Few things scream coastal California better than a classic woody station wagon.
We had lots of friends to visit in the Los Angeles area before heading east to winter in Carrollton, TX; so we again stayed for a week at the Walnut RV Park in Northridge, CA. From experience, I chose a better-located spot within the park, although we still didn’t benefit from any shade. The long-term campers monopolized the spots with trees. This park centered us nicely amongst those folks we intended to visit.
Both of MFI’s brothers live in California, and we were closest to Steve (the older), Steve’s daughter Linzi and her husband Trevor, plus their son/grandson KJ. Of course we stopped to see them first and promptly failed to take any pictures. Our long-time friends Claudia Schlosser and her husband Nick live in Santa Clarita and gracious as always, squeezed us into their busy schedule and had us over for another delightful dinner. Geez, forgot to take pictures with them too.
In the late 1980’s, I worked with Dave Pasillas at LA Air Force Base, we’ve been friends ever since, and have watched each others families grow via social media. He and wife Kathy, while on one of their RV trips, visited us at Pisgah View Ranch during our volunteer stint their, and we’ve been planning to visit them once we started RVing in September 2019. Now was our chance, because they lived in La Mirada. We spent the better part of an afternoon with them starting with their treating us to lunch at one of their favorite restaurants. Back at their beautiful home, they gave us a room-by-room tour, and we enjoyed how they had decorated with art pieces and memorabilia from their military assignments and world travels. Dave was much like MFI, in that he had the trade skills to do most of the project works on their home. We text each other frequently, so while we were already aware of most of his home improvements, actually seeing them was a treat. We’re already planning our next visit in 2025. We each consider morning coffee to be sacred, thus chatting together while savoring our morning joe has become a priority. And yet, we took zero, zip, nada photos of our visit. I’ve concluded we forget to take pictures when visiting close family and friends because we’re so wrapped up in the excitement of being with them and catching up in the moment that we simply forget. Bummer for a blogger.
Fortunately, we got plenty of pictures when attending our niece Hanna’s marketing debut at LA’s Market for Makers (MfM) at the California Market Center on S. Main and E. 9th Streets. MfM was founded in 2015 by entrepreneur Natalie Christensen, who with her 9-person team of like-minded business experts, has developed and expanded MfM into eight major cities coast to coast. MfM showcases exclusive items created by independent artists specializing in home decor, fashion, art, design, cuisine, beverages, health, therapeutics, and more. Market shows, such as the one we attended, bring artists and customers together.
Hanna creates ceramic wares, a skill she honed in high school art class, and continued as a hobby, even while completing her Masters in Architecture at UCLA (graduates this coming June). She had already been successfully selling her ceramics online, but called us with excitement when her application to MfM was accepted. She calls her business Exist Loudly, which is exactly how we see her living her life. We bought tickets and spent Saturday morning supporting her and MfM. Her dad Jim and boyfriend Landon were there doing the same thing. When we left, she shared that sales were going very well.
Our winter-stay in Carrollton was reserved beginning 1 November, and I planned a 5-stop, 18-day itinerary which got us there on time. From Northridge, we drove 263 miles to Needles, CA where the Colorado River forms the border with Arizona and the southern tip of Nevada. This stretch crossed the largely unpopulated although scenic Mojave Desert.
We camped 3 nights at the Desert View RV Park. A work-stay RV couple from elsewhere operated the park for 6 months every year. They were very nice, good at their jobs, and seemed to love the situation and schedule they’d created for themselves. As a result, they kept the park well maintained and in excellent condition.
After getting set up, MFI didn’t feel like cooking dinner, so we dined at The Riverfront Cafe on the CA side of the Colorado River. The meal wasn’t that great; however, the service was good, and the evening views were stupendous as we sipped our wine.
For coffee on our first morning, I found a Starbucks in nearby Laughlin, NV and without checking on the details, we headed straight there. We were surprised to find it inside Harrah’s Laughlin Hotel and Casino. For those unfamiliar with Laughlin, it’s a small gambling town of less than 10,000 residents where eight casino/hotel complexes operate 90 miles south of Las Vegas. Bullhead City, AZ sits across the river east, and we drove through both towns to get a feel for the gambling and river activities. We enjoyed our coffees before MFI dropped me off nearby for a hike on “Davis Dam Overlook Trail.”
I searched for a trail to hike on our second day, and picked the “Grapevine Canyon Trail” west of Laughlin because the description said there were petroglyphs. MFI drove me to the trailhead and waited while I struggle to complete the 3.3 mile in and out trail. The canyon entrance was only a 1/4 mile in, and there I saw one of Nevada’s oldest and largest concentrations of petroglyphs. Archaeologists have mapped 700 of them on 250 panels that occur throughout the canyon. Research showed they were likely created by the indigenious Mojave people between 1100 and 1900 AD. Today, the canyon remains sacred to Yuman and Numic speaking tribes still indigenious to the area. The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places December 15, 1984.
The trail was rated as MODERATE; however, I struggled because there was often no visible trail. When a path would appear, it soon split in many directions. As a result, I did a great deal of backtracking when the path I chose deadened or vanished. My frustration was offset by great weather and scenery.
We knocked around Bullhead City some more, ran errands, and discovered Earl’s at the Castle for an enjoyable lunch. We didn’t learn who Earl was nor why the exterior was designed to look like a castle. But the food was delicious, they deserved their 4.4-star rating, and if a casino can be built to look like a riverboat, then why not a castle restaurant.
Extensive farmlands covered the Arizona side of the Colorado River south of Bullhead City. We were headed back to Needles late and the fields were being harvested as the sun sank and the temperatures dropped. The sweet smell of fresh-cut alfafa hung thick in the air. I liked this picture because the dust showed how dry the land gets, while at the same time reflected the industrious activity taking place. One of my favorite photos.
We returned to the RV park as the sun and moon settled in the west. In the morning, it would be time for us to move on to our second stop.
