I haven’t posted much lately, because not much has been happening … at least not until this week. My mom was in town for my birthday on April 1, and we had a really great time. She was here for almost two weeks.
After talking with her a lot about the last two years, I decided that I am going to write a book about my experiences for the last few years. I have been working on that pretty consistently, trying to do a little bit of work at least every day. So there hasn’t been much current stuff to write about from Ocean Beach other than the obvious.
Both times we visited multiple wineries (through the Harvest Hosts program, as usual), and had amazing dinners at the local restaurants. We decided to head back to wine country for a couple of days.
(in 2021)
This time was no different … well, except it was very different. We didn’t take Dolly, which felt kind of weird – we decided to save gas and time by taking Belinda’s mother’s hybrid SUV, and we also took Belinda’s mom, Betty, and her friend, Ron. We stayed in an Air BnB instead of a hotel or RV, and we were there for two nights and three days.
(In 2022)
Two or three wineries per day should really be anyone’s limit if you’re actually trying to enjoy yourself. We wanted to sample the best wines and bring back our favorites; if you have too much wine in one day you can’t even keep up with the wines that you like.
Still, Beli’s mom kept referring to us (lovingly) as “borrachitas.”
On Monday, we arrived an hour before our Air BnB check-in time, so we stopped at Bianchi Winery for a tasting flight. Belinda decided to become a wine club member (which often saves you a lot of money if you’re enjoying the wines from that particular place), and I got a bottle of the Chardonnay.
For the most part, Paso Robles wineries specialize in reds. Most place have at least a white blend or a rosé, but they all have great selections of GSMs, Cabs, Pinots, and all the best red varietals. Which Belinda and I both like, since we are mostly fans of reds as well. This Chardonnay from Bianchi almost had a creamy or buttery effect as you sip it … perfect to pair with an amazing dinner.
Speaking of dinner, we revisited a place that was our second favorite restaurant in Paso: The Hatch Rotisserie, a relaxed but classy joint that serves delicious food. It was fried chicken night, so we had to try it…
… but the star is their most amazing mushroom appetizer – it’s a handful of hen-of-the-woods mushrooms, wood-grilled, so they have a huge smoke flavor, topped with parmesan and green onion and then served with a spicy aioli.
It’s super simple but executed in a way that just makes you crave more of it every bite you take. It’s magical.
While we were waiting to get a table at the Hatch, we stopped at a small tasting room called CaliPaso Wines, which had a delightful red. This was perhaps our third communal bottle of the day… so, you know, it was a long trip.
The next morning, we found a coupon in our AirBnb for a 2-for-1 wine tasting at Barton Family Cellars, also known as Grey Wolf, which happens to be just next door to another one we wanted to revisit, Dark Star Cellars.
After a tasting and lunch at Grey Wolf, we went to Dark Star.
We had stayed at Dark Star before, when we were in the RV, since it’s a Harvest Host, and I was eager to go back and get a bottle of their “Chain Reaction” party blend.
They have a lot of other great reds and whites, all of which are unique because they rarely filter either type of wine, so the flavor is heavier.
They have a great homey atmosphere at Dark Star – the last time we were there, the vintner had a baby on her hip, and this time, little Lucille was running around with her big sister and chasing the chickens that roam the property. It was delightful to see the same people again!
That night, we returned to downtown Paso Robles (where most of the restaurants are), and had another incredible meal at the Fish Gaucho restaurant. We split the tab again with a bunch of small shareable plates and appetizers, like oysters…
… and halibut tacos …
… as well as an amazing pork chop dish with Brussels sprouts and mezcal applesauce.
It was incredible. I don’t think I have ever had a bad dish in Paso Robles; but also my friends tend to gravitate towards the five-star joints. Thank goodness they also help me pay!
I have a special place in my heart for VOTM; it’s the only winery of which I have ever become a member, despite the relatively high number of wineries I have visited in the last two years. The owners, Victor and Jennifer, are the nicest people you’ll ever meet; and they both had totally different careers before Victor got the idea that he wanted to grow grapes and make wines.
They have a lovely family, a super comfy and well-designed tasting room, and their wine club has the best perks – Victor used to be a sound engineer for all of the big names in the music industry, and he’s a huge music buff, so every membership comes with a personally curated Spotify playlist. When we showed up on a Wednesday, a day they are typically closed, Jennifer was kind enough to open up just for us and gave us all a free tasting using my membership. I tell you, they’re the best people.
Chronic was literally the first wine I had that I ever enjoyed (although certainly not the last); Belinda made me try their Sofa King Bueno (say it fast) years ago, and it’s one of the best red blends you’ll ever drink.
Chronic is literally across the street from Vines on the Marycrest, and since Belinda had a membership at Chronic … well, let’s just say, the vehicle was a lot heavier on the way home.
Be sure to follow Starbright’s Adventure on social media to see how I’m pairing all of this amazing wine. I plan to be around Southern California for the summer, mostly because the gas prices make it prohibitively expensive to go anywhere, but also because it’s the best place to be during the summer. Hopefully I can save enough to make it to my sister’s house in Houston by September.
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After I dropped Jen off in Minneapolis, I planned to see Paisley Park, the home and music studio of The Artist formerly known as Prince. Unfortunately, unlike the lame Graceland, they don’t just let anybody inside, and I decided that the $65 entry fee would be better spent on gas to keep the party going.
That night I camped at a beautiful berry farm in mid-Minnesota – no mean feat considering pretty much everything around here is a soybean or corn field. Minnesota kind of smells like poo most of the time, if I’m honest – if it’s not a field, it’s a fertilizer plant or a dairy farm full of cows. I really lucked out finding the one place in the state that wasn’t a giant cow pattie.
It was a lovely little Harvest Host where they grew ariona “super” berrries, which I got to sample in some lovely gluten free bars, and I bought a couple of bags of frozen berries to take with me for smoothies.
The next day I crossed the Mississippi River into Wisconsin; which reminds me a lot of Tennessee in many ways.
There are a lot of trees, lots of greenery, lots of farms and food. Like, they loooove their food here.
They love cheese and dairy. They love ice cream and beer.
They love their fish fries and their mustard on their brats and oh my god did I mention the cheese.
They’re cheese people.
They *get* me.
I stayed in Madison for several days, at a Harvest Host for one night, and with Jessica, an old friend from high school for a couple more. I basically ate the entire time. Tons of cheese, tons of fish, lots of beer. And it was really amazing to see my old friend after such a long time.
In fact, I got two-for-one on the old high school friends deal. My other high school buddy Kristen, who works for Google in San Jose, took Dolly for a test drive back in May when I stopped to see her. Kristen and her husband had already been considering taking their four kids on a road trip, and meeting Dolly clinched it for them … a month later they purchased their own RV and were on the road, doing an epic (albeit shorter than mine) road trip with their kids during the summer.
They happened to be driving through Madison at the same time I was at Jessica’s, so they stopped by for a few selfies of Dolly and Blanche (their RV) together!
Next, I went to southern Wisconsin, to an adorable little town on the banks of the Mississippi called Potosi. I spent one night at a Harvest Host, the Potosi Brewing Company, which has a fantastic brewpub (try the mac and cheese) …
… as well as a cool brewing museum. I told ya, they are all about the beer and cheese around Wisconsin.
For the next two nights, I was camping at the Grant River campground, just across the Mississippi from Iowa.
It was a little humid in Wisconsin in the summer (the weather is a lot like Tennessee IMO), so I was glad to have the air conditioner running for a couple of days.
While I was there. I also drove through a town called Dickeyville, which has this incredible grotto outside of the local Catholic church.
A parish priest built this amazing work of art – it must have taken decades – out of millions of rocks, shells, charms, antiques, pottery, gems, and various other items.
It’s really spectacular.
I also spent a couple of days around the Chicago area – I stayed at two different breweries that are Harvest Hosts, and another two nights at a Boondockers Welcome spot. The weather was great and I ate a ton. One of the breweries was Riverlands, where I stayed on a previous trip through Chicagoland. They have an impeccable IPA (several, actually) and I also got a fabulous Lou Malnati’s deep-dish Chicago style pizza.
The second Harvest Host brewery was a lot of fun… Rabid Brewing is just on the outskirts of Chicago, and their IPAs and hazy ales are delicious.
I spent a lovely evening with the brewmistress Raiye, who told me about the amazing beer they make, and who schooled me in how to hula hoop. I was a little tipsy, and I hadn’t used a hula hoop in years – and hula hoops are a little bit random for a brewery manager’s side hobby – but it was a ton of unexpected fun! (Check my Instagram videos for more on my hula hooping progress.)
Before I left Chicagoland – which is basically all of northern Illinois – I got to meet up with another friend from college, which was fantastic. We had a great soul food lunch in Chicago, and then I got to relax for a couple of days.
Of course, I still kept stuffing my face. Shuntae recommended that I try a slice of chocolate cake and a hot Italian beef sandwich (“wet” and with sweet peppers) from Portillo’s.
That was pretty incredible.
I was on my way to Fort Wayne Indiana, to hang out with yet another high school buddy I haven’t seen in years, I stopped at the Indiana Dunes state and national park right in northern Indiana.
It was a pretty nice beach, for not actually being at the ocean. And I checked one more national park off of my list!
Then I spent two nights in Fort Wayne, and my friend Jeannie took me all around to see the sights.
They have a lovely park and downtown area near the river and a historical fort, and we had a great time seeing the sights and eating a bunch.
I basically ate like crazy everywhere I went in the Midwest.
Then I had to head back north to Michigan for my friend’s wedding. I stayed at a few more cool Harvest Hosts on the way – first, a cool bison farm in Indiana. Eel River Bison Ranch was a lovely and peaceful stay, and I left with several packs of delicious bison meat.
I had no idea about how they used to make and use RVs back in the day, but it was really cool to see all the amazing antique motorhomes.
Mia is a dear friend of mine from college, She and I were roommates senior year, and we worked together on the newspaper staff for four years. She has had to reschedule her wedding several times due to Covid. This time, with the Delta variant causing all kinds of problems nationwide, they rescheduled the wedding again, but then asked for everyone to be masked and to take a home test before attending. I also got my third Covid vaccine (my doctor recommended it due to my compromised immune system) just to have a little extra protection.
The wedding was super fun – I got to dance, eat delicious catered food, have a few drinks with old friends from college …
… and watch my good friend get married. It was a long trip to get all the way to Michigan, but I am so glad I did it. It was all worth it.
While I was in Lansing, I stayed at a Boondockers Welcome host that was really amazing – they let me shower and do laundry and use their water and power, so I could get ready and enjoy my time with my friends after the wedding was over.
After the wedding, my goal was to get home to San Diego as soon as possible.
I was tired of driving, and of the fires, and the heat, and I craved the smell of the Pacific Ocean and a taco in San Diego. I wanted to see my brother, my friends, and maybe park for a few days in a peaceful place without crazy weather.
It was going to be a long drive, and my plan was to drive as much as I could and then stop at truck stops or big box stores instead of Harvest Hosts or campgrounds. Truck stops are great when you don’t want any fuss. I knew that this way, I wouldn’t have to reserve anything ahead of time, and there would be showers, gas, propane, dump stations, food, and a safe place to sleep. Plus they are all right off if the freeway and open 24 hours, with security and people around all of the time.
I figured this would me back to the beach in record time. I made it a few days from Michigan, through Missouri, without incident.
However, Dolly had other plans. She was not appreciative of my plan to cross seven states in as many days, stopping only to sleep. She decided to show me this attitude when we were in Kansas.
It was really hot. Hot for anywhere, but really hot for Kansas – 100 to 102 at the hottest. I had been driving straight west on the 70 after going south to Indianapolis from Michigan.
That morning I had been in Missouri, and I really wanted to make it to Colorado before I slept.
It was an hour before sunset; 120 miles to the Colorado border, and 102 degrees outside.
Dolly gave up.
I managed to make it off of the freeway because I was right next to a freeway exit. The engine died in the same way it had when I was in Montana, so I suspected that there might be more rodent damage and/or damaged wiring. Last time it was a spark plug wire, so maybe it was a spark plug. I prayed it was something minor because I couldn’t afford a big repair job.
Inexplicably, after a very long and very hot and uncomfortable night in a Kansas truck stop, the engine started and didn’t die again. At this point, I was feeling kind of uncharitable towards Kansas.
But it got better. I called a mobile mechanic; who was super busy but (luckily) didn’t charge me to stop by and poke round for a few minutes. He said there wasn’t any rodent damage to spark plug or any other wires that he could see. And the engine was running. So I, figured what the hell and I decided to hit the road again.
I made it to Colorado that day … maybe 35 miles into the state. I only drove a couple of hours, and it wasn’t nearly as hot as it had been the day before. That day was uneventful, so the next morning I continued through Colorado on Interstate 70.
It was beautiful – Colorado is just breathtaking – but I will never take this route again in an RV.
I made it through the Mile-High City just fine, but west of Denver is when the real mountains start. It’s a very gradual climb – Dolly wasn’t complaining at all. Same as always, no overheating, no lights. I was at over 11,000 elevation.
The freeway climbs and climbs and climbs, then, at 11,158 feet, there’s the Eisenhower Tunnel. According to the internet, the length of the tunnel less than two miles, but it feels so long. Really everything feels different when you’re at that kind of altitude.
Remember in my last post, when I talked about how scary it was when the engine died in Montana, right as I was going down a mountain? Well, I need to rephrase, because that one in Montana wasn’t really a mountain. THIS was a mountain. I was nearly out of the tunnel – like, less than 10 yards – when the speed started to drop, despite me pressing the gas. I knew something was up even though the lights hadn’t come on yet.
If you’ve never been through this tunnel, let me paint a picture. As I mentioned, it’s at extreme altitude. It’s a one-way tunnel, two lanes, just like the freeway. Just as you leave the tunnel, there is a brake check area for trucks, because about 100 feet later, there is a steep, steep grade for almost eight miles, straight down a mountain.
If the engine had died when I was in the middle of the tunnel, I’d have been (at the least) rear-ended and stuck in a damn tunnel. If it had died a minute later, I would have been speeding down a mountain at the time, which would have ended up with me probably in one of those runaway truck ramps, in a pile of sand. As it happened, it was at the exact perfect time, and I was able to punch the gas and get Dolly into the brake check area before the engine completely died.
So, a similar refrain in my life the last year or so: It sucked, but it could have been worse in several different ways.
After what had happened in Kansas, I decided to stay there for an hour or so, both to let the engine rest, and to chill out myself (that was a little bit stressful!), and then it was fine. I made it to a slightly lower elevation, planning to camp at a truck stop or something, but there were none to be found. This was in the fancy touristy area of Colorado, with all of the ski lifts and bungalows, so no overnight parking was allowed in any of the gas stations or big box stores.
I was starting to feel a little too stressed. All I wanted was to get home. I was running out of money, I was afraid my engine could die at any moment, and I didn’t have a free place to camp. This was the longest I had been on the road by myself without a long pit stop in San Diego or with family.
I lucked out.
I found a local campground called Heaton Bay. It’s in Frisco, Colorado, right in the middle of the Rockies and the White River National Forest.
It was just spectacular.
As soon as I got here, I felt the stress melt away. It was like someone gave me a happy shot.
I instantly felt better and calmer and … just in general, less agitated about everything.
I figured this was the Universe telling me to take it easy; to stop and enjoy the scenery instead of trying to blast my way through the western states and get home at record speed. For sure, it was Dolly telling me to stop running her so hard through extreme heat and altitude.
I also realized my good friend Stephanie (a former chef at the Joint in OB, one of the best restaurants in town), who moved to Colorado last year, was just an hour or two away from my campsite. She was awesome enough to let me come and hang at her place for a couple of nights while I got my medications from San Diego (which were running out) sent to me there.
Stephanie lives in the super touristy town of Glenwood Springs. It was lovely, but a little weird. It was super crowded with obvious tourists despite the heat. There’s no law enforcement due to their budget issues, and bears literally prowl around at night going through the trash. Its a really strange mix of rural and urban life.
The altitude was still over 8,000 in Glenwood Springs, which was causing some headaches for me after a day or two. I was looking forward to getting back to a normal elevation again, and then as soon as I crossed into Utah, I remembered.
Wildfires. Smog. I was really enjoying the clear blue skies in the Midwest even if it as hot!
The rest of my drive to San Diego was pretty uneventful, mostly because I was taking it easy. Really, really easy. I got up early to do the bulk of the driving before it got too hot; I never drove faster than 65, especially up hills, and I only did a couple hundred miles per day.
I spent two nights driving through Utah, then stayed with friends in Vegas, then to my stepdad’s in San Bernardino. Dolly didn’t have any problems, but the engine still felt kind of sluggish and loud, so one of the first things I did in San Diego (after I got a taco) was to get a new fuel filter. That helped a little, but a couple of weeks later, an oil change and a new air filter did the trick. She’s running just fine, and I feel good about driving.
It always feels good to be home.
I only planned to be in southern California for a short while; to get my tests done, see friends and family, and head east to my sister’s in Houston and then to my mom’s in Tennessee. I was trying to schedule my scans for the week of September 13, but there wasn’t availability to get a bone scan until October 12.
I was disappointed at first, but then I realized that; one, this gives me more time to spend in California, where it’s beautiful, and where I can see my family some more (and my kitty Janis,…
… who is doing very well at my brother’s house); and two, if I don’t leave until mid-October, then that means Dr. Vlad will let me spend more time out east.
So, barring any unforseen circumstances, I will be leaving California the weekend of the 16th, stopping in Albuquerque, and then spending a couple of weeks in Houston with my sister. Then in November I’ll be headed to my moms house for the holidays, then back to San Diego for my usual tests in January.
For most of the summer of 2021, I have ben traveling the western states. After my brother and I explored Yosemite (see my last post), I spent a couple of weeks in San Diego, hanging out at the local campgrounds, in Ocean Beach, and getting medical tests done. After it was all over, Dr. Vlad told me I was in remission (!), which was a complete shock … I still don’t know how I can go from literally being told I was about to die (and feeling like it as well), to being told there are no signs or symptoms of disease. On one hand, I am ecstatic, and on the other, I don’t want to get too cocky about it, since six months before my back was broken, they were telling me that all of my tests looked great then too. It simply never occurred to me that I would be in remission (or that it was even a possibility), so I can’t say it was a mission.
But hell, yeah, let’s say mission accomplished! Every day is a triumph in this crazy world, and cancer makes it even worse. Any measure of success? I’ll take it.
So… great. I still have cancer, but it’s just not breaking my bones anymore. That’s definitely a plus. But … now what? I gave up most of my stuff. My furbaby lives with my brother. I dumped my boyfriend in California. I live in an RV. I don’t have a home anymore.
Not dying anymore is a great problem to have, but it’s the second time in two years that I have gotten life-changing news. I don’t know how many more of these I can do.
Anyway, after all of the tests and exams and MRIs and medical stuff was done in San Diego, I spent a few more days in southern California.
I went all around: a night in the desert in Murrieta…
… brunch in Long Beach…
… a couple of nights in Ventura with my brother and his family (and my sweet Janis kitty!), and camping at Malibu Creek state park.
It’s a really cute park, and it has some fantastic views, even from my campsite/camper door.
They used to film movies here!
The heat wave started when I was camping with no hookups in Los Angeles county. Luckily I was in a canyon, so I managed to avoid the worst of the heat that week.
The next week, I was in Lee Vining — in the Sierra mountain range near the east entrance to Yosemite.
My stepbrother and that whole side of the family camps there on Fourth of July week every year, and this was my first time hanging with them over the holiday (as you may know, my 4th of July BBQs on the beach in OB were epic).
It was hot up there, but thankfully not as smoky as it got to be later in the month.
My nephews washed Dolly for me (sort of), and we had a great time. We waded in the creek, we grilled tasty snacks, and we saw a bear.
It was a lovely area, even from my stepbrother’s camper (which tries, but of course isn’t as nice as Dolly). We also enjoyed a lovely Fourth fireworks celebration with Indian fry bread tacos and sparklers for the kids.
And my nephew, who is totally adorable … well, he just gets cuter …
After returning to sea level (that always feels so great after time in the mountains, especially when it’s hot, both for me and for Dolly), I spent a night in Lodi wine country …
… and then in the Bay Area …
… both at amazing Harvest Host wineries and breweries. I highly recommend the Ale Industries Brewery in Oakland — you know, a lot of Harvest Hosts people talk smack about urban Hosts (i.e., in cities, as opposed to farms or wineries in the middle of nowhere) because you have to park in parking lots, but personally, I don’t mind. As long as the area is safe I am OK camping there.
I stayed at Ale Industries in Oakland, and I highly recommend their IPA!
Also, I loved being in the Bay Area, even if it was “just” the east bay. The heat and smoke from the many wildfires sparking up everywhere were the mildest on the coast.
I headed further north and stayed at a Harvest Host Winery in the Redwood Valley …
The heat really started to get nasty as I made it north to Santa Ana and stayed overnight at Testa Vineyards in the Redwood Valley. It was 99 degrees while I was sipping my requisite tasters.
It cracked 105 degrees when I was in Humboldt county. I think this was right around the time that the fires in northern California and southern Oregon started to get really bad.
I had reservations at the Red Bluff campground in Mendocino county, but it was another campsite without hookups.
I had managed in Malibu Creek when it was in the 90s, but that day was topping out at 115 and it was a bit too much. My sister offered to put me up in a motel for the night … and just this once, I caved.
This definitely was great – I got to charge all of my devices, have WiFi and cable at the same time, and god knows, I enjoyed that air conditioning – but staying in a motel when it got too hot is not a trend I wanted to start.
I really was excited to see the Redwoods, but the heat was almost unbearable by the time I got there. I traveled through Humboldt county and the Avenue of the Giants, which is just breathtakingly beautiful. The fresh oxygen and cool shade provided by these giants was the only saving grace for the heat during those couple of days.
I had some pleasant surprises, too … People think (or at least, I thought) of “the redwoods” as a single state or national park.
In reality, everything in that part of California is either a state park, a national park, a county park, a conservancy, a wildlife refuge, or a public space of some sort -interspersed with tiny towns and farms and communities in between.
I was there for a few days and I barely saw a fraction of it. I felt sad that I didn’t get to see it in better times.
This feeling – wishing I was there during a less hot and smoky time, and hoping to be able to come back again soon -was a recurring theme for the next several weeks.
Luckily, now that I am in remission, I don’t feel as much like I am on such a severe time crunch. Instead of doing a whirlwind tour of the east coast in 14 days, or hauling ass through wildfires to see the area … well. It’s nice to have more time.
I stayed at a Boondocker’s Welcome host again, two days in the middle of several state and local parks. It was a home with a lovely English garden.
It was also a little bit rainy because I was at sorta low elevation, so that was very welcome indeed. I even gave Dolly a little break and took the bus into Eureka to look around and do some shopping.
I spent a couple of lovely nights in the redwood area, then a very hot night at the foot of Mount Shasta, where the (city of) Weed fire started to get out of hand.
I was in a prime spot for a lovely view but could barely even see that the mountain was there.
I camped that night at the Mt. Shasta Brewing Company, which has great beer and pretzels. As a Harvest Host, they pretty much only need to give you a parking spot, but due to the extreme heat, they were kind enough to let me (pay to) plug in and run my air conditioner overnight. I have a small generator (not the camper one, but it plugs in to recharge and works very well), so I can run a fan; but when it’s over 100 degrees and the whole area is on fire, something stronger is necessary.
After I got to Oregon, the wildfires had basically created their own weather system, so I had to call an audible. I decided to change some of my reservations and stay closer to the coast.
It was definitely the best decision – I went straight west to Tillamook, where I enjoyed fresh oysters on the half-shell…
… and a walk around their adorable downtown.
I had no idea that the Tillamook area was as famous for seafood, especially oysters, as it is for cheese. They have a bunch of little oyster farms everywhere, and the fresh ones are just delicious. The local oyster bar I found was just lovely.
I also did a self-guided tour of the Tillamook cheese factory, …
… where they had some amazing ice cream and cheese dishes …
… definitely try the deep fried cheese curds (with the cheddar ranch dipping sauce) if you ever find yourself around there.
Tillamook was one if my favorite parts of this trip.
I camped out at the Blue Heron cheese factory (along with every other RV on the west coast), I ate a rack of oysters that had just been in the water that morning, I sat on the cow bench in Tillamook, and I ate some of — well, everything at the Tillamook factory.
As I made my way north, I stopped in the coastal towns of Seaside and Astoria, and camped at a Harvest Host in southwestern Washington that’s a lavender farm.
I can’t even describe how fresh and clean it all felt … the sea air and the pine trees and the lavender fields … especially after all of that heat and smoke.
It was even chilly! I needed a hat!
Then I stayed in two different spots near Seattle …
… first on the western shore facing east…
… and then on Anacortes Island, near Deception Pass.
I have good friends on Anacortes island and some distant stepfamily members nearby, so I got to have a nice dinner with family, then a nice evening with my old friends, tasting local beer and eating pizza.
I told them about the amazing oysters I tried in Tillamook, so they hooked me up with some amazing local oysters and showed me how to open them and eat them properly!
The whole area around the islands and Deception Pass is really amazingly beautiful.
My friends are biologists and know all of the amazing spots for hiking, birding crabbing and fishing. I spent a wonderful day exploring the park and the area around it.
I stayed out west as long as I could, and moved a lot of reservations around in order to avoid wildfires. But eventually I had to head east, where I knew the fires – and the heat – were going to get considerably worse.
I was only in Idaho for one night, and in western Montana for a few days. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel like I got the best out of Montana. (This photo, below, was about as clear as it got the entire time I was there – and that day it was almost 100 degrees outside. It sucked.)
Hopefully, I will get to go back, because I basically didn’t see the “big sky” the whole time I was there. Total rip-off.
The whole time I was there, I felt like I was walking around in a campfire. Smoke. Heat.
The sky was hazy and gray when I visited the Garden of One Thousand Buddhas.
Most parts of Glacier National Park were too narrow to fit my RV.
Despite the heat and smoke, everything was packed. It was crowded.
I was disappointed.
It wasn’t all bad, though – I did have some tasty food – one of the Harvest Hosts I stayed at was the East Shore Smokehouse, a great little old-school hunting lodge remade as a new age restaurant. They had this amazing appetizer dish called “Montana hot ends,” which are pork rib tips, smoked and braised and tossed in chili and brown sugar, and served with slaw and ranch dressing.
It’s unlike anything you’ve ever had before.
And then, my chemo drug started to give me problems. I am taking an oral chemotherapy pill, so the side effects aren’t (normally) as bad as the infusions. Most of the time I have a little nausea and a slight headache from these drugs, but that week, perhaps as a result of all of the coughing I was doing due to the wildfires and smoke – I was super nauseated. Most Harvest Hosts don’t let you plug into electricity or water, but one in Montana thankfully allowed it, so I hung out for two days enjoying air conditioning and not driving or doing anything else. It was just what I needed.
The last night I was in western Montana was the calm before the storm I was camping at a brewery – Big Sky Brewing in Missoula – which had a great atmosphere, ridiculously cheap beer, and very nice people.
It was also almost 100 degrees, plus smoke and fire and smog.
I tried to make the best of everything, but the heat was really starring to get to me.
One day … well, it was the worst day. I had a lot of driving to do – nearly six hours according to Google, which always ends up being more in an RV – and I felt sick as soon as I woke up. I tried to fight through it, but in the middle of the morning I threw up (luckily into one of my handy barf bags). It was actually kind of impressive the way I did it while driving. Not an hour later, traffic started to tighten up – an accident had literally just taken place, and I passed emergency vehicles arriving at a gruesome scene. The poor driver had crossed multiple lanes of traffic and hit a hillside; and he was hanging out of his window – either dead or extremely injured – right when I passed. It was terrible.
About an hour after that, the weather was starting to get into the high 90s. I got a call from my friend Jen, who had flown from San Diego into Billings, Montana. We had decided to meet there (hence my long day of driving) to travel through the Dakotas, and then I would drop her off in Minnesota, where she would visit her family and fly back home to San Diego. I was super excited to meet with her, even if it was a long day of driving to get there. I was maybe an hour or two away when she calls me to tell me she landed, and she was headed to a cafe to wait for me. I was coasting down a hill, playing a political audiobook.
Then the engine died. The “check engine” light came on, the gas pedal stopped working, and the brakes felt a little wonky too, since I was headed down a 7% grade with a half-full black tank. It was terrifying. I thought I was going to end up like that poor man I had just seen on the side of the road in that awful accident. I managed to get the RV to stop, and after a lot of back-and-forth with everyone who had an idea about what it might be, I got towed to the nearest repair shop.
It was around 4 p.m. at that point, so they did their best that evening, but by the time the shop closed, they still had no idea what was wrong with the engine. The engine would start up briefly, run noisily for a minute or two, then shake and die. The check engine light wouldn’t flash, and Dolly is a 1996, so the mechanics couldn’t hook it up to their code readers.
Even though they couldn’t figure it out, they let me camp there overnight. Jen was safe in a cool “dude ranch” motel in Billings, while I was plugged in with my a/c blasting in the middle of a repair yard in Livingston. We were both stuck for two nights, but as a stroke of major luck, the two nights we were delayed were also two nights that we got to enjoy the air conditioning when it was almost 100 degrees in Montana. If Dolly hadn’t broken down, we would have been sweating our nips off in a brewery in downtown Billings. And it wasn’t just the heat; the air quality was horrible, and it was hard to breathe sometimes.
After two nights in a repair yard, they managed to finally figure it out. and lo and behold it was the same nonsense that had broken Dolly down in Missouri, last November: rodents! Rodent damage to spark plug wires from the time it was in storage (before I bought it) finally got too hot or whatever and gave out. It was a $12 part. It cost me almost $400, since it took them hours of diagnostics, but it was better than a new engine.
Two days late, I finally picked Jen up in Billings, and we got the heck out of Montana as fast as we could … which, in an RV, is not really fast. I basically drove as fast as Dolly would take us all of the way to Williston, North Dakota. It was out of our way to go to the very south part of South Dakota, but my dear friend Belinda was there for work, and I couldn’t be in the Dakotas and not stop in to see her. We drove for almost 10 hours, but she’s the best friend and was waiting for us with hot showers and a hot bowl of her famous albondigas soup. That’s the type of food that puts the blood back in your veins when you’ve had a hard day!
But after all of that driving, luckily we were back on schedule at that point. So instead of a day with Belinda, we had like two hours in the middle of the night, then we had to get up early and get to Roubaix Lake in South Dakota before nightfall.
Roubaix Lake is really great. There aren’t electrical hookups, but the weather and the fires had cooled off (and we had gotten far enough east) that it wasn’t too hot and uncomfortable outside – it was in the 70s, plus we had a nice lake to jump in if we wanted to.
Of course, we didn’t swim in the lake, because our one full day there was spent in Deadwood and around Mount Rushmore.
Roubaix Lake is about halfway between the Mount Rushmore National Monument and the historic town of Deadwood, which is really cool.
They have an old west shootout in the middle of the street a few times a day, and all of the touristy shops are super cute.
We were in the area about a week before the Sturgis motorcycle rally, so lots of motorcycle riders were starting to congregate.
(But they were preparing for it, so it still looked like “Sons of Anarchy” threw up out there.)
My friend Jen got a tattoo (a lovely purple star, no less) to commemorate our awesome trip together.
I couldn’t join her for a tattoo (even though I would have liked to; it’s a no-no when you’re on chemo), but it was so cool that she got one.
It’s nice that’s it’s to commemorate our fun time instead of some wack “in memoriam” tattoo, too!
After a couple of nights at Roubaix Lake (and a very full day of historic Deadwood and Mount Rushmore), we had another long day of driving, this time as far as we could get into Minnesota. I had to drop Jen off east of Minneapolis in the morning, so we drove all day to get there in time.
We stopped to see the grasslands, and to enjoy lunch at Wall Drug, but most of Jen and I’s time together was spent driving.
Luckily, Dolly is the ultimate luxury vehicle, so we still had a great time. I miss riding around with friends!
Coming soon: Read all about my adventures through the Midwest, including visiting friends in Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan; all of the food I ate in Chicago; my college roommate’s wedding; all of the cheese and beer I consumed in Wisconsin; and of course all of the details from Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, and my trip back home to San Diego. Belinda is (hopefully) going to join me in Wyoming for some national parks explorations, so it should be epic!
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After I left Ohio, and my lovely evening in Star City, I headed to Chicago. More accurately, since I have heard Chicago was not a very RV-friendly place, I headed to a Harvest Host brewery in St. Charles.
It was a long day of driving – in retrospect, I could have taken more time, but I was kinda paranoid about not having enough time to get through the entire country and back to San Diego in time for my scheduled tests – but I still stopped in Fort Wayne to meet up with another old friend from high school. It was a super fast reunion, but it was great!
The rest of the drive to the Riverlands Brewing Company was pretty busy and stop-and-go traffic for miles, but it felt great to relax with a nice beer when I finally arrived. The brewery was a chill place to park overnight and was a great local spot full of people. I also got a delivery of some amazing Chicago-style deep dish pizza, keeping with my tradition of eating totally on brand food for the region. This was full of pepperoni, mushrooms, an ricotta cheese, and of course it was upside-down and practically a casserole.
The next day I drive most of the way through Iowa. I was much more green and lush than I expected –I had always heard that Iowa and Nebraska were very dry and flat, with mostly farmland, but they were both very green and beautiful. It was a lovely drive, and I ended up the next night at Doe’s and Diva’s Dairy Farm – another great Harvest Host in western Iowa.
On the way, I stopped at the world’s largest truck stop in Iowa.
Please check back again later for another blog post entirely devoted to the magic that is the all-American truck stop.
The food.
The parking.
The one-stop-shopping.
The showers.
(Coming soon.)
So green! Anyway, the dairy had goats and sheep, and there was cheese available for sampling, but not enough for sale. Fortunately I was able to snag a bottle of their amazing goat milk lotion!
The next night I was at an adorable county park in the middle of Nebraska – one of the few nights on my trip that I didn’t stay at a Harvest Host or with a friend or family member. It was a simple process to put cash in an envelope and pick an open spot, which I liked, and then it was a lovely relaxing and quiet evening, which I loved.
After Chicago, I pretty much stayed on Interstate 80 west the whole way into California … going through Iowa, Nebraska, southern Wyoming, the northern tip of Utah, and through Reno and Lake Tahoe straight into Sacramento. Right at the border of Nebraska and Wyoming on Interstate 80 is Fort Cody, which is a tourist trap/souvenir shop, but also a wild west show and … I don’t even know what is up with the mannequins on the roof.
It was certainly interesting, though.
In Wyoming, I drove through Cheyenne, and checked out some amazing murals. I’ve always loved street art, and I have seen some really amazing examples on this trip; in urban areas like Long Island, in areas so remote they feel abandoned, like Navajo country near the Four Corners, and places like this town square in Wyoming.
I camped for the next two nights at a Wyoming state park – Curt Gowdy park in between Cheyenne and Laramie.
It was a little gloomy and drizzly, but I had been making excellent time crossing the Midwest so I thought I could chill for a couple of nights and relax before I started the last slog back to California.
I took some walks, I enjoyed some home-cooked (in the RV) food, and I read some magazines, Mostly I just relaxed and enjoyed the view.
The campground wasn’t very busy, and it was another honor system pay process ($80 for two nights including electricity and this view!), so I was a very happy camper.
This was one of my favorite views from the camper door of my whole adventure so far.
The 80 only goes through a small part of Utah, which is pretty much always gorgeous. Like, everywhere. I went through Salt Lake City and even the most urban part of the state is really pretty.
And the salt flats are right off of the freeway, so – even tough I am too chicken to drive Dolly over all that salt – I stopped to enjoy the view for a minute.
There’s even street art on the freeway, like this amazing (and giant) art installation. Whomever thought of a giant sculpture in the middle of a salt flat that’s already naturally beautiful … it’s just incredible.
Continuing through Nevada, I stopped at another unique and only-in-the-west art installation – Thunder Mountain Monument. It’s made of trash and reused items, and it’s meant to symbolize the plight of Native Americans when the white settlers invaded their homes.
It’s right off of the freeway, so you can do it in a quick stop. And it’s definitely worth it.
And, it’s not not a bit creepy. There’s a great article in the Smithsonian about Thunder Mountain here.
I stopped at a truck stop in rural Nevada that night, there not being any friends or campgrounds or Harvest Hosts (or, really, much of anything except a place to park), and the next night I was at the lovely Gold Hill Hotel and Saloon near Carson City. I made the reservation online without doing much (or any) research into the area; it looked like a cool place and it was close to the route I was taking,
The drive up there seemed a little treacherous for an RV; there was literally a sign about a mile before the inn that says “no RVs or trucks past this point.” I kept going, reluctantly, and the owner later told me that just past the hotel there is a hairpin turn on a major grade so trucks often get stuck there.
Most Harvest Hosts are wineries or farms, so an inn with a bar and restaurant is unusual, I loved the feel of the whole place; it’s really old and Mark Twain used to drink there. The food could definitely have been better, but the service and the views were impeccable.
And I am really glad I enjoyed a hearty and warm meal, complete with a cocktail, because this is what it looked like when I went back out to my RV.
Frankly, I had woken up at the truck stop that morning to rain and sleet, and now that it was snowing, I was kind of irritated … perfect weather all the way through New England and now the weather starts acting up? In Nevada? It was messed up.
The crappy weather continued all through Tahoe – I made it just fine, but it was really nerve-wracking having to deal with freezing temps, snow, sleet, traffic, and mountains all at the same time. But there’s no other way to get into California from Nevada without hitting some mountains, so I made the best of it.
I stayed at another unique Harvest Host on the California side of Lake Tahoe; a lovely little Lutheran church with a big parking lot and a view of the lake. There was enough of a break in the snow to get a nice BBQ lunch nearby.
The next morning, I drove down from the Sierras into Sacramento, and it was glorious. I was super nervous all night about the impending snow and the steep drive down (and driving through the goddamn Donner Pass didn’t help my mindset very much), and frankly, I was just happy to be at sea level again.
My Harvest Host in Lodi was m2 Wines, which had really delicious wine (especially after the sucky wine out east) and amazing views, I had a sweet spot with a view of the vineyard from my camper!
My next stops were in San Jose to met another high school friend – she was actually planning to buy an RV and hit the road herself (with her whole family), so it was great to see her, meet her kids and husband (whom I had only seen online), and discuss RVing in 20121.
That night I was at my great-aunt’s house in Santa Cruz. We took a lovely walk along the coast with the gorgeous views, including a cool lighthouse. I really love Santa Cruz.
The trip down Highway 101 was pretty uneventful but it was really pretty, including great art I love so much … you can see it from the highway!
That night, I picked another Harvest Host near Paso Robles, but I went to an olive oil company instead of a winery.
43 Ranch Olive Oil is a really old, family-operated olive farm and oil press. They grow several varieties and make them into oil, and they also press oils for other olive producers in the area. I and some other Harvest Host guests were able to enjoy a tour of the press, learn how olive oil is made, and try some samples. It was great.
It was also a lovely view … the area around SLO and Paso Robles is always lovely, but I had a great parking spot under this big tree and it was very nice and peaceful.
The next night was lovely too — just a short drive to Morro Bay and the coast. That night I stayed at a golf course Harvest Host – the Sea Pines Golf Resort.
Golf courses are included in the premium Harvest Hosts package ($99 a year when I signed up, I think it’s about $120 now), but the majority of them ask you to book a tee time and play golf when you make your reservations. Luckily, this beautiful place didn’t require me to play golf (which I do not), so I supported my hosts by drinking and having a lovely meal in their restaurant.
My last Harvest Host before I got back to San Diego was another unique one – an antique store in Whittier. It’s the only Harvest Host in the Los Angeles area, and compared to the two previous nights in an olive oil farm and a seaside golf course, it was … different.
It was a parking lot. In Whittier.
Despite being near a busy street, it was relatively quiet at night, and I really enjoyed walking around the enormous antique store. It took up like 4 levels and was chock full of all of the coolest stuff you can imagine. I didn’t have a lot of time in there before thy closed, so I bought this.
Once I was back in San Diego, I stayed in my old neighborhood of Ocean Beach for a while, then checked into Sweetwater campground for a few days while I had some tests and doctor’s visits.
Sorry to be so behind … I haven’t even gotten to the fun stuff I did in San Diego around Memorial Day. I still have so much to tell you all about the last couple of weeks in San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Yosemite! Stay tuned for more very soon.
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After I got my poor window fixed, I spent a few days camping around San Diego. I wanted to do some desert camping in the month of March, before it got super hot or super crowded.
But before we headed to the desert, my brother and sister-in-law took me to the Taste of Boysenberry Festival at Knott’s Berry Farm. I had never been before and my last time at Knott’s was when I was like nine years old … but my big brother and SIL go there all the time (when there isn’t a pandemic). Attendance was limited, pandemic precautions were pretty intense, and all of the rides were closed; the park was open as a food festival only. And it was amazing. The park is a fun place to be no matter what the event is, and all of the food was great.
I was really impressed with their pandemic procedure … everyone had to wear a mask except for when they were actively sitting down and eating food. The rest of the time – walking, ordering, anything else – you had to be masked up. No walking and drinking or eating. Everyone over the age of 2 was in a mask. If you let it slip, they’d remind you to pull it up.
It was also super fun to hang out with my brother and sister-in-law … they’ve only recently come into my life, but we have a really fun and loving relationship, and I am so thankful for it. Plus, he’s a theme park blogger (check out Park Journey) and knew everyone at Knott’s. It was much better going there when it was limited in numbers and I was with someone who knew their way around.
And yes, I bought him that super cool shirt.
The food was really amazing as well. There were a few dishes that were really good, a few that were OK, and a couple of special dishes, like the bao bun with boysenberry kimchi, that slapped so hard I want them to sell me that kimchi in a jar. Or a 5-gallon bucket.
The next week, Belinda and I went to Lake Cahuilla, which is a man-made lake just outside of Palm Desert, and a Riverside county park that offers primitive and hook-up RV camping. (For the uninitiated, “full hookup” usually refers to electricity, water and sewer hookup at the campsite itself. Most of the ones that offer “partial hookups” only refer to the electricity and water, but those campgrounds invariably have a sewer dump you can use, just not at your actual site. Primitive is no hookups at all.) We had partial hookups and a dump station on site. We stayed there for five days, and it was super windy for a couple of those days, so we didn’t spend as much time outside of the RV as I had planned.
Lake Cahuilla is technically in the desert, but it’s in almost a canyon … totally surrounded by mountains. So when the wind blows, it’s pretty intense, but when it’s calm, it’s very nice and peaceful. We just had to do most of our cooking inside the RV, or if we did it on the campfire, the food was totally covered to protect it from dust storms.
But it’s a really beautiful place; and you can fish in the lake, hike in the surrounding mountains, or golf or shop in nearby Palm Desert. We opted to chill at the lake … we walked around a but but due to the wind, we mostly stayed indoors.
Of course, because it was Belinda and I, and because we had to be indoor-sy for the week, we ate really, really well. One day we grilled some kama (yellowtail collar, the most tender and delectable part of the fish) and made a beautiful salad, and washed it down with this lovely chilled rose from one of the wine tasting ventures we went on while traveling around California last month.
We also made some polenta cakes with a homemade “Sunday gravy” I was given as a gift, and paired it with the Big Ricardo red blend from Chronic Cellars.
We’re really getting the hang of this wine pairing thing!
I also forgot to mention that I got some amazing boysenberry mustard when I was at that Boysenberry Festival. Over the past month I have used it on so many things … as part of a dip for grilled artichokes, in a potato salad and multiple sandwiches, we coated some steaks in it before we grilled them, …
… and on a really epic homemade chicken salad. I will post the recipes soon (really because I need to get another jar to make a few more recipes from it).
I even got in a little bit of a spa day before the wind picked up again. Isn’t it lovely out there? I can’t wait to come back.
The next week, Belinda went to celebrate her sister’s birthday with her family in Big Bear. After my previous accidental snow driving, I did not want to go. Plus I had reservations at the Salton Sea state recreation area, which is another great desert camping spot. I was there by myself, but it was really lovely and peaceful.
Salton Sea is a very unique place with a lot of history … back in the 30s, it was a military test site. In the 50s and 60s, it was a vacation getaway known as the “California Riviera,” with more annual tourists than Yosemite. Then in the 70s and 80s, it all started going to hell. The sea dried up and became increasingly polluted, and everyone who lived there left.
I was spending a few days at the state park, which is on the northeastern end of the sea. I can see how this was such a tourism draw back in the day when it was clean and lush … from the eastern shore, you can see spectacular sunsets over the western mountains. But then every few years there is a huge die-off of fish, and the whole sea (some 40 miles wide and almost 60 long), which produces a smell and a sight like you can’t imagine.
I couldn’t live there, but I sure enjoyed a few days checking it out.
In a way it’s unfortunate that the Salton Sea has had such a bad rap, but I was happy to take advantage of a nearly empty state park. I made a really awesome untrimmed tri-tip (it was windy at the Salton Sea as well, but not the entire time like when we were at Lake Cahuilla), and it was several meals for me (especially since I was by myself).
After a couple of meals full of steak and potatoes (the best campfire side dish, in my opinion), I made garlic bread and tri-tip, tri-tip and eggs for breakfast, tri-tip salad for lunch, tri-tip nachos, and more.
Then, I was really tired of eating tri-tip.
I had a couple more weeks to kill in San Diego – Belinda’s mom had surgery at the end of March, so she committed to at least two weeks of being at home to help care for her post-surgery. We tentatively planned to leave on the 7th of April. That left me more time for more desert camping, and a bit of beach fun around my birthday on April 1. But first, I went back to one of my favorite places to camp in San Diego county: Sweetwater Regional Park in Bonita.
It’s really a beautiful and peaceful campground. It’s near the freeway so you are close to civilization, but it’s quiet and mellow and there are gorgeous sunset views.
That week, I also got to go sailing! My friend has a membership in a cool sailing club where you can basically use a boat for as long as you like, and they handle all of the maintenance, etc. We had a lovely time sailing around Coronado Island and the San Diego Bay. And it was perfect weather.
I was also really happy to get a new discount pass: both the national parks and the California state parks systems have a free (or super-cheap) lifetime pass for people with permanent disabilities. I’m really excited to have free access and super cheap camping at parks now!
Before the end of March, we did one more desert camping spot: Agua Caliente is a San Diego county regional park, but it’s inside Anza Borrego state park. All of the state park campgrounds were primitive only, so we opted for a county park spot. It was a full moon that weekend and the skies were incredible.
There were no lights other than campfires and campers, but it looked like there was a street lamp on, it was so bright. I have a pretty good camera on my phone, but my apologies because even my good camera doesn’t do justice to how pretty it was.
My brother and SIL joined Belinda and I for the first day there, and we had a blast hiking, taking mineral showers, and cooking up some deliciousness on the wood fire. I have gotten really good at building a campfire, and I had a lot of experience with a grill and smoker before so it’s a great time adjusting those techniques and recipes for a campfire.
One of my goals for this trip was to spend my birthday on the beach, and I was successful in that, at least. I parked for a few days on the street in Ocean Beach, moving my space during the day when the parking was easier, and hanging out with friends in the evening. I met people for happy hours and brunches and lunches and kombuchas in various rooftop bars and patios and outdoor seating areas. It was a few days of lots of drinking and eating and celebration, and it was wonderful. I won’t rehash all of the amazing food I ate all over again, but check out my Insagram for some awesome photos and videos (check out the video of me dipping a birria taco)!
Before I left town, however, I wanted to check out one more of the San Diego county parks. I think I have mentioned it before, but I was really impressed with the county parks. They have a great reservation system, they’re clean and the staff is friendly, and they’re always just good places to be with relaxed vibes. Travel can be stressful sometimes, and it’s nice to have peaceful places to camp. I mean, a truck stop parking lot will do if you just need a place to get some sleep, but if you’re gonna camp, you want it to be nice, you know?
So the last park on my list in San Diego was Guajome Lake park, which is technically in the city of Oceanside, but is also in the mountains with a lake. It had lovely birds and wildlife, and pretty trails for hiking and biking. Like Agua Caliente, it also has cabins for rent close to the RV and tent camping sites, so I think in June I might camp here again with my brother and his family (they would be in a cabin).
All of this desert fun has also done a number on my brakes; when I got back from the Salton Sea my wheel well was making a weird grinding sound. I wasn’t able to see my mechanic for another week so I kept driving. The brakes still seemed fine up until this past week, when I was driving from Sweetwater to a new campsite at Guajome. As I braked, the wheels made a horrible noise. I gingerly and slowly applied the brake again, and it made a worse sound, and shook the whole vehicle as it finally came to a stop. As I pulled into my campsite, I noticed fluid (presumably brake fluid) leaking from my wheel well.
(Photo credit: my sister-in-law Kristi Condon)
After that, I was too freaked out to drive Dolly to my mechanic … I was already planning to see him about an issue with my tail lights, but I didn’t want to risk my brakes completely failing so I called a tow truck. After a terrible ride (the driver wouldn’t wear a mask, and totally damaged my trailer hitch getting Dolly on and off the truck), my mechanic confirmed my worst fears: it was bad.
My brakes were completely shot. Since I don’t have any of the service records for my RV (the previous owner literally stole them out of the RV after he sold it to me), for all I know, the brakes on there are the originals. I know the shocks are the originals. Bernie (my mechanic) showed me how the front rotors were completely destroyed; one was cracked and the other was worn down to a sliver. The back drums weren’t much better and the shocks were old and frayed. Basically everything needs to be replaced. And the electrician had to rewire my whole trailer to get my back lights to work.
As I write this, my RV is still in the shop, and will hopefully be ready tomorrow, and we can hit the road the next day. It will likely cost about $2,000 total for all of the repairs, which is basically all of my money, but I feel much better knowing that it will all be fixed. I’m lucky that I have a trusted mechanic here, instead of finding out when I’m in the middle of nowhere that my brakes or my lights don’t work. It would cost me considerably more. I’m also blessed that I didn’t find out about my brakes by getting into an accident, although that last trip was kinda sketchy. This is lame but it was the best possible outcome.
I’ll be on the road in a couple of days and headed east. I plan to go through Vegas, the desert, Houston and Louisiana, then to my mom’s house in east Tennessee for a few days before I see the east coast. This is the part I am really excited about! Basically other than a school trip and a college internship in Washington, D.C., I pretty much have no experience on the east coast. I don’t have to be back in San Diego again until the first of June, so I plan to see some things and some people on the Atlantic coast before I head west again. I’m looking forward to finally checking more states off of my map!
I can’t wait to see more of our beautiful country, and to share it with you. Stay tuned for my next adventure!
Please donate to my GoFundMe to assist with repairs, of you are able!
These last several weeks have been incredible. I am actually splitting the time since I have been back in California into two long posts,because I managed to pack an incredible amount of activity into several short weeks. Honestly, I could write a book just about the three-hour historic food tour we took in downtown Sacramento. Since I last posted, I have seen *almost* all that California has to offer … the beach, the big city, the farmland, the wine country, the snow-topped mountains. (The desert is next month.)
But, first things first.
First, I arrived back in San Diego for a bunch of tests and doctor’s appointments. In between a CT scan and an MRI, plus a bunch of meetings and blood draws, etc., I was camping at some cool sites: some street parking and some friends’ houses. There aren’t a lot of Harvest Hosts in the San Diego city area – they’re all to the north, south or east. So, as much as I could, I would park at the beach all day, enjoy the tasty food and gorgeous views I had enjoyed for 15+ years in San Diego, and then parking off-street at night.
And I checked out the state and regional parks.
I camped with my (now ex-) boyfriend at Sweetwater Canyon Regional Park, and instantly I knew it would become one of my favorites. Just look at all of this space!
It’s only $35 per night for a full hookup, nearby bathrooms and showers, a free dump site and a gorgeous view of the canyon. It’s close to the border and to a major highway, but it’s still very peaceful and close to stores and whatnot.
I will definitely be returning to this place. It’s a beautiful view, day or night.
A couple of nights later, I was at Silver Strand State Beach. For the uninitiated, Silver Strand is a literal a strip of land connecting the southern tip of Coronado Island to Imperial Beach. It’s barely wide enough for a four-lane highway and a bit of beach on either side.
I have to be honest; when I arrived, it didn’t seem like this state beach was as good as it looked on the website. Sweetwater was $35 for a huge lot with all of the amenities. This place had closed all bathrooms and showers, and it was more expensive. There was no picnic table, no fire pit, no BBQ grill, not even really a view from most of the spots (unless you paid extra for the premium site).
Don’t get me wrong, I lived in San Diego for almost 20 years, I get what it’s like to pay for a view. But I was still a little bummed for like five minutes, until I had a shower and a rest and enjoyed a walk on the beach. Also, when I arrived on a Saturday, every spot was taken – and every camper had taken full advantage of every inch of their lot – and by Sunday afternoon, when most of them had gone back home, it was downright peaceful.
I took a nice long walk to Coronado as well, something I haven’t done for nearly a year due to my broken back and cancer diagnosis. It was definitely more than my body was used to, especially since my back … but it actually felt good to stretch my legs a little bit.
Speaking of cancer diagnosis, I had really good scan results that next week. I had a CT scan of my chest and abdomen and an MRI of my brain, and they showed that my tumors are continuing to shrink. The one they’re really worried about is on my skull, and it has stayed away from my brain so far, and shows a “continued interval decrease in size and enhancement.” The tumors on my spine, while they are still there, have basically shriveled down to scar tissue. I need to stay on my current course of treatment as long as it’s working. It’s the best I could hope for!
After I got my test results, I hit the road with one of my oldest and dearest friends. Belinda used to be my neighbor in OB. We met about 15 years (and many boyfriends) ago, and we instantly bonded over a mutual love of all food, drink, sarcasm and double entendres.
She’s the perfect person to take with you to all of the foodie spots.
We left early (-ish) Saturday morning, after checking all of Dolly’s fluids, supplies and tire pressures. We only drove about 4 hours, to a lovely Harvest Host winery just about 20 minutes from my brother’s house. So he got to join us briefly when we sampled the wines at Giessinger Winery. (Stay tuned for my next post … we actually stopped there on our way home again, and I will tell you even more about it.)
Our sommolier was super knowledgeable about the wines, of course but also told us about a famous bakery right down the street, where they grow all of their own organic ancient grains, and everything is so delicious. We bought a lot of munchies for the road .. and, of course, then we went out for sushi.
The area of downtown Fillmore was super cute; they have a railroad that in normal times did fun train excursions (zombie hunting from a train for Halloween, a Christmas tree train around the holidays, that sort of thing), and an easily walkable shopping and eating area. We really enjoyed it there.
The next morning I got on the Reserve California website to see about state park camping for the next couple of days. There are a few Harvest Hosts in the farmland area of central California, but the majority of them are around Lodi and Sacramento – which is where we were headed, so we were trying to find a park. I was pleasantly surprised to see open sites for Camp Edison, a campground in Shaver Lake, which is inside the Shasta National Forest. It was only $40 per night, had all the amenities (including a picnic table and BBQ grill, unlike that state beach), and was only about 4 hours away, so we booked it and headed out.
I generally prefer to only drove 3-5 hours per day. I don’t care to drive Dolly at night at all if I can help it, and I didn’t want to drive her in inclement weather, even though she has new tires and I am good at driving in Weather. Which is why I got a chill up my spine when we were about an hour from our destination and started heading up a mountain, and all the people coming down, the opposite way, were covered with snow. The weather report had said it would be around 44 most of the day, which seemed cold, but we were going to have all of the hookups and a heater, so it didn’t matter.
But then I saw the signs about snowy conditions year-round. And tire chains required year-round. And it’s February. And I don’t have tire chains. And I really, really don’t want to drive in the snow at all, but I already booked it and I am already halfway up this mountain. So, like a dumbass, I keep going.
We drive through the snowy picturesque town of Shaver Lake, with snow a foot high. We pull into Camp Edison and inform them that we have a reservation. They hand over a parking placard and direct us to our campsite … without ever even asking our names. I guess we were the only ones crazy enough to be up there in a damn RV.
They had scraped a hole in the snow big enough – barely – for Dolly, and we spent a very long, but not exactly cold, night at Camp Edison. We had a good heater going, and it wasn’t that freezing cold (especially compared to the polar vortex enveloping most of the rest of the country this week!).
However, I did have an unusually (for me) high amount of anxiety about getting back down that hill. I scoured every map looking for another way off of that damn mountain, but there were none. I could barely sleep thinking about how I was going to get this RV down a steep (there was an 11% grade in some places), windy, precarious, snowy, icy mountain road, with no chains and no guardrails.
There was a storm coming that next afternoon, so we got the hell out of there by 8 a.m. I luckily was not far behind the snowplow, and the road was as clear as it could have been, given the circumstances. Once I was finally at the bottom, it didn’t seem as scary, but wow … that was intense. And altogether not a very restful night or fun time, but that wasn’t the fault of anyone but me for not bothering to see why no one else was booked at this joint.
So, Belinda and I made a deal – no more state parks without proper research.
For the next nearly two weeks, we had a blast sampling wines and visiting friends and family. We took a historic food tour of downtown Sacramento. We hung out in hot natural mineral baths. We had impossibly decadent dinners in wine country. We had a small accident, but nothing that can’t be fixed. My new post on all of those awesome details is coming soon!
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I actually really love traveling alone. I know it stresses my family out, especially with my health issues – and I loved traveling with my good friend, especially for Dolly’s maiden voyage – but there is something about the peace and quiet and freedom of doing it yourself.
I left my mom’s house on January 13, and the first night I stayed in Cookeville, where my family has a farm (where I spent the night in the RV) and I got to see some old friends.
As I mentioned my parents (and other family members) were not crazy about me doing this trip by myself. I try to give them my ear when they are concerned, at least — to be fair, they basically are going along with this whole crazy idea of a bucket list road trip with minimal complaints so far — but I also think this is one of the safest ways to travel. My mom was particularly worried about crazy right-wing violence, after the riot at the Capitol on January 6. People were talking online about more trouble during the inauguration, and even rumors about the electrical grid.
I told them – and I believe – that if something did go down, the RV would be one of the best places for me to be. I could literally just pull off the road and use my generator, as well as my full kitchen and bathroom, and wait it out. I also planned to be in rural Texas and New Mexico on Inauguration Day, and that wasn’t likely to be a hub of activity. Plus, I am a grown woman and I am safe and smart.
I got this.
Anyway, one of those Cookeville friends has a husband who is a truck driver, who recommended a trailer repair guy who could look at the business with my electrical system. (Long story short, the battery was working but there was something stopping it from illuminating my camper.)
Like everything else that has gone wrong with this RV, it worries the hell out of me for a while, I research it and make myself crazier, then someone comes along and says “hey this wire is loose” and fixes it. They wouldn’t even take my money. I pray that everything on this RV is always so easy and cheap to fix (knocking wood and crossing my fingers).
So instead of worrying for days, it was fixed in minutes and I was on my way.
I spent a couple of days in Nashville, eating tons of good food…
… catching up with more old friends from high school and college…
… seeing old sights (that are totally different from back in the day) and new ones (like this street art):
I also got to go to Hattie B’s which is the new “Nashville Hot Chicken” place. I say that in quotation marks, because now that it has become a hashtag, it’s totally different.
Back when I was in college there (and, again, this was 1997-2001), there was a joint called Prince’s, which was the best hot chicken in town. It came on a scale of 1-10, and the 10 would do some damage. Back then, I didn’t even try the hot stuff, I got the not-hot-at-all kind.
Back then, Prince’s was in a part of town that, shall we say, was not frequented by white people very often, and it was run by an older black lady who was frankly kind of mean.
Hattie B’s is a hashtag. Hattie B’s has t-shirts. Hattie B’s lets you substitute your chicken if you taste it and find it to be too hot. The old lady at Prince’s did not let you do that. You made your choice, you live with it.
But Hattie B’s is also impeccable. The chicken – heat aside – was perfectly crispy and juicy. The sides were all perfect – perfectly seasoned greens, creamy potato salad. Don’t even get me started on this banana pudding.
But everything else in Nashville is so different. Prince’s was destroyed when someone drove a car into it; a new location opened with new owners but it wasn’t the same. The neighborhood where I lived as a teenager was completely razed and there were fancy condos and apartment homes there instead. I went looking for a BBQ joint I used to frequent when I was in college, hoping that it might still be be after all this time – not only was it nit open, but the whole strip mall it once housed was gone. Dang.
But that just leaves an opening for trying out more good new stuff, right?
I have been wanting to check out Slim ‘n’ Husky’s pizza since I heard about it – the founders are Tennessee State University alumni, like myself, and my foodie friends there always rave about it.
I got this meaty pizza, and some whiskey pecan cinnamon buns for the drive the next day.
I hit I-40 west with my road cinny buns, and I stopped at Samuel Bryant’s Distillery in Jackson, Tennessee.
You may recall when I first met Mr. Bryant on my first solo van journey (as opposed to this solo RV journey), he makes the Tennessee whiskey that you can’t call Tennessee whiskey, so it’s really “dark shine.” I picked up some boozy souvenirs for lucky people back in Cali.
On this trip, I have been intentionally, where possible, staying at state and/or local parks. Local governments are going through a harder time than usual, so every bit helps. It’s worth it to me to spend $20 or so to plug in for the night and have a water and sewer hookup, especially when it’s so cold, and that $20 goes a long way to keeping these places open and operational. Many parks have cheaper-than-normal winter rates as well.
Davis Lake campground, Tombigbee National Forest, Mississippi
The first night out of Tennessee (and of course, the weather was perfect) was in Mississippi, but I was only there for one night. For $20 cash, I got a lovely spot to camp next to a brilliant lake, and there were only three other campers in the whole park.
This is Davis Lake, in the Tombigbee national Forest in central Mississippi.
The next morning, I went to Louisiana, and stayed at Indian Creek Campground, another state park where we had already camped before in December. The weather was also perfect, and in fact the scenery wasn’t that different!
From southwestern Louisiana, it’s only four hours to my sister’s house in Houston, which is always good for a couple of days-long pit stop to wash clothes and sleep in a real bed and relax with family. I really wanted to get on the road to see more state parks and natural beauty before I got back to California, though, so I was only there for a couple of days.
When I arrived in Houston, I noticed that my driver’s side rear light was missing a cover, and I couldn’t get the replacement in time, so my sister ordered it to be delivered to Vegas when I would be there. In the meantime, from Houston to Vegas, my light looked like this:
Luckily I made it through several state parks, into a canyon, up several snowy mountains, and into Las Vegas and it held. And once I got to Vegas it was as good as new.
When I left my sister’s, the plan was to do three nights and two different Texas state parks. I had reserved a spot (you have to reserve everything online before you show up now) the first night at Lake Mineral Wells (about 4 hours from Houston) and two nights at Palo Duro, another 4-5 hours northwest.
I really loved both of them; and could have easily spent a week at either campsite. I will, in fact, try to do so on my way back to Tennessee in March or April. Lake Mineral Wells is a really fascinating park; the entrance to the campsite makes you drive past a dam that seemed to be on the verge of overflowing as I drove by. My actual campsite was next to the lake, and had a little fire pit and picnic area.
Again, I could have stayed for days. Luckily I got there right in time for a sunset, and the gloomy weather made a sweet rainbow.
This was the actual view from my campsite!
On my way to Lake Mineral Wells, I got a call from a lady at the Texas state parks department. She said the reservation I had made for two nights was cancelled due to a broken water main near the camping area. They could book me another campsite, but it would only be for one night instead of two. Plus, I had picked my site from photos on their website, and I was driving while I was speaking to her and obviously couldn’t look at the website, so I asked her to pick me a nice campsite that was open.
When I arrived, the park ranger informed me that I was in campsite number 16 … and that she loooooooved number 16; it was one of the best as far as beauty and hiking trail access. And she wasn’t wrong. Since my doctor doesn’t think hiking is good for my broken back, and I was only there for one night – albeit a long, winter night – I wasn’t going to be doing any hiking. But it was such a beautiful area!
Palo Duro is the second-largest canyon in the United States, and the campground is literally inside the canyon. My spot was right at thhe entrance to a hiking trail (as promised), and was nestled between two cliff faces. It was a full campground, but very peaceful.
Of course, it took longer than anticipated to get there, and it was only for one night now, so I didn’t have much time to check out the scenery. I had many more miles to go before I got to the beach!
Most of the time, I get up early and hit the road, usually because when the sun comes up, it’s hard for me to get back to sleep. Plus, when I am ready to go, I can do so quickly — another good thing about solo travel. I get up early, drive 4-5 hours, and then get to sleep early when I arrive at my destination.
For example, when I left Palo Duro early in the morning, I headed towards the Four Corners area. I have been through there before, and it’s a really beautiful and easy drive. It appeared to be around 5 hours from Amarillo, but I didn’t account for a) the time it took to get back up out of Palo Duro Canyon, and b) how long it took me to drive through New Mexico with all of the big mountains and high elevations (driving an RV always adds 20% on to your time estimate in the hills and mountains). That night I ended up sleeping at a truck stop/ casino in Indian country, maybe 100 miles southeast of the four corners area.
I prefer not to drive the RV at night in unfamiliar areas. It seems safer to me to be in a well-lit parking lot with other people (who never bothered me in the slightest) than to be on the road, trying to navigate poorly lit roads in the dark in winter.
In other words, I try to plan it that way – an easy for hours every day and a comfy and electrified place to park at night – but some nights, that just isn’t possible. Either way, it’s a fun time.
The next two nights weren’t much better. I headed west, further towards Vegas, and stopped in Page, Arizona. It was a really interesting drive: as I drove northwest, I was at such high elevation, I was practically in the clouds. About 40 miles from Page, the elevation drops, and the sky clears. Then as I come around a mountain and in sight of the Antelope Valley (just east of Page), it’s mid afternoon, the sun is throwing the most spectacular shadows on the cliffs and the rock faces, and … a power plant. Just a huge, ugly, gross, grey, shadowy power plant. They made no effort to blend it in with the landscape or anything, so I can only hope that means it does a lot of good. It sure isn’t pretty. It was jarring to see the difference.
Page is right next to Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Dam, so the area is beautiful.
There were still stay-at-home restrictions in Arizona so the state parks were closed, and I looked around to see if any of the local RV parks were offering a one-night special or a winter deal; none were. I just spent the night at the Wal-Mart, and left early. Maybe I would have relaxed for a few hours if I had had electricity and water, but in a public lot there’s no reason to hang out.
Plus, this is the really scenic part of the drive. The weather was crazy; but the route to Vegas takes you on a stretch of road that zigzags between Arizona and Utah, and it’s really beautiful in any weather.
The trip from the middle of Arizona to Las Vegas was equally weird – the high elevation and storm clouds made for a really weird drive; on-again, off-again snow, sleet, rain, and beautiful clear skies. All in less than five hours. When I rolled off of the Las Vegas Strip, there was snow on my windshield. When I arrived at the Las Vegas National Golf Club, they were about to close due to weather (but thankfully allowed me to park there as we had arranged through the Harvest Host program).
I’m sure this is really fun when it’s not snowing.
So, I spent another cold and noisy night at a place off of a busy road (this time a golf club off the Strip instead of a Wal-Mart or truck stop), but it still felt good to be heading west.
I could tell I was on the west coast again, because I actually waned to eat Mexican food I generally do not eat taco shop food unless I am in San Diego, because I have been spoiled (and all other taco shops are gross).
But, one of my favorite San Diego/ Tijuana shops has a few Las Vegas locations, so some adobada fries (con todo y pina, unless you’re a savage) from Tacos El Gordo was dinner.
The next night, I was in California. I spent the night at my stepdad’s house in San Bernardino – actually I parked outside of his house and slept out there. This was a totally socially distanced visit because my stepdad and his wife are elderly and he has had some health problems in the last year. They’ve basically been quarantining for going on three years now; so they let me eat and do laundry inside, but I slept in the RV. Which is like, the reason I have it. This is the best way to quarantine travel! No need for motels or restaurants – I can get take-out and eat it right in my RV, or better yet, cook.
I basically jinxed myself by complaining to Tennessee people that I only encountered “weather” of any kind in Tennessee. Now I am getting it everywhere. There were clouds and rain all through Texas; there was snow and sleet through New Mexico and Arizona, and it’s even rainy and stormy in southern California!
But of course, stormy skies sometimes make for beautiful sunsets.
So, I am back in California. Yay!
In the next couple of weeks, I will have some medical scans and tests to see how my current medications are working. I plan to be at a local county park that offers camping, and I will be checking out the cheap/ free places to camp and boondock here in San Diego. I plan to go to Sacramento and the Bay Area in mid-February and head back to my mom’s in late March or early April.
Be sure to follow me on Facebook and Instagram, and if you are so inclined, please support my GoFundMe. All funds go directly to this trip – gas, repairs, and stuff for the RV.
Now that I have done his a couple of times, I can safely say, traveling without a strict itinerary is the way to go. I had some doctor’s appointments in San Diego, and Nichelina and I both promised our moms we would be back on the East Coast for Christmas, but other than that, we were free to do what we liked on our way east. I had promised my doctor that I would come back after Thanksgiving for more tests and shots, so that gave us a couple more days in California.
I really enjoyed Thanksgiving at my brother’s house.
He’s a theme park blogger (check out his stuff at Park Journey), and I know it hurt him to not be able to go and ride on some roller coasters this year. But the theme parks are making it work; we took a ride through Six Flags Magic Mountain to see the cool decorations and holiday displays. It was really fun ad safe; you didn’t even have to get out of your car to see everything.
We even had holiday-themed face masks.
I just recently got to know my brother and his family, and they are taking care of my kitty, Janis. I was really worried that Janis – who was practically feral when she adopted me and does not handle change very well – would be stressed and upset without me and after being forcibly moved to a new home with new people.
Let’s just say, if she was upset about the move from an apartment in Ocean Beach to a sweet condo in L.A., it hasn’t affected her appetite. I tried for almost a decade to get her fat, but she always had too much exercise and fresh air outside. Now that she’s an inside kitty, she’s chunked up in less than a couple of months.
After Thanksgiving, Nichelina and I spent a couple more days in San Diego, enjoying another weekend parked at the beach facing the sunset.
We took a chance on some new technology; I really hate the gas generator in the RV — it makes electricity but it’s so loud and gas-guzzling — and I wanted another alternative.
This solar panel is pretty cheap on Amazon, it’s light and folds out into four small panels, and it charges right away. In less than a minute, I was able to unfold it, place it in direct sunlight, and plug in my phone charger, which started charging at full power instantly. I purchased a connector that supposedly will allow me to charge the battery with this solar panel, but we will see. I might not get a chance to test it in Tennessee in wintertime.
There aren’t a lot of Harvest Hosts spots in San Diego county – a few in the mountains and the inland areas, and one in Chula Vista; a golf course. You have to upgrade for a golf membership with Harvest Hosts, but some of the golf clubs make you pay for rounds of golf in order to camp out there. Luckily, the Chula Vista Golf Course is part of a complex that allows overnight parking.
It’s not super fancy, but there is a shopping complex across the street. We got there after dark, but we woke up to a lovely view of a shady golf course.
Since we were in close proximity to some of the best Mexican food outside of Mexico, we took advantage. I got roasted lamb from Aqui es Texcoco, which included a consomme, tortillas, and limes, cilantro and fresh diced onions for garnish.
Then I stopped at Tacos el Gordo, and got carne asada tacos and adobada fries with all of the fixins (aka “con todo y pina”). It was impeccable.
Apparently the city of Chula Vista is saluting health care workers, as they should be doing. On my way to Tacos El Gordo, I even saw a flag with Dr. Marilyn Norton, who was one of my oncologists when I had breast cancer a few years ago. She’s great and I’m glad she’s being recognized.
Anyway, I also took the opportunity to enjoy some more sun and Mexican food before I left San Diego. This is the breakfast burrito from Nico’s on Newport Avenue near the beach. It got me through many a morning in OB.
I wrapped up my last day in southern California with with stupid cancer nonsense; I needed a bone scan, a hormone shot and an infusion, as well as to meet again with my oncologist. I decided – either wisely or stupidly – to get it all done in one long day at the hospital.
Dolly (the RV) had other ideas.
While I was in the hospital all day, Dolly took this opportunity to let her ass slip. The fender (which holds the poop tube and the covered spare tire) was falling off – and this is definitely the sort of thing that can do some damage if it hits you on the highway.
The exhaust pipe was also slipping.
The left turn signal was going in and out.
The windshield was cracked.
What the hell.
Once again, I survived because of the ingenuity and connections of my friends.
While I was getting a shot in the butt, an infusion through a chest port, an oncologist consultation and a bone scan, Nichelina was teaming up with our friend Tully to remove the heavy spare tire from the fender and get the RV to a place where they could do all of the welding and an oil change. She bought a cheap part that fixed the errant turn signal, and the crack on the windshield appeared to be very low on the glass pane, so we decided it was at least good enough for us to hit the road.
It’s really amazing that for this entire trip, all of the mechanical issues we had could be fixed for a minimal expense.
We took the same route east that we had taken west – through Vegas, to stay again with our friends there, then a long drive through the mountains and desert to get to the Four Corners.
I’m happy to say that we all held up quite nicely through the mountains — Nichelina and I are still friends, Dego the dog has had another eventful cross-country trip, and Dolly is still running.
Dolly also got an oil change at the same time the rear fender and exhaust pipe was welded back on, so she was driving really smoothly. She certainly was slow driving through some of those steep mountain grades between Utah and Arizona, but nothing worse than what you’d expect with such a non-aerodynamic vehicle going up a big mountain.
At the Four Corners, it was pretty bleak — the Navajo Nation has been ravaged by Covid, so pretty much everything except the most essential services are still available. The Harvest Hosts stop we parked at that night was one of the essential businesses: a trading post and gas station in Teec Nos Pos, Arizona.
It’s a lovely store and a warm place to stop (presumably it’s nicer in the summer and when there isn’t a devastating pandemic going on), and we got some cool souvenirs.
That whole area is really unusual, especially in the winter. The air is cold but dry, and you have static electricity everywhere you go … especially in an RV containing a million blankets and a dog.
The next day we went on to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and we got some amazing burgers and enjoyed a bit of a rest before we headed east. We decided instead of a Harvest Host, we would just drive until we wanted to stop, and park at a free lot then head to Texas in the morning. After a nice sleep at a truck stop, we went through the rest of New Mexico and west Texas (snore), then stopped in Lubbock at the Buddy Holly museum.
We didn’t have a lot of time to spend there – we were trying to get to that night’s Harvest Host stop and then on to my sister’s in Houston by nightfall – but it was a really fun museum and a nice stop after driving for a few hours.
Our Harvest Host that night was in Abilene – a small meadery in the downtown area where we learned about the process of making mead, and enjoyed a lovely dinner with the hosts.
Amber Dragon Meadery makes small batches of different fruity honey wines made in the ancient process, and they have a really cool tasting area and collection of Viking items.
As we have come to expect from Harvest Hosts (other than the Nazi incident), Amber Dragon was a great small business we are proud to support, and after a great night’s sleep (that mead packs a punch), we were on our way again.
Oh yes, the ‘Nazi incident’; if you didn’t read my last post, I’ll give you the short version: we stayed at a former Harvest Host stop called Wicked Kreations, which was not only far below the standards of beauty and cleanliness we have come to expect, but they were displaying Nazi flags. They said later that their dirty motorcycle garage was a military museum, but they also said their dirty home was a winery, so they are clearly not living in the same realm of reality as you and I.
When we told POC (and allies) not to shop or stay there, they tried to retaliate; saying we stole from them (as if!) and trying to get their buddies to harass us.
I also learned this week that the wife (or girlfriend) of the alleged murderer passed away on December 9.I know she had cancer and was obviously suffering due to an alleged assault and her partner’s PTSD, but I don’t know the cause or circumstances.Regardless of the details, it’s certainly tragic, and I am sorry for her death. May her memory be a blessing.
Dolly had been running really well up until we got to Texas, but then the battery that powers the camper stopped working. The battery that runs the engine was fine, so we could still drive, but in the middle of our nice evening at that meadery, our lights went out and wouldn’t come back on unless we had the generator on, or the RV plugged in.
Luckily we were in the home stretch. We could plug in at my sister’s house and in Louisiana, then we would be back at mom’s.
Once we were in Houston, of course, we forgot to take any photos of anything except food…
… but we had a really great time.
Unlike when I was in Louisiana and southeastern Texas back in September, the weather this time was mild, the traffic wasn’t full of tourists, and the bugs had gone back to Hell where they belong. After a couple days of stuffing ourselves full of Chinese food, Italian food, Cajun food; and every cookie, donut and kolache available, we headed to Louisiana.
Long before Nichelina and I decided to do a nationwide road trip together, we met in Ocean Beach. Our mutual friend, Belinda, who introduced us – and is a lover of food, drink, and debauchery just like us – has been living and working in southern Louisiana for some time.
We had originally planned to meet up with Belinda and go to New Orleans. When we arrived, Belinda had more work to do, and it was more like another four-hour drive to New Orleans, so we opted to stay somewhere closer.
Between friends and Harvest Hosts, we managed to be on the road for over a month without using a campground. When we were thinking about New Orleans, we were looking at a campground in the French Quarter that was about $100 per night, and another outside of the city that was a state-run campground for abut $20-30. We completely randomly chose the Indian Creek Recreational Area, simply because it was cheap and close to our friend’s house. And we needed a plug-in since the battery was acting up.
It was completely accidental, but it was the best decision! It was so pretty and peaceful there.
I picked the parking spot sight-unseen (just looking at their map), and close the biggest spot that was close to the lake and far away from the kids’ playground. It was a perfect area, with gorgeous views of the lake, the trees, and the sunset.
The park was actually pretty full – maybe 60% – for the winter, but everyone was really quiet and chill. I definitely was proud of myself for accidentally picking the best campground ever (for less than $40 for two days!), and I plan to use them much more often now. I’m also a huge fan of using someone else’s electricity instead of my finicky battery or my loud, gross generator.
I loved the views and fire pit and the peaceful night’s sleep, but it’s definitely worth $18 per night to have power, water, a shower, and a dump station. And it was great to have a couple of days to catch up with my friend and hang out without any place to go.
Speaking of dump station, the Indian Creek campground dump station was the first place I ever emptied Dolly’s poop tank by myself. (Hopefully they will be erecting the historical marker on the spot soon.) I had watched the YouTube videos, and read the manual, and watched others do it, but I had never done it, really, actually, myself. I was intimidated, to say the least, but I am proud to report that I did it all alone and did it very well. Now I feel much more confident about doing it myself.
On that last stretch from Louisiana to Tennessee, we had originally planned to park for the night at the B.B. King Museum in Indianola, Mississippi, which is a privately funded, non-profit museum and music educational center, as well as a Harvest Host parking spot. We made much better time getting there than anticipated, so we decided to keep on trucking (after checking out the museum) instead of stopping there overnight.
They even have a cool replica of Lucille (King’s favorite guitar) outside.
It didn’t feel right to snap photos like a tourist, but I also wanted to be sure to never forget this happened.
We kept driving until late, making it to almost an hour west of Nashville, then the next day we drove the rest of the way to my mom’s house. It was uneventful and took less time than anticipated. By the time the end of the trip came along, we were ready to not be on the road anymore, and Nichelina had much further to go. We decided to scrap seeing friends in Nashville and the surrounding areas – I could spend a week seeing friends there, so I’ll take a short trip there after the holidays.
We unloaded most of our things from Dolly as soon as we arrived, and Nichelina left for home (in Philadelphia) right away the next morning to avoid a storm coming towards the east coast.
The end of Dolly’s first round trip was very unceremonious and abrupt compared to the emotional preamble, the endless amounts of tiny details, and always-shifting departure time in the lead-up to leaving.
I plan to stay at my mom’s house in Tennessee for a couple of weeks, to enjoy Christmas and New Year’s with my family and get the RV battery taken care of before I hit the road again. In early January I want to do a trip to Nashville, maybe another to Atlanta or Birmingham to see other friends, and maybe some nights at local campgrounds, just to see which ones I like the best.
I will leave Tennessee around January 20th to get to San Diego for more tests and doctor’s visits at the end of January. In the meantime, stay tunes to this space for some more updates, and my Instagram and Facebook pages for more up-to-date details.
As I write this, we have been on the road for almost a month, and we have all held up surprisingly well. When I say “we,” I am referring obviously to myself, but also to my friend, Nichelina, who drove to my mom’s house in Tennessee from her home in Philadephia in order to join me on a nationwide road trip of indeterminate length, and her 11-year-old service pitbull named Dego.
We were all good friends before this trip, but it is fair to say that we have learned a lot about each other after traveling together for so long in a 22-foot-long RV.
Dego has been a very good boy, and mostly rests during the day while we’re moving.
At several times in this story, “we” also includes my RV, who I have named Dolly. She also has performed remarkably well for a vehicle built in 1995-1996 and barely driven 50 miles per year. She only stopped working once, and we were able to get that issue fixed (in a way that probably only happens in a sitcom). More on that later.
Of course, we are also traveling during a pandemic, which severely limits the socializing we would normally be doing. Instead of stopping in a strange town and popping down to the local bar or restaurant to meet some people and ask about the fun places to go, we take our food to go, eat it in the RV (she has a nice dining area), and ask the carryout guy or the gas station attendant or the Harvest Hosts host about local places of interest.
Luckily we have an RV that makes us feel safe, at least in terms of Covid protection – no hotels or restaurants necessary. And luckily, we’re good friends.
Our plan was to head generally westward, stopping at cool places along the way, and using Harvest Hosts as much as possible. I’ve explained about HH before, but essentially it is a membership for RV owners; you pay an annual subscription (which is stupid cheap) to be able to park overnight at privately-owned wineries, farms, distilleries, breweries, and other unique places of interest.
You don’t pay the host for parking, but you are expected to purchase something if they are selling (wine at a winery, cheese at a dairy farm, etc.). Most of them are small farms or businesses, many of the owners live on the property as well.
Of course, there are some areas of the country without Harvest Hosts available, so, as RV owners and travelers know, you can also park for free overnight at (almost) any Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Costco, Cracker Barrel, and most Indian casinos and truck stops. Many of these are open 24 hours, but all have 24-hour security.
Anyway, Nichelina arrived at my mom’s house a few days before we left, because we were still fixing it up — a thousand tiny little touches that needed to happen before we got on the road.
Just as an example, we spent an inordinant amount of time fixing the step up into the camper. I wanted the first view you see when you walk in to be a pretty color and something nice, not just the ugly carpet stapled to the wall. We took several days to paint it, prepare the backsplash, and fix the contoured step.
Of course, now that we have been on the road, we have thought of a thousand more things to fix or redo. By the time we get back to Tennessee again, we will have a completely different idea of RV traveling than we did before we started.
The plan was to leave by noon on Halloween. Then it was by 4 p.m.
We finally left my mom’s house at about 8 p.m.
As we went up the hill and out of the driveway, Dolly started to shake and make a wheezing noise between 35 and 45 mph. We had called ahead to a Harvest Host – Bristol Caverns, a privately owned tourist attraction of a cavern tour and museum – and they told us we could come after business hours. It was about an hour from my mom’s; which we did intentionally, in case we forgot something or something else bad happened that first night.
That first night was 26 degrees. That night I learned that the air conditioning unit was not also a heater. That night I learned how to prime the generator and get it to work – and then realized I did not bring a heater. And how did I never notice how loud that generator is? Also the stove pilot light wasn’t working … it felt like it didn’t have gas going to it, but the reader on the tank said it was half full.
We ended up deciding to use the microwave instead of the stove until we can get a propane guy to check it out – somehow there is enough propane to run the refrigerator, which was great, but it was still weird. The weird shaking and wheezing that happened between 35-45 mph was still happening.
Since it was Sunday when we woke up, we weren’t able to visit the Bristol Caverns, so we headed to Mammoth Caves in southern Kentucky.
We called ahead to another Harvest Host — Traveler’s Cellar in Rockfield, Kentucky. They were having a private party that night (like many hosts, they live on the property), but they were kind enough us a quick wine tasting anyway. We got there just in time for sunset, and to buy a bottle of the bubbly red Baco Noir.
It was lovely. I’ve never had a fizzy red wine before but I really loved it.
The next morning we attempted to visit Mammoth Caves, but due to my walker (which I still need occasionally), we weren’t able to get a tour. We had a great time driving around the park and surrounding areas.
We also took a few minutes to walk around the Corvette Museum.
Unfortunately, everything we want to visit is either closed due to the pandemic, or they’re totally changed because of it.
The next night, we stayed at another Harvest Host, a distillery in eastern Kentucky.
Again, we arrived just before dark. Since we were headed west and it’s wintertime, there isn’t a lot of sunlight, and we didn’t want to drive too much at night. Plus, most Harvest Hosts want you to get there before it gets dark.
We had a great time at Casey Jones Distillery, learning about the history of Casey Jones and the moonshine business back in the day.
We sampled a variety of moonshines and bourbons, purchased a few bottles for gifts for some friends, and the next morning, we were on our way to southern Illinois.
Dolly parked at Starview Vineyards.
The area around western Kentucky, southern Illinois and Missouri is really beautiful. In our comparatively short time on the road, we have seen some really beautiful landscapes. Southern Illinois also has a lot of cool wineries in the area around the Shawnee National Forest.
When we got to Illinois, we stayed at Starview Vineyards, probably one of our favorite Harvest Hosts stops.
They had a lovely spot to park, a nice restaurant where we could sample some of their wines and have an early dinner, and the view from our table at their pond was spectacular.
From there, we headed towards St. Louis, to see the Gateway Arch National Park and to stay at another Harvest Host outside of the city limits.
The Gateway Arch actually has a really pretty park and pedestrian walkway around it, as well as a museum and gift shop underground.
We parked downtown and walked all around, admiring the artwork and the lovely park…
… then we had a yummy to-go lunch of Korean food.
As I said, pretty much all of our meals were takeout, and enjoyed at our small dining room table in the RV. I painted some of the walls and used wallpaper on others, but the table and benches were pretty much unaltered.
We also enjoyed our stay at the Point Labaddie Brewery just outside of St. Louis. The night we arrived, they had an (outdoor) trivia night, and there were a few other Harvest Hosts RVers we hung out with (socially distanced, of course).
We had a great time drinking local beer around a nice campfire, making new friends and relaxing.
The next morning we kept west towards Kansas City, driving through the Ozarks and enjoying the scenery. One of our new friends at trivia night had recommended Lone Elk County Park, where we could drive around on a one-way road and see the elk during mating season.
We got to see a lot of wildlife, including beautiful birds and, as promised, lots of elk. We got to drive up and observe a pair of young elk fighting each other.
(I apologize for the grainy photo, I zoomed in a lot. I wasn’t about to get too close to wild and randy and violent elk who are antler-fighting each other during mating season.)
The lake communities around the Ozarks are really cute, and the flat land and lakes were a welcome respite after driving through the smoky mountains and the hills of Kentucky.
Nichelina had taken over driving, and I was chilling in the back; which is actually really fun. You get a better view and a more comfortable chair.
We were comfortably on our way to get BBQ in Kansas City – as comfortable as you can be when your vehicle shakes uncontrollably between 35-45 miles per hour – when the engine died.
Sort of.
It would start, so it wasn’t the battery. It happened suddenly with no warning lights so it wasn’t the catalytic converter. And we were able to restart the engine and move it (slowly) to a side street, before it died again.
I should point out that this tiny town of Eldon, Missouri, was the best possible place where we could have broken down. In the 45 minutes we were waiting on the side of the road for AAA to tow us to the repair shop, no fewer than a dozen people, including an EMT on his way to work and an off-duty police officer, stopped to ask us if we were OK, to offer advice and counsel, and to recommend a repair shop. They all said the same one: U Rench it.
It was around sunset when we broke down, so it was fully dark by the time we got a tow truck, they got the RV on the truck, and we got to the shop. They were about to close, but in the dark, the mechanic could tell that the problem was that — no kidding – mice had chewed through the fuel injector wires. It was an easy fix, but they couldn’t do it until the morning.
Curtis (the mechanic) let us park overnight at the secure repair shop lot, staying in our RV, and then first thing in the morning, he replaced the wires. It took about an hour because, in the daylight, he realized the spark plug wires had also been gnawed.
For a grand total of $72, we got back on the road, the RV actually drove better due to the new spark plug wires and fuel injector wires, and he showed us how to turn on our propane tank. It turned out, the fridge actually wasn’t working, it was just cold. (The food stayed cold in there when we were in Tennessee and Kentucky, but then when it warmed up again, so did our food.)
So it was a winning day all around… especially because Curtis also recommended moth balls in the engine to stop more mice and wildlife from gnawing our engine wires; and he directed us to Ha Ha Tonka State Park, a super cool hidden gem of a state park in the Ozarks.
They have an amazing natural rock bridge, which was dry from a drought, so we could actually climb and walk underneath it.
The state park is also home to an old castle built by a Kansas City business man in the early 1900s, and the ruins of the castle and surrounding views are spectacular.
I started to be really glad that we broke down in Missouri.
Finally we made it to Kansas City, where we had some really good BBQ at Jack Stacks BBQ.
Our Harvest Hosts stop for that night was a cider mill in Louisburg, Kansas, but we got there after dark and didn’t see anything until the sun came up.
And it was so cute! Pretty much by the time they opened at 8 a.m, the place was packed. I was still walking around, looking at everything while still in my PJs, and the people at Loiusburg Cider Mill were already making cider.
It was a Saturday morning, and dozens of families and visitors had arrived, already deep in their hot apple cider and cider donuts. I got some donuts, which were amazing, and some delicious fresh cider and apple cider slushie to wash them down.
Our goal was to get to Colorado before dark (or at least before too late), so I could get some Rick Simpson Oil and other CBD extracts before I started a new chemo drug. I have been on hormonal treatments (the tumors in my bones are actually breast cancer cells, so they are shrinking my tumors by cutting off estrogen), but I was starting a new regimen of oral chemotherapy pills, and I wanted to have some proper CBDs in my system so I could be as healthy as possible before I started.
Anyway, it took forever to get though Kansas, but it sure was better than slogging through that last part of west Texas that lasts forever when you’re trying to get west. (Anyone who has traveled that stretch knows what I mean.) We finally arrived in Colorado, found the nearest Wal-Mart, and stopped for the night.
As soon as we got the RSO, we headed south to New Mexico, where we unfortunately had the craziest part of our trip. It was a Harvest Hosts stop in northern New Mexico, a winery (there is a really great wine scene in New Mexico, their wines are all very unique, but more about that later). I will decline to name and tag them in this post, for reasons which will soon become apparent.
We did what we always did; called ahead to let them know we were coming, and our approximate time of arrival. We arrived just after sunset and before it got (really really) dark. Instantly, we knew this was not a normal HH stop. The place was dark and at the end of a dirt road. There were no markings. There was no sign. There were no lights. It didn’t appear to be a business at all. A man (who we later learned was the husband of the woman we spoke to), let us in the main gate, then locked it behind us.
As I mentioned, my RV is 22 feet long, which is very small for an RV. I cannot fathom how a rig bigger than mine would fit there. I started to wonder why these people were listed as a Harvest Host, and why in the world the reviews of this place – which discussed how the building was built in 1920 and used to be a dance hall – didn’t mention that it barely appeared to be a functioning business.
Nichelina commented (correctly) that it looked worse than the Wal-Mart we had slept at the previous night. I got out of the RV, with my mask on, and the lady told me that I didn’t need to wear one, because “everything is sanitary around here, even the dirt is sanitized.” Needless to say, this was not true — the place (and the people) were quite objectively dirty. But we were there, we were locked in. We had told them we were staying, I felt at that point it would have been more awkward to just turn around and leave.
We go inside to see their operation (the site boasts tasting flights and tours of their facility), and discover that this old 1920-era building, which looks like it hasn’t been cleaned since it was a Prohibition-era dance hall, is a (mostly) one-room building. You have to walk through a dirty motorcycle garage to enter. There is no winery or tasting room, and our host informs us that because of some legal snafu with the Catholic Church owning property within a certain distance, they are not allowed to operate it as a winery or as a tasting room. But, of course, they still do, offering wines to Harvest Hosts RVers and people doing wine tours in the area. I have no idea how the New Mexico Board of Tourism backed them without a proper winery, but they did. We got the tour, which included a view of a tiny room with a bunch of TV screens, where we could see ourselves. They had cameras on every inch of the property. It was not like any other Harvest Host we had been to.
But I digress.
We were tasting wine in the tasting room/bedroom, at an antique table within view of our host’s unmade bed and laundry room, when she proceeded to tell us all about the neighborhood; including that she had been sexually assaulted by one of her neighbors. The assault had allegedly taken place in the room where we were sitting, just a couple of months prior, in full view of the many cameras all over the place, but she told us the man was still not in jail. This also did not make us feel better about camping there overnight.
The final crack was when we were headed back to our RV. The hosts had offered to let us use their bathroom (we only use the RV one for emergencies, and we hadn’t yet figured out the water pump), and when we walked through the motorcycle garage you need to walk through to get to the “winery,” we saw Nazi and Confederate flags.
I consider myself a tolerant person. I am liberal politically, but I can accept other points of view. I draw the line at fucking Nazis, though. And I think most people do.
Needless to say, now we really wanted to get the heck out of there.
We again decided that making a break for it now would be too awkward, plus it was dark, the roads were windy and unfamiliar, we were in an RV, and we had both drank the equivalent of about two glasses of wine at our bedside tasting. We decided the best course of action would be to get out of there as soon as possible in the morning, and to let Harvest Hosts and everyone else know to stay away from this place.
The people had been nice to us, but the place was so dirty, and so below standards … and it just made me sick to my stomach to think of a Black or Jewish person coming there as part of Harvest Hosts, or wine tasting for a birthday party, and seeing a Nazi party flag and other racist nonsense so prominently displayed. We notified Harvest Hosts, the NM Board of Tourism, and put a detailed public post on Facebook and Google reviews.
In the two weeks or so since we left that place, they apparently got wind of our posts, because they have now claimed that their dirty garage with the lawn chairs and motorcycle parts and Amazon boxes in it was actually a “military museum,” and those multiple racist icons and flags were just, like, exhibits on display. Makes sense, right? Because that’s how you would display a flag in a museum, draped over some boxes, or hanging up next to where you and your buddies sit around and smoke cigarettes? That’s your priceless artifact, there as an educational tool, next to the bottle of cleanser?
Come on. Look at those photos. This ain’t a museum; and it ain’t a winery. It’s a couple of racist, white trash people who learned how to make homemade wine, trying to pretend they are better than they are.
I believe that these flags were and are a statement. You don’t pick them up accidentally, you don’t display them without knowing what they are, and you don’t display them unless you believe in them. This dump was nothing close to a museum, but even if it was, just for the sake of argument, there is no museum that would display racist icons like this without explanation or context, if at all. A racist flag in a dirty garage is just that.
That’s all I am going to say about it, because they are also claiming they called New Mexico state police, because they say we stole priceless military artifacts from their “military museum,” and they are trying to get their friends to harass me on social media. They even found an old photo from September, of my sister and I, and added it to their sprawling Facebook post, claiming that she and I were the ones who visited, when of course, it was Nichelina and I, and of course we didn’t steal anything. They have the tapes to prove where we were every second we were on their property, so I am not worried about the cops. I know we didn’t steal, and I know we did the right thing by telling people about this place. No regrets.
I will say that I am disappointed in Harvest Hosts for allowing these people back on to their program after removing them, but I suppose they were convinced about the military museum thing. I still have a Google review active, so hopefully visitors will check first before visiting. I am still wary of any people of color coming to visit, but I assume they would have taken down the troublesome flags by now.
UPDATE: OMG YOU WILL NEVER BELIEVE THIS. A week or so after I published this, the online harassment started by (I can now name and tag them) Wicked Kreations continued, and I received a Facebook message from someone I don’t know.
And that’s the same guy trying to accuse us of theft!
I am also happy to report that Harvest Hosts has removed these people from their app now. I spoke to them, and they explained that Wicked Kreations was temporarily removed when I showed them the flags, but reinstated when they provided HH with paperwork showing that they were a “military museum.” (You all know my opinion on that.)
Harvest Hosts explained that they had to give these people the benefit of the doubt, which I understand, but now that this has happened, I think they understand what kind of people they’re dealing with here. I really love Harvest Hosts, so I’m very happy it all came out well … except, of course, for that guy at the grocery store on Thanksgiving.
I guess if that’s the worst and craziest thing that happens to us on this trip, we’ll be just fine, right?
New Mexico is stunning, and the landscape is much more varied than you might imagine if you’ve never visited. There are mountains and plains, arid deserts and green valleys. We were at high elevation and it was early November, so it was very sunny, yet cold, and the ground was frozen.
It was beautiful.
As I mentioned before, New Mexico has a great wine scene. They have the usual whites and reds, but because grapes are so hard to grow in New Mexico, local producers often incorporate lots of other fruits and herbs. The unnamed Nazis made some wine from strawberries and others from native chokecherries.
Our next Harvest Host was like we have come to expect: wide-open spaces, lovely vineyards, warm hospitality, no racist flags of any kind.
Wines of the San Juan has an adorable little outdoor seating area as well as a small tasting room and gift shop, plus they offered electric and water hookups, which is really nice when your generator is super loud.
When we arrived at Wines of the San Juan, we noticed a lot of other farms nearby, but apparently a small, local lavender farm produces enough lavender for WSJ to make a delicious lavender wine. It tastes like a slightly fruity white wine, but has a strong lavender scent and taste. It’s wonderful. They also make a sweet cherry pie wine and other blackberry and fruity blends. It was probably the most variety we saw in any of our wine tasting travels on this leg of the trip.
The rest of the trip to San Diego went fairly quickly … we went west on a remote highway that went back and forth a couple of times between Arizona and Utah. It was cold and dry and remote.
It was also spectacularly beautiful.
Part of the drive went through the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, which has some of the most beautiful rock formations you’ve ever seen. We had to stop for a few minutes to enjoy the scenery, take some pictures, and let Dego stretch his paws.
Then we spent a couple of nights with friends in Las Vegas (who have been quarantining), and from there straight into southern California. In San Bernardino, we ran into some issues trying to find a free spot to park — no Harvest Hosts were nearby, so we went to a Wal-Mart, only to be kicked out around midnight. Apparently the store parking thing doesn’t work if you’re in a city or county that doesn’t allow overnight parking or camping; which is most of southern California. Eventually we found a cool security guard at a Costco who let us park there for a few hours, but it was technically illegal.
Aaah, but to be back in Ocean Beach. We left the San Bernardino parking lot super early and we were back in Ocean Beach and enjoying the salty air and the warm sun by noon.
#breastcancerportraitproject
We’ve basically been on the beach all week… parking at various friends’ homes at night and sitting at the beach all day.
#breastcancerportraitproject
My stepbrother visited us and showed us cool things about my RV, like how to light the stove, adjust the water pressure, and empty the black tank (I did read the manual on those things, but hadn’t done them yet). But every day on the beach ends with a lovely sunset out the front window.
I am spending Thanksgiving at my brother’s while Nichelina and Dego and Dolly are in San Diego, and we will meet up again this weekend and head back east on Tuesday (after more doctor’s visits and scans on Monday). In the meantime, we feel better about cooking in the RV and emptying the tanks if we need to.
#breastcancerportraitproject
I also had another sitting with my friend Missy, who runs the Breast Cancer Portrait Project. If you haven’t seen it, it’s really an amazing and inspiring body of work, telling the stories and sharing photos of women who were under 40 when they were diagnosed with breast cancer.
#breastcancerportraitproject
I sat for a session with Missy about a year ago, when I was celebrating being a survivor. Now that cancer is back, she offered to come to the beach and photograph me again in my RV.
#breastcancerportraitproject
I strongly recommend that you visit her site and her social media and support this amazing project.
I will update soon with the next leg of the trip. The tentative plan now is to head due east, stopping in Houston and Louisiana on the way back to Tennessee. We will definitely enjoy the scenery and the Harvest Hosts and the food, but Nichelina and I both promised our moms we would be on the east coast by Christmas, so we can’t lag too much.
I think I have found my new favorite Mexican food spot, you guys. They’re authentic, they’re classy, and they’ve got lots and lots of soups. What more could you want?
This past week, I finally got to check out Jimmy Carter’s Mexican Café in the Hillcrest/Balboa Park neighborhood. It’s been there for decades, but I am behind; I know. I had no idea what a great place I was missing. The service isn’t just great; the servers treat you like you’re a guest in their home … because you practically are. Most of Jimmy’s employees have been working for him for decades. It is quite apparent that everyone there loves their jobs, and loves Jimmy himself.
The food is ALL homemade. It is ALL authentic. It is ALL Jimmy Carter approved. But for me, the best part is the soup list.
Albondigas (meatball soup)
There are four soups that are on the permanent, daily menu – Creamy Black Bean, Chicken Tortilla, Albondigas, and Chicken Pozole.
Green chicken pozole
There is menudo every weekend.
But that’s not all! Every day, the chef picks 2-3 more soups to have on special that day (Check out Jimmy Carter’s Instagram page for daily special announcements). There are over two dozen rotating soups, from calabaza y elotes and caldo de res, to Mexican clam chowder and spicy pork guerrero.
Chicken tortilla soup
Their soup list is INSANE. I managed to escape with their internal soup list, which details the ingredients and garnishes for each one.
I mean, right?! And this is just the soup list.
I’ll take one of each!
You could eat here every day for a month and never have the same meal twice. I love it!
In addition to the albondigas and green chicken pozole, I also checked out some delicious wet tacos (above) and some mini quesadillas (below) stuffed with chicken and carnitas.
I also would be remiss if I didn’t tell you about their sauces.
Every item on the menu can be topped with one of their handmade and super-authentic spicy sauces.
I got to try them all, and I think the Tlaquepaque is my favorite. I see why it’s the most popular … it’s creamy and spicy and good on literally everything.
There is literally nothing I would not like to eat with this sauce, but Jimmy himself recommends the cheese enchiladas with this gorgeous stuff on top.
Don’t forget the drinks and dessert! In addition to a super-huge menu of authentic Mexican cuisine, Jimmy Carter’s offers a fun assortment of cocktails and other drinks. As you know, I recently discovered the beauty of the tequila mule for myself, so I sampled JCMC’s mezcal mule.
Outstanding!
And, although I was definitely slowing down by this point (those soups were so good I was licking the bowl), I had to sneak in a few tastes of the coconut flan.
All in all, I am so glad I finally visited. I will definitely be back to try more of those amazing soups and sauces.
Starbright's Adventure 