Just got back from a trip. Nanodaughter and I went to pick up microdaughter. We spent one night at a rest stop in the campervan. That was good. I spent one night alone in the campervan at a vista point occupied by an assortment of people living in vehicles. (No getting close to anyone - pretty covid safe imo) We met up with microdaughter and her bf and camped for 2 days in Pinnacles National Park. (we did masks and distancing until her bf left to try to minimize chance of spread) At Pinnacles we took a long hike with pretty good elevation change. It was probably 10 miles. We saw lots of California Condors.
The trip back on the California Coast had us finding lots of campgrounds full and stopping at a vista point that was really close to a colony of elephant seals. It was dark, so we couldnāt see them, but they were close. Unfortunately, this spot was not legal and we got booted and drove all the way home. Disappointed, we decided to do a bonus day trip to Salvation Mountain (Nanodaughter has wanted to see it for a long time) and Slab City. Just poked around. Salvation Mountain itself was closed - couldnāt go in the passages - but it was still cool. We went into the library at Slab City. Sign says āWear a mask or fuck off!ā
The campervan was pretty comfortable. The cushions could use some adjustments. Thereās enough light all around, but I gotta mount some on the ceiling. It was pretty cold at Pinnacles. The first night we were fine because we had enough sleeping bags and blankets, but we surrendered a couple blankets the second night because Microdaughter was cold (they were in a tent), so I was a little cold the second night. At some point campervan may receive heat, but is probably fine at temps just below freezing with modestly warm blankets/bags.
Also we rescued 3 people and tried to rescue a dog (dog was fine, we just werenāt really helpful). People probably would have been fine, but a woman with an injured developmentally disabled adult child and also her 90+ year old mother on a trail (with no reception) she really shouldnāt have been on were in a bit of a bind. The dog, completely separate thing, was nuts and chasing cars on hwy 1 that were going like 70mph.
Thatās awesome. Iāve spent a lot of time in backcountry areas of California and never saw a condor. (Although possibly they donāt frequent the areas where Iāve been.)
Any of you watch Nomadland? I read the book and watched the movie last night but Iām not sure I liked it. A bit too meandering, which might have been the point. Got excited watching the Badlands scenes as weāre camping there next August.
We stayed at the Pinnacles campground for 2 nights and it was open. It was about 20% full. Itās part of the national park service. Looking at the website it says itās open for āessential travelersā. I didnāt make the reservations. Perhaps my daughter had to claim we were essential travelers, I donāt know and she doesnāt remember. Certainly most of the people there were not essential travelers - though of the four people that I saw in our area at least one was probably living in their van and thus it was essential for them to travel. A couple others might have been as well. They did have signs on the campsites that said reservations were for one night only, but online microdaughter got two.
The campgrounds we passed on the way home with signs that said āfullā may have been closed. I donāt know. But they may have been full as well. These were campgrounds right on HWY 1 and I wouldnāt be surprised if they are always full.
There is still plenty of wild/dispersed camping though. We went through a very large BLM area near Pinnacles and you can camp almost anywhere there.
Going camping tomorrow. Two nights. This will just be BLM land outside of Quartzite, Arizona. Itās only about 4 hours from my house. A lot of people go to this area, but itās a huge area and plenty of open space. We will be keeping our distance, but may catch a glimpse of some of the YT van dwelling stars.
Iām convinced those people donāt actually live in their vans. The vans are way too pristine. They just take pics out of the vans then spend their influencer money on a nice hotel.
Btw I type pristeen then pristene - yet Chrome canāt figure out I mean pristine.
But yet once again tell me how AI is going to rule the fucking world and weāre going to have self-driving cars when AI canāt even suggest the most obvious spelling mistakes.
You ever go camping with your kids and itās almost 10am and they wonāt get up and youāve been up for a couple hours and already gone for walk and climbed up a big hill and still waiting but at least you have good internet?
I have camped on SRI. The wind is powerful. Cute foxes the size of cats will walk through camp. There is no cell service. Plenty of rugged nature, not much humanity. Donāt miss the return boat.
Just got back from our camping trip. We spent two nights in AZ near the CA border in just free camping sites. Thereās a large area where people just park and camp in vans, buses, motorhomes, but more than anything else, big 5th wheel trailers. People either stay in some places where itās allowed for months or many people stay in the areas where you have to move every 14 days and move more or less on that schedule. Unless people are together, they park in the closest areas about 100ā apart and then in more remote areas people get more and more space.
This is the time of year where thereās usually a large gathering called the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous. They normally have lots of activities and classes and entertainment. It was cancelled this year because of covid, but there was a very informal just camp together thing where people who werenāt together together were keeping distant and often wearing masks. But most of the time the distances were way more than 6ā. We had some conversations with people and they were usually like 30ā+ apart.
The guy that started the RTR (Bob Wells) was there and microdaughter (bro) and I talked to him a bit. Heās very big on anarchist thinking, forming a community of people and mutual aid and I talked to him about Peter Kropotkin (19th and early 20th century author- wrote the book āMutual Aidā) among other things.
I have a small camping trip at the end of Feb and then a monster 2 weeker coming up at the end of March. All of it will be tent camping. If anyone has any camping/hiking tips for the following please let me know:
-Big Bend
-Saguaro
-Joshua Tree
-Channel Islands (Santa Rosa Island)
-Seqouia (hiking only)
-Death Valley
In J-Tree the Ryan Mountain trail is pretty good. Itās also close to Ryan Campground, which was always our favorite campground in the park.
Also itās worth poking around Wonderland Ranch and there are some other old ranches and mines in the park as well, but I canāt remember the name of any. Some of them are managed by the park with tours (self-guided), others are in the backcountry and you have to navigate to them yourself.
I mostly rock climbed over several visits, so donāt know too much about other specific attractions and hikes.