Death Valley

 

Yesterday was scenic with its variety of landscapes from the twisting mountain roads to the straight 100 mile long road with turns off it dentoted only by signs like “Road 431” then today was a real stunner.

Climbing the mountains again with the lush green hills of California, then down into death valley and a complete alien landscape of rocks and hills and valleys.Death Valley has been on my list for years but I have never been there at the right time of year for it to be practical. Even in March it was 31C, the mountains and the temperature differences mean that a strong wind blows most of the time, rattling the RV as we tried to sleep. The wind stopped briefly when it started to rain in the night but by daylight it was blowing a gale again.

The first valley is not death valley as such, just put in your way to confuse you and ready you for the views to come.

road 431

 

Yesterday was scenic with its variety of landscapes from the twisting mountain roads to the straight 100 mile long road with turns off it dentoted only by signs like “Road 431”  Miles and miles of twisting roads, hills, landscapes, all part of a California I had no idea existed, green, agricultural and very scenic.

No signal

 

No anything, no signal, no WiFi, no way to connect, 1^st World problem I know .hopefully as we get into town there will be some otherwise we will have to find a Best Buy and hijack their WiFi .

A long day of driving through the agricultural parts of California, vineyards giving way to rows and rows of orange and lemon trees, sheep and goats in fields and the occasional un identifiable roadkill. Unidentifiable because until you come to North America my only experience of some of these creatures is in books or on TV. It definitely wasn’t a skunk, skunks smell when you drive past them on the road, kind of like fox but stronger and it sticks in your throat, this didn’t, probably a racoon then!

 Having driven through a town called Pleasanton yesterday and finding that it was, indeed, pleasant, we had the dubious distinction of matching the pair driving through Unpleasanton, the actual name of the town escapes me but California is starkly the haves and the have nots laid bare in wide leafy manicured streets and scruffy encampments on the edges of town.

Bit of a mansion

The mansion

As you can see, the RV turned out to be a bit of a mansion, this is not the RV we booked, we booked a medium size with no slide outs for the princely sum of about £580 for the 2 weeks. This on the other hand is a huge thing, practically a lorry with a livingroom and bedroom that slide out sideways to make even more space very luxurious but wholly unnecessary.

The train ride to collect it was a bit of an eye opener, beside the track were streets of shabby motorhomes, cars covered with tarpaulins and a smell of sewage, San Francisco homeless problems laid bare as though it were a tourist attraction one could view from the comfort of a train carriage.

I don’t love San Francisco and the first thing we did was leave it behind on the road to the county showground campsite. Having stocked up on groceries the next day we headed out to find somewhere nice to eat lunch and stumbled on a gem in the California mountains. Del Valle is pretty much an oasis after the crowded chaos of people in the last couple of days so it became the second night stop. Cut off from phone signal and wifi but with the entertainment of watching ground squirrels run up a track and the wild turkeys on a covert mission for crumbs left by campers. By the morning the turkeys were giggling and gobbling up the hill somewhere and the frogs were awake to add to the wildlife chorus I wasn’t expecting to find in California. 

A Brand new passport

The pandemic travel bans saw my battered red passport expire, things improved to the point where I was optimistic enough to apply for a new one,prematurely it turns out. Predictably, things got worse again resulting in yet another cancelled trip and my shiny new passport sat in the drawer ticking time away  until things eased again from a pandemic point of view.

Finally, after three cancelled trips, airlines owing me money for years and lost deposits it looks like its actually going to happen this time and you are invited to join me, in spirit anyway !

The blue passport thing, it doesnt actually matter to me, I like it because it reminds me of my first passport but other than that it could have been orange for all I care. Orange might have been a better colour anyway, it would be easier to see in my black rucksack, easier to identify in the drawer, and go some way to make up for the fact that I still dont own an orange car.