about a dozen other campers

 Near a military base

 FedEx air field

 Medical helicopter

 A "desert" cemetery. No grass, no headstones.

 We weren't sure what this is - looks like a salt hill?

Spreckles Sugar Company above pics

 Why have a person hold a sign for advertising when you can have a mannequin do it?

 Brawley, CA

Cattle Call Drive (haven't heard that as a street name before)

 A ? on the water tower

 Another feedlot

 All holsteins, but they have a beef cow on the sign :)

How's that for hanging a light?

 State Prison

12/07/13: We are at the Wister Unit of Imperial Dam & Wildlife Area at the Salton Sea in southern California. We thought it was suppose to be BLM land, but there are no signs stating that.  It’s basically a gravel parking lot with lights, a small building and camper at one end and port-a-potties and garbage cans. There’s a Game & Fish pickup at the building and a car at the camper. A sign at the camper states they sell hunting license, ammo, food and ice. When we got here, there were about a dozen vehicles parked, and people standing around by the building. I don’t know if they have to register for hunting birds? We parked toward the other end and unhooked the Jeep and went to see Slab City and Salvation Mountain. They are a reason we came up this direction. We’ve read about it on the internet and seen pictures, and just wanted to see it for ourselves. Some people are comfortable boondocking there, others say it’s not safe.  When we got back the hunters were gone, and we went to see what the campground was that we had seen from the highway. It had signs that people must register and permit is required, but we couldn’t see any place for information or camp host. There were a lot of campers there, probably the hunters that we had seen before. The road from there goes to the “mud pots”. There’s marshy areas there and land dikes and you can see the Salton Sea from there.
http://everythingisconnectedblog.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/salton-sea-is-salty/
http://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/saltnsea/ssbro.html

After dark a bunch of the hunters came back to the parking lot, with a few of them staying overnight. About 2:30 AM I heard coyotes howling for a few minutes, and then about 3:30 vehicles starting up and leaving. And we’re right by the train tracks, with a train going multiple times day and night, with whistles blowing. Now I know why we’re the only ones parked here. We never got any rain that was forecasted, but Saturday it was pretty windy and sand blowing. The next couple of days Curt worked outside on the batteries and solar.