Category Archives: Camping

Folsom Lake, Wildflowers, And The Wedding

April 15, 2015 Keevan 3 Comments

We’re sitting here at Beals Point Campground on Folsom Lake, after driving north through Owen’s Valley, then over to Carson Valley, then across the Sierra’s again to warmer weather.

It’s all been gorgeous, but the weather turned bitter cold with nights into the low 20’s and wind gusting horrendously around the beautiful Carson Valley.

Planning on meeting up with our daughter who is in Sacramento on business, we decide to cross the Sierra summit before snow falls on the highway.

We miraculously find this uncrowded campground and enjoy a few days of if not drier, at least much warmer weather.

Lounging around an entire day, bundled up playing dice games, reading books, and sipping warm tea while the rain pours down and pounds the van, we are happy. We set the awning up to have a dry porch area, take shorts walks in rain gear, and enjoy Mother Nature.

The birds who stuffed this tree with winter rations are certainly prepared! Just like us, they must feel like they can never have too much food on hand…just in case.

After the storm, the days are sunny, warm and delightful.

We find wildflowers everywhere we hike.

When the weekend rolls around and the campground fills up, we drive a long and windy road to the other side of the lake, where the campground on that side, Peninsula campground, is just barely open. In fact no ranger ever comes around to collect and there is no way to pay. The camp host, the only other person here on our first day, and who only recently arrived himself, said not to worry about it. So we don’t. We have the entire campground to ourselves for the first day and a half, before a few other brave souls starting arriving.

These golden fields filled with blue Lupine and purple Vetch is what we look at here out the van door.

We finally go and meet up with daughter, and spend a few days in the city of Sacramento together, enjoying some good food, soft beds, and hot showers.

Fun is had by all, and refreshing as this is, still it’s good to be back in the van by lakeside again.

It’s really where we feel at home now.

We are here for another day, then will be heading back to Santa Cruz to finish preparing for her wedding.

I plan on being absent from this blog for awhile, and won’t be posting for at least a few weeks, while we change gears and celebrate in a different fashion, spend time with family, and oh yeah, learn how to use my new camera! (It’s a 7D markII) So many things to be excited about!

These photos and all previous photos on this blog have been taken with a really old Canon Rebel 2ti camera. It has been an awesome traveling camera, very lightweight and easy to tote around on hikes, and has taken it’s share of bumps and bruises, but it’s time, and now I’m really looking forward to playing around with this new camera, experimenting, and pushing my limits some.

Peace to all and Happy Spring. ❧

Birding, Boondocking, Camping, Nature, Travel

Wild Horses And Wildlife Refuges

April 4, 2015 Keevan 8 Comments

Happy Easter!

Desert National Wildlife Refuge:

We hadn’t planned on backtracking, but after talking with and exchanging information with some fellow nomads, we realize there are a few more places we want to visit before leaving this part of Nevada.

We head off to Desert National Wildlife Refuge…Five long washboarded dirt and gravel road miles, and arrive late enough that it is really too late to see much. DNWF makes it clear that dry camping is allowable on the back roads of the refuge, so we find us a lovely spot, watch the sunset, and retire, so we can get going early enough the next morning to be able to hike a couple of trails before it warms up too much, and while the birds are most active.

It’s a beautiful place, a true oasis in the middle of the desert. Most of the back country requires a 4 wheel drive to crisscross the mountains and dirt roads, and although our Van has pretty high clearance, we decide not to take her on any more bumpy rides, after all the work we put into her this past winter.

We spend the morning around Corn Creek instead. Tall Cottonwoods, native shrubbery, ponds, walkways, trails, and lush green meadows surround a beautiful new visitor center. We hike on some of the trails, and enjoy a slow and easy time of it. It’s very relaxing to just hang out and enjoy the wildlife here. We meet a photographer from Massachusetts, exchange bird information, and spend much time chatting away the morning.

So many birds are busy building nests now! They are flying to and fro carrying all sorts of materials. This little Verdin has quite a mouthful!

We continue to laze around here until it starts to heat up and all is quiet in the woods.

Cold Creek Village

After making it back out and off of that horrible washboard road, (which evidently is about to get paved) we drive a few miles up the highway and take a left turn up Cold Creek Road.

This is an interesting area – the entire village of Cold Creek is off grid. The off grid homes are not just little cabins, but real substantial sized houses, all with solar panels mounted on roofs. The surrounding area is a large ATV riding area. And it is also a quaint community where wild horses roam freely.

We find it to be a beautiful valley, with snow covered peaks rising up from the desert floor.

These Wild Horses here seem much more tame than other wild horses we’ve seen. Surely they interact with the people who live in the Cold Creek community.

Of course there are signs posted asking visitors not to feed them, but there is evidence that they do get handouts, and they act like they are used to at least occasionally getting treats from someone.

Pretty hard to resist those eyes and soft noses.

No treats from us, but I did get to rub a few of those noses.

It’s the middle of the day while we visit, and mostly the horses are pretty quiet, but we do find a few youngsters a bit more frisky.

Nothing like wild horses in the desert mountains!

Ash Meadows Wildlife Refuge:

Finally we wander into Ash Meadows Wildlife Refuge, on the southern border of the huge Desert National Wildlife Refuge Complex. On the northeast corner of the DNWF is where Pahranagat National Refuge is located. Remember, we were there last week.

We are surprised by yet another oasis, rare fish living in the spring water here, and more large reservoirs of water. Where does all this water come from?? I thought deserts didn’t have water!

We mostly drive around these reservoirs, then pull up to the visitor center, after it is closed for the day, and enjoy a picnic dinner all alone enjoying a lovely dusk as evening befalls us.

Shall I say how surprised we are, that we are loving this part of Nevada so much.

After all, we are just a stone’s throw away from Yucca Mountain, and the largest military Nuclear testing site in the West.

But that’s another story… ❧

Birding, Camping, Simple Living, Travel

Water In The Desert

March 30, 2015 Keevan 5 Comments

Lake Mead

Still in Nevada, we decide to explore the lesser used areas around Lake Mead.

They are less used, because the water level is historically low for this man made reservoir – the holding tank for Hoover Dam.

When the outflow is more than the inflow, the math doesn’t quite work out, creating problems. Hmm.

Too many people, too much water use, too little rainfall. That seems to be the real equation.

Now that the levels are so low, and the water is so warm because of the low levels, the algae levels are extremely high, creating toxic conditions.

Basically what we have is yet another deteriorating watering system.

This part of the Colorado River is suppose to supply the water to all of Las Vegas, much of San Diego, and huge areas in Arizona.

The scenery is still Beautiful!

And for us, less recreation users (water skiers, jet skiers, and boaters) means more quiet peaceful camping spots. The boat launches are all closed at this end of the lake due to low water.

We spend three days dispersed camping here at Stewarts Point, on the north end of the lake, enjoying front row lakeside seats.

Pahranagat Wildlife Refuge

Leaving Lake Mead, we retreat to Pahranagat Wildlife Refuge, where we find a sweet little campground right on the water again. Here our van door opens 15 feet from the lake.

This water is natural, not man-made. It comes forth from natural springs that bubble from the ground creating lush fields for farmers, and heavenly refuges for birds and waterfowl passing by on their flights north and south every year.

Another three days was spent here at upper Pahranagat Lake, enjoying company such as this pair of Mallards, who kept us constantly entertained.

They were so comfortable with us, they ventured into our campsite a few times a day, to see what crumbs they could find.

No…we didn’t feed them. There is plenty of food in this lake! We also watched and listened to huge fish jumping all day long.

Driving around the lower lake we spot this Osprey. It’s been awhile since seeing one of these handsome hawks.

Note the fish in it’s talons. I didn’t realize that, until looking at these photos a little closer. I hope I didn’t interrupt him (?) too much.

This Great Blue Heron, was another recurring visitor. We realized that it was gathering nesting material, and would frequently fly back and forth with twigs and branches in it’s large bill.

On a long hike around the upper lake one evening, we were really surprised to encounter this Vermillion flycatcher. We saw these beautiful birds back in Arizona last fall, and were enthralled to meet up with them again here. They are now in full breeding color. There must have been about four pairs of them at least.

We really love this camping area, and could easily spend a few weeks here exploring.

But…we’re moving on. ❧

Camping, Hiking, Nature, Travel

The Other Mojave Desert

March 13, 2015 Keevan 2 Comments

We’ve been hanging out in the Mojave Desert.

This time we chose not to go to Mojave National Preserve. We’ve instead spent our time exploring some lesser known out of the way places.

Such as Owl Canyon.

This BLM campground was really nice, very uncrowded, and provided garbage cans, nice picnic tables, and shade awnings. The sites were quite spacious, and there was much to explore. With our senior pass, the price was $3.00 a night.

Most people come here for this wonderful hike up Owl Canyon.

We spent a couple of nights at Owl Canyon Campground, exploring some smaller canyons too.

Then we moved on south to Sawtooth Canyon, down in the Lucerne Valley. Much of this area is ATV territory…you can see the damage done to the fragile landscape everywhere.

Up until about five years ago, Sawtooth Canyon was also becoming a desolate wasteland from being mismanaged. The BLM finally stepped in and made it off limits to all ATV’s and all hunting. What a precious resource it is, and now mostly rock-climbers, wildflower watchers, and birders go there to enjoy the area, though you find remnants of broken glass and shotgun casings littered everywhere.

It actually made me proud of our government for taking a stand to save this treasure.

Some of the blooming wildflowers we encountered, hiking around here.

And a few of the feathered local residents entertaining us.

Leaving Sawtooth Canyon, we drove south through Joshua Tree National Monument. This area seemed really tired and very dry already, even though it’s only March. The repercussions of last year’s drought I assume.

We didn’t camp there. It felt a bit too claustrophobic with the sights right on top of each other and quite crowed, so instead we dry camped just south of the park, where we didn’t have to listen to noisy neighbors.

The break of dawn, and an early morning playtime for Pia in the desert…

Packing up, we decide to take a little jaunt down by the Salton Sea, to check out some birds for awhile.

On a stop for some coffee and gas, these handsome fellows we met charmed me into giving them a few pieces of my cracker.

I thought if I continued, he would soon be inside the van with us, coming along for the adventure!

We keep rolling along. ❧

Camping, Nature, Travel

More Fun Along The Coast

March 1, 2015 Keevan 2 Comments

Another week of immersing ourselves in coastal living. Another week of feeling very small and insignificant compared to the mighty Pacific. Another week of watching pods of gray whales heading south for the summer.

Highway 1 along the California coast is a road like no other. It is not for the meek. But if looking for incredible ocean views, and getting a sense of just how enormously humongous the ocean is, this is the road to take.

The ocean just goes on and on and on. You are driving right on top of it, next to it, and high above on bluffs with long steep drop offs right down into it. After many miles of this highway /ocean kinship, you sort of become one with the water and sand and its creatures in a very zen like way.

The beauty is breathtaking.

My most sincere apologies to those of you reading this in the eastern half of the U.S. who are still submerged in freezing temperatures, record breaking snow and sheets of ice covering your walkways.

Here folks, Spring has arrived. Today, on a short hike I counted at least twelve different wildflowers poking there pretty faces up and blooming like no end. There were Lupines, Poppies, Flowering currents, Potato vines, Paintbrush, Milkmaids, Western Columbine, and Wild cucumber to name just a few.

Lack of wifi / or cell reception this past week, has left me a little behind on the blog, but we certainly have had our share of nourishment.

My secrets divulged here, our two favorite campgrounds along this highway:

Plaskett Campground, which is a national forest campground, therefore accepting the senior access pass, and making it quite reasonable for California at a mere $12.50 per night. It’s spacious, has lots of green grass around all the sites, and is directly across from Sand Dollar Beach.

Our other favorite is Montana de Oro in Los Osos. This one is a State Park, so a bit more pricey, but we are in California and dispersed camping is not that easy along the coast. Both campgrounds always have really nice campers staying in them for some reason.

Take Plaskett for example: Here we meet Mark and Ronnie, our next door campers with a Eurovan the exact same year and engine that ours is. We spend time comparing interiors, discussing storage options, sleeping arrangements, and all the do dads that one figures out to be helpful camping in a van.

Then this beautiful Vanagon “Syncro” (that’s a much sought after 4 x4) pulls in next door to Mark and Ronnie. Isn’t this just a gorgeous setting with three lovely vans camped next to each other?

Some thoughts on photography…

Sometimes I’m perplexed on what photos to put on this blog. Of course I like to showcase photos that I think are pretty decent. But then this isn’t a photography blog. It is a travel blog. So I wind up adding a lot of photos that I don’t actually think are great photographically speaking, but yet they still tell a story.

When memories fail, photographs are great for picking up the pieces and putting times and places together in context.

Which is why, you might have to look really hard in these next shots to see the subject. We were seeing so many pods of gray whales spouting around, I couldn’t not try to capture some of them. They were really far out in the water, but try I did, and to my amazement with my 300mm lens, and some serious cropping, they actually materialized in the shots!

What I wouldn’t give for a nice spotting scope and one of those beastly very expensive super telephoto lenses!

Well, we are heading over to San Luis Obispo to see our friends at German Auto for hopefully the last time in a really long time, (still having issues with the heater / ac unit) before leaving this beautiful shoreline and ever stretching ocean, teaming with abundant wildlife and grandeur, to head inland to warmer weather.

Looking forward to shedding a few of our heavy jackets.

❧

Camping, Nature, Simple Living, Travel, Van Living

Long Snouts And Water Spouts

February 6, 2015 Keevan 6 Comments

We’ve been cruising south on highway 1 along the California coast, finding our travel mojo again.

Cement Ship – Seabright Beach, Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz to Monterrey to Big Sur…along the winding road, following along with the whales also heading south. We stop often to watch huge water spouts emerge from the ocean, then spot the enormous dark blobs barely visible, looking more like tiny specks in the gigantic Pacific Ocean.

So refreshing it’s been, beautiful blue skies and perfect temperature in the 60’s and 70’s. Monarch butterflies flitter about, and golden poppies are already brightening up the green hillsides in some localities.

It’s feeling a bit like spring.

The campgrounds are wonderfully sparse, our fellow campers we meet also energetically embrace this glorious opportunity to enjoy the outdoors without the summer crowds.

Morning bird songs wake us in the dawn, and orange sunsets announce the close of our days. So nice to be back in sync with nature’s rhythms again.

Piedras Blancas, a little north of charming Cambria, is home to thousands of Elephant Seals. These massive pinnipeds, once so close to extinction, there were only 50 known animals off of an isolated island, have made a whopping comeback, and now are able to entertain us humans with their bizarre shapes, very unromantic love lives, and ever so cute babies. From December through January, they haul their massive tonnage out of the ocean up onto shore, give birth, breed, and stay around only long enough to wean the pups, before swimming off into the depths of oceanic life again.

A real treat and amazement to watch…the males can weigh between two and five thousand pounds!! The dominant and beta males constantly challenge each other for lordship over their harems, and the babies constantly try to keep from getting trampled as these massive males (incredibly fast) maneuver along the shore alternately mating the girls, and fending off the boys.

To add interest to the show, the California coast has been having many “King tides”…excessively high tides, which reduce the beach front real estate to a slender thread of sand, crowding the seals, and mixing up the harems, so the big Bull Elephant Seals have even more work to do, to keep everything straight! We watched this one little pup try so hard to get across the hurdle of rock to reach his mother, we just wanted to go give him a little shove to help out. (We didn’t) Poor thing was so exhausted.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Laying down our tired bodies from much exercise and outdoor vitamin D, we are lulled asleep by the crashing of the ocean waves. So grateful and fortunate for this past week.

❧

Boondocking, Campervan, Camping, Nature, Travel

Alabama Hills Of The West

December 9, 2014 Keevan 6 Comments

Leaving the Big City Lights, we were looking forward to Death Valley National Park.

But really, it just didn’t do much for us after everywhere we’ve been. And the campgrounds there…well what can I say, they were pretty much dusty, graveled parking lots with wall to wall people.

I guess it’s a popular spot for this time of year.

We couldn’t bring ourselves to camp in this situation, so we just kept going.

We drove to Lone Pine, a little town above the pitiful remains of Owens Lake, on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

We had heard about the Alabama Hills, where so many movies have been made, they named the road there, ingeniously “Movie Road.” According to local lore, over 400 hollywood movies have been filmed in these hills.

Were we ever wowed when we drove in, just hoping to find a place to sleep for the night! Boulders and mountains and lots of open spaces with views to die for.

Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain in the continental United States with a summit of 14, 505 feet, was what we saw from our van door here! This is actually the back side of Whitney, seen from the east. How majestic her grandeur.

We felt pretty humbled and privileged to be camped here. To think that the likes of John Wayne to Johnny Depp have left their footprints here in the dust, and may have camped in the exact spot we did. (Well – probably not this exact spot, but maybe close by.)

Not a bad spot for morning coffee and breakfast. My own “John/ny” cooking up some yummy grub.

I wonder how much you would have to pay for a kitchen window with this view??

I wish I could say this was us, jogging along the road, but we enjoyed the view just as much while casually walking along behind these lucky folks who obviously run here often.

Another time when it’s just really hard to pull away…

We’ll be back here again.

❧

PS…For those who care, I am now officially caught up and current on this blog!!!

Boondocking, Camping, Nature, Simple Living, Travel, Van Living

California

December 7, 2014 Keevan Leave a comment

We just can’t leave the desert behind.

Here we find ourselves in the Mohave National Preserve back in California. We always love the Mohave for it’s peacefulness and lack of crowds. This shot above was our camping spot for the night, nestled in among the Joshua trees, but ouch, the temperatures just keep getting colder and colder.

When we finally woke up to a couple of inches of ice in Pia’s dog dish, we decided it was time to make some serious miles. But it was Thanksgiving weekend, and we wanted to both enjoy a bit of indulgence and avoid the highways full of traffic.

So we headed over to Las Vegas, Nevada, where there was plenty of action and a nice big Whole Foods Market, with a delicious Thanksgiving buffet all set up in their hot food bar.

We spent our first ever night sleeping in a casino parking lot, which was actually pretty quiet and secure feeling.

We took a Thanksgiving Day Drive and Hike around Red Rock Canyon Wilderness Preserve just outside of Las Vegas.

Signs all over the place said to watch out for wild horses and burros. And to be cautious of tortoise crossing, but no luck today…we didn’t see any of the above. But the rocks and trails were awesome.

Happy belated Thanksgiving to all.

❧

Camping, Travel

Wild Burros And City Lights

December 6, 2014 Keevan Leave a comment

Sad to actually have to leave the rest of Arizona behind, but we were on our way back to see our family and friends in Santa Cruz county. And we did have this engagement in Laughlin…

So, onward we went.

We drove up along the lower Colorado River, enjoying different scenery and marshes like this one around Parker, Az.

Laughlin, Nevada, was actually a pretty cute town, for a gambling town. We camped almost in town, right on the Colorado River, with this view of one of the casinos from our van door. That was a first – after so many mountain and scenic river views. It was fun to have such a different view, with it’s own type of beauty with all that color reflecting on the waterfront.

Along a good portion of our trip, we’ve thoroughly enjoyed the company of these Grackles. We loved their voracious voices and extended sing-song vocabulary dearly. Sunsets and sunrises among them always made us feel like we were in a tropical jungle. So long little Grackle birds. We’ll miss your humorous stories.

A little excursion was on the agenda, for a visit to Oatman, Nevada. Oatman is another old western mining town, but this town has an added attraction.

These cute little wild burros pretty much rule the streets of this town. They are “wild” burros, but have become quite comfortable in town, where the tourists and locals alike feed them and watch over them.

Better make sure that purse is zipped up or they will have their noses stuffed into it in no time. And they act like a football linebacker if you happen to be carrying around a bag of carrots.

We enjoyed spending time with some extended family, waiting for their car to get repaired. We actually crammed four adults along with Pia and all our stuff into Miss Keevan for the ride, which was a feat in itself.

Oh yes…the night before we left town, between Fred and I, we won enough in the casino to fill up our gas tank for the next leg of our journey.

❧

Camping, Nature, Travel

Finishing Up New Mexico

December 1, 2014 Keevan Leave a comment

10/16/14 -10/31/14

We were too early for the Festival of the Cranes, but we did make it to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge outside of Socorro. This Refuge is the home to 17,000 wintering Sandhill cranes, along with numerous other waterfowl, birds, and mammals. Not bad scenery either!

We had been seeing Sandhills sporadically along our entire trip, so it was a real joy to finally see their most popular wintering area in the US.

We meandered through Truth or Consequences and Las Cruces, before finding ourselves in the Organ Mountains…more beautiful majestic rocky crags. They reminded me of the Grand Tetons on a smaller scale.

We camped there at Aguirre Springs and hiked up to incredible vistas and meadows filled with wildflowers.

Pulling ourselves away from this beauty, we stopped in for a visit to White Sands National Monument. Glad we didn’t pass this gem by. There was a storm on the horizon, and we just made it out before the the rain starting pounding down. The sand dunes are huge mountains of white gypsum sand. Growing up along the ocean, this sand was very surreal to me, it was so white and clean and dry. Very different from my ocean sand.

White Sands National Monument; New Mexico

Whenever we pass through a town where either of us have had ancestors living, we try to stop in and visit. This cute little town of Weed, New Mexico, once held the lofty name of Garden City. Always one to feel sorry for the underdog, I kind of like the name Weed. The population of 20 was stretching it a bit too. We met half the population, and they were all awesomely nice.

A stroll along another wildlife marsh. Can’t seem to pass these by. And amazingly they are great places to walk a dog. Leashed of course!

Hiking around a bend out in front of Fred and Pia a bit, I caught these two flickers doing a courtship dance. What a treat!

A quick jaunt through Roswell and a visit with some aliens from the Area 51 site, also know as the Roswell UFO incident. Actually it was at the Rosewell UFO museum where we visited these guys.

And finally to wrap up this truly enchanted land, another outrageous New Mexico Sunset, from our campsite at Rockhound State Park.

We’re on our way back home, slowly…to spend some holiday time with our families and friends. But first, we’ll tootle our way through the Arizona desert, and see what there is to see.

❧

Keevan Soul