From Sea To Shining Sea...

We’ve completed our continental crossing, the first leg of our 20-month adventure, and are planted on the water’s edge in sunny San Diego. For as much as we came to love the desert during time spent in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, it’s nice to be near an ocean again, seeing and hearing the waves crashing ashore.

Our last few days in Quartzsite AZ involved more shopping and visiting with friends, and try as we might, Patty and I failed to succumb to shopping fever, buying very little to fill Mia’s belly boxes and compartments. We DID join the Quartzsite Yacht Club though (amusing, since there is no body of water there), so now we can hopefully enjoy yacht club reciprocity privileges elsewhere, and not just for land yachts. Quartzsite is an intriguing place that we’re glad to have finally witnessed in person. It’s a seasonal treasure and bargain hunting extravaganza plunked in the middle of an otherwise barren desert, offering a warm, inexpensive, low-key winter destination for RV enthusiasts.

Leaving Quartzsite and heading west, we drove through the final throes of eastbound stormy weather from California and arrived in the Palm Springs area. The former Rat-Pack hangout and home of the Bob Hope Golf Classic is set in a lush valley surrounded by snow-peaked mountains and offers a tempting climate for escaping Maine winters. The highlight of our time there though was touring the spectacular Joshua Tree National Park nearby, which spans both the Sonoran and Mojave deserts, offering different climates and flora within its mountainous confines. We hiked through snow and sand all in the same afternoon and witnessed the unusual Joshua Tree adorned with snow like a Norway spruce.

Heading towards San Diego, we traveled back roads near the Salton Sea (a salt lake created in error when the Colorado River overflowed in 1905) and through the Anza-Borrego Desert. .From there, we snaked our way through the canyons and narrow, winding roads of the Vallecito Mountains, passing through the former mountain mining town of Julian. Unbeknownst to us, the rains of San Diego had been the snows of Julian, and while the roads were dry and clear on a sunny, Sunday afternoon (we chose to ignore the signs requiring chains on all non-4WD vehicles), every lunatic in San Diego was headed for the hills to experience snow. We became ensnared in the chaos of thousands of cars, kids and no traffic controls or police guidance, and it took a couple of nerve-wracking hours to negotiate the mayhem and begin our mountainous descent to the ocean. Extra cocktails were in order upon arrival.

We’ve been enjoying warm days and mild nights so far in San Diego, seeing the beauty of Coronado Island, Point Loma, Mission Bay, Pacific Beach, Old Town San Diego, Little Italy and Balboa Park.

Next stop, LaLa Land. Cheers! Bob