RIGHT AFTER we got back from Paso Robles I just had time to drop Cristy off, get some fresh clothes, some food, a decent shower, and a comfy night’s sleep in my bed at home before jumping back in the trailer the very next day and heading up to the Red Hills to my friends’ ranch. Every year on the weekend leading up to Memorial Day I put on a fly-in and Jack and Myrna Moyle’s ranch just outside of Chinese Camp in the Sierra Foothills. If you’ve ever driven to Yosemite on Hwy 120 you will come to Yosemite Junction where you have to make a right turn to continue up to Yosemite. Just as you get to the railroad tracks and over the hills to your right is my friend’s ranch.
Attendance was low last year because two years ago Jack and Myrna said they didn’t want to host any more fly-ins, as it had become too difficult for them to manage the cleanup. So everyone made other plans for last year. At the last minute they told me that Hannah and Tanner, their grandson and his wife, had offered to take over set up and tear down for the fly-in. A few were able to change their plans and show up. It was disappointing to them. But they understood after I explained to them that people simply made other plans because they had said, “no more!”
This year they made sure that I understood that the fly-in was back and and to be sure to get the word out. We still had lower turnout than in previous years but it was better than last year. We had over 20 people show up and 10-15 airplanes either fly-in to camp, or just visit for a while and then leave. As usual I took my travel trailer up there because I’m done sleeping in tents. There were also more people this year because I extended the invitation to the guys up at Lincoln Powered Parachute Field just north of Sacramento. Many expressed interest but only three showed up. However, the photos and trip reports they shared on Facebook with the rest of their group will ensure that more show up next year. I know them because I went to LPPF to have my powered parachute inspected and for some flying tips.
I show up Friday and set up camp as did the powered parachute guys. I greeted everyone but spent much of the afternoon up at my trailer setting up Star Link and the antenna my friend had loaned me for my POTA activations. I got the highest number of activations ever because I was able to work far into the night. Using my friend’s antenna I also got some of my most distant contacts; two in Ukraine, one in France, and one in Russia.
More folks flew in on Saturday with the intention of staying for Saturday night’s potluck and to camp overnight. Unlike last year there was too much food this year! We could have easily fed double our number. The next morning, Sunday, Hannah and Tanner invited everyone to the house they are building on Jack’s property. It’s already mostly built but with their new addition, Brinley, they are adding more bedrooms. Tanner assured me he’s only adding TWO bedrooms, one for each child. I joking said he could always buy bunk beds. He unjokingly told me Hannah had already said that to him! 🙂 Hannah made us her delicious sourdough pancakes, eggs, bacon, and sausage. Again, too much food!
After breakfast folks started packing up and heading home to celebrate Memorial Day with their families. The last one to leave was myself, around 2pm or so. This year I got a question about Red Hills merchandise so I developed some. Here is the logo I came up with for this year’s fly in.
Initially, I’m going to offer two or three hat colors and a men’s and women’s T shirt. We’ll think about mugs in the future.
All in all a great fly-in. Looking forward to 2027.
Since I had a conflicting event on Cristy’s birthday we decided to celebrate a few days early by taking trip to Paso Robles and more importantly, Cambria. Cambria is Cristy’s favorite town in the world and would live there if she could. If she did live there, I’d visit her as often as I could. I can’t stand fog. At any rate we hitched up our Lance travel trailer on Sunday morning and headed out.
We left around 9:30 am which put us in Coalinga around 11:30 am, my lunch time for the past 40 years when I was working. We pulled into Harris Ranch and parked in their large gravel lot just adjacent to the Harris Ranch Airport. We took about a 45 minute break to make a sandwich and just relax for a bit. After eating and stretching we got back on the road. With the wind at our backs we got good gas mileage and it was only an hour and fifteen minute drive to Sun Outdoors Central Coast Wine Country Resort. Such an easy to remember name. There were three other RV’s checking in when we got there but it was a short wait and soon we were backing into our site. We spent the rest of the afternoon just relaxing. Ah, retirement life. For dinner we headed into Paso Robles and got some great food at Mediterranean Spice. I got a personal pizza and Cristy got a beef shawarma platter. It was VERY good.
The next day we made a bee line to Cambria and, more specifically, Cambria Coffee Company. This little hole-in-the-wall coffee shop serves the best coffee in Cambria. They are located in the West Village closer to the shoreline than much of the rest of town. There are lots of boutique shops lining the streets in the West Village and is Cristy’s happy place. After coffee I left Cristy to explore all the shops while I headed down to Moonstone Beach, a part of Hearst / San Simeon State Park. I wanted to do a Parks On The Air activation of the State Park. I also wanted to try out a couple of different antennas that a friend had loaned me. After spending a couple of hours making FT8 contacts on the beach Cristy texted that she was done. I cleaned up all my radio equipment and drove over and picked her up.
We had lunch at the West End Bar and Grill. It was nothing to write home about but it did the job. We headed back down to Moonstone Beach where I had done my POTA activation and took some time walking on the beach. Cristy really enjoyed hunting through the tiny moonstones on the beach.
On Tuesday we headed BACK to Cambria, have I said yet that this is Cristy’s favorite place in the world? We got coffee at Cambria Coffee Rosasters again and then made a quick dash to Cambria downtown to Linn’s Easy As Pie Cafe. Linn’s is probably the best restaurant in Cambria. We met the owner last time we were there and he is a very personable guy who loves his customers and his restaurant. The Easy As Pie Cafe is a place to grab quick bites to eat as well as slices of their wonderful pies. We just stopped in to grab a jar of Olallieberry Jam.
Afterwards it was on to the main thrust of the day. Cristy let me have one day to do some more POTA activations. We stopped at three places where I was able to activate:
US-1157 Harmony Headlands State Park
US-3418 Cayucos State Beach
US-3480 Morro Strand State Beach
After the first two POTA stops we drove down to Morro Bay to have a late lunch at Tognazzini’s Dockside Restaurant and then on to Morro Strand for the final activation. Cristy enjoyed a walk on the beach while I did my nerdy ham radio stuff. On this beach we discover tons of a jellyfish-like creature called a “By-the-wind-sailor” or Vallela vallela.
Wednesday belonged to Cristy. We slept in and I made scrambled eggs for Cristy’s breakfast. She wanted us to drive down to San Luis Obispo so she could spend some time doing indoor hunting (shopping). We stopped off for coffee at Scout Coffee Company, arguably the BEST coffee we’ve ever had. So good we bought Angela a bag of their Ethiopian blend. After coffee Cristy perused the stores while I read the news on my phone. We had lunch at a “nothing to write home about” Mexican place there in SLO. It was very “fast-foody” and the fish tacos were only okay. After lunch Cristy had pretty much seen everything she wanted to see so we decided to head back to Cuyucos since we really liked the laid back beach there. It must have been what Avila Beach was like about 30 years ago. We had dinner at Duckie’s Chowder House in Cayucos. At least it was better than the place in SLO. But being before the season really opens, they just didn’t seem to have their hearts in it. We wanted to watch the sunset on the beach, however, the fog started rolling in. I could see it was coming from the south so we drove north back towards Cambria. We had to drive up to San Simeon which is only a few miles north of Cambria before we finally beat the fog. We found a beach access road just next to some hotels and pulled in to watch the sunset.
Overall we really enjoyed our trip to Paso Robles and the coast. However, one thing I should mention. Calfiornia had just had several days of high winds. When we got to Paso Robles our allergies started kicking in from all the grass pollen that was being blown off the hills into town. We couldn’t wait to get to Cambria and SLO to get away from the pollen but our allergies were just as bad on the coast! The ONLY place we got relief from our allergies was when we were standing on the beach. Not near the beach, not in the parking lot, ON the beach. That all being said we loved it there and it was a great way to celebrate Cristy’s birthday!
Okay, 99.9% of you are scratching your heads and trying to figure out what the subject of this post means. Allow me to explain. When I was planning my retirement all I heard from friends, coworkers, and fellow church-goers was “but what are you going to do?” Well, about 10 years ago I fell into one of my hobbies, ham radio, backwards. I never really got into all that much except to chat with other hams on the way home from work in the evenings. Sitting in a dark room (known as a ham shack) talking on a radio to strangers didn’t really appeal to me. The I discovered Parks On The Air and things changed for me.
The whole point of Parks On The Air or POTA was to get ham radio operators out of their ham shacks and out into nature. See sunshine. Breathe fresh air. Touch grass. So you get a portable radio, a portable, power supply, a portable antenna, go find a valid park on the POTA website and THEN talk to strangers. Well, now that was for me! How you make your radio, power source, and antenna mobile is completely up to you.
The goal is to make 10 contacts over ham radio to other operators around the country and around the world. Once you make those 10 contacts the park is considered “activated” and you receive credit for activating that park. You are now a POTA activator. The people who contact you are POTA hunters. They are trying to get credit for contacting people in as many parks as possible. This isn’t just US, this is world wide and has breathed new life into ham radio.
I planned a camping trip this week so that I would be near a spot where I could attempt to activate 3 parks simultaneously. On Wednesday I hauled my travel trailer up to Moccasin Point Campground which would be my staging area for Thursdays attempt to activate Tuolumne Wild and Scenic River, Stanislaus National Forest, and Yosemite National Park simultaneously. The trick is you have to be within the boundaries of all three of those areas to make it count. I found a spot that I thought would work. But then I think a lot of things so… I checked with the people who run POTA. They said that they couldn’t tell me it wasn’t impossible. Huh? Sounds like a green light to me!
If you look at the area where the gray shading (Yosemite National Park) and the blue shading (Stanislaus National Forest) intersect over the south fork of the Tuolumne River, that is where I set up.
So on Thursday morning I drove up Priest’s Grade from Moccasin. I stopped off at Mountain Sage Coffee and picked up a dark chocolate orange mocha. Complete with orange rind in it. It was delicious and gave me the fuel I needed to press on the additional 35 minutes to my planned activation spot just outside the gates to Yosemite National Park. I parked in the Upper Carlon Day Use Area and got to setting up my “outdoor ham shack”. I put up the antenna about 30 feet uphill from the truck and set my laptop and radio up on the tailgate. I had planned to hike in a little bit but I was able to get my truck far enough up the trail to be within the boundaries of the 3 areas.
What a great day. The radio bands were terrible. I was only able to make any contacts on 20 meters. Normally I can do 10m, 15m, 17m, and 20m. But today the atmosphere just wasn’t having it. Still, there were no clouds, it was about 72 degrees, and I made 19 contacts; more than enough to activate the three parks. I packed up and slowly made my way back to Groveland via Hardin Flat Rd rather than Hwy 120. I decided to swing by Rainbow Pool just to relive some old memories most of which were pleasant. The one where my niece Tracey started cramping and almost drowned was not one of them. Luckily my girlfriend at the time saw her and pulled her to the edge of the creek. They charge a day use fee there. I chatted with the nice Japanese lady who was manning the toll booth (okay, it was a table with a sun shade over it). I told her I just wanted to drive through and take a picture so she didn’t charge me anything. Then made my way back down Priest’s Grade and back to the campground.
Rainbow PoolRainbow Pool Day Use Area
So, all in all, a wonderful day! So my answer to all those people who asked what am I going to do when I retire hasn’t changed one bit; “ANYTHING I want.”
Flying is a big part of who I am. So what makes more sense than to go flying on my first REAL day of retirement? I mean, it’s Monday. I should be at work at my desk answering email, ignoring email, checking on the hospital computer network. But I wasn’t there, I was tying the airplane down at Los Banos Airport.
It suddenly hit me that I truly was retired. Last Monday, I was outstanding in the field of network engineering. This Monday, today, I was out standing in a field between the Los Banos Airport tie-down area, and Highway 152 as it runs through town. I wasn’t walking to the hospital coffee shop, I was walking to Jack-in-the-Box. On a Monday! The only way I can describe the feeling was weird. It was good. But it was weird.
I jaywalked across the highway, it’s a right of passage for pilots flying into Los Banos. One I long since partook in many years ago. But it was fun to relive that first flight to this airport to get my $100 hamburger. The McDonalds I remember being there was now replaced by Weinerschintzel. Nah, they don’t do breakfast. Walked a little farther past a Black Bear Diner. Nah, not looking to sit down. I just want something to go. Jack-In-The-Box was next. Got a breakfast burrito and a coffee to go. That’s more like it. I walked back up the highway with my coffee cup and to-go bag trying to time the traffic just right. Finally did and made it back to the airport.
Had to stop and pause and just take it all in. Monday. I’m at an airport. Yeah. I could get used to this. Found a picnic table just outside the airport and had breakfast. Nothing was going on at the airport. It’s Monday morning. No students, no weekenders coming out for their $100 hamburger. Just me and the cool humid wind that was being blown by whatever storm system is currently passing by.
I didn’t linger too long after breakfast. This picnic table wasn’t the point of this morning’s flight. The flight was the point of the flight. Literally, it was all about the journey. It’s only 40 minutes from Oakdale to Los Banos but I was up. Above the Monday traffic, above the emails, above the projects, above the budgets. They say you have to stay busy in retirement. Yeah, I think I can do that. Cruising along under a warm stable weather system at 1500 feet MSL at 80-ish MPH. Yeah, I definitely think I can do that.
Warm and stable weatherCruising along at 1500 MSL80-ish MPH indicated airspeed
It’s not all fun a games though. Next job is repacking my travel trailer’s wheel bearings. No wait, when there is no time table, that is fun! I like this job!
See you next time when I’m elbow deep (hope not) in bearing grease.
Well, how do I sum up close to 10 years of work here at SJGH? Managing the switching and wireless environment for a large county hospital — keeping it running reliably, keeping it secure, planning for the future — that’s been a meaningful way to spend the final years of my career. I took a daisy-chained network of older Extreme Networks hardware and upgraded it to a fully redundant, survivable network. Completely overhauled. I’ve cleaned up lots of wiring, labelled every important uplink cable, aliased every important switch port in an effort to make the network self-documenting. I’ve mapped it all out with Intermapper and XIQ-SE. I’ve created over 30 IPSEC tunnels to our business partners. I’ve upgraded our wireless infrastructure twice (almost). I’ve had to troubleshoot broadcast storms late into the evening alongside Extreme’s engineers. I’ve been woken up in the middle of the night to reboot servers and respond to power issues in the network closets. I’ve worked long hours responding alongside the help desk to virus outbreaks and CrowdStrike failures. I’ve worked with difficult end users. I’ve worked with some absolutely wonderful doctors and nurses, many of whom have advised me on my own personal medical issues. I’ve thanked God EVERY DAY for this job. My wife can vouch for that. I’m proud of the work we’ve done here.
For those of you who are lost in all the technical jargon, here’s the main point: retirement isn’t an ending. It’s just the next leg of the trip. And if you remember anything about me, I hope it’s that while a career is important, it’s not the whole story. Build things with your hands. Serve your community. Travel with your spouse or friends. Have adventures that have nothing to do with your job title. And don’t let anyone tell you that this job is just about VLANs, firewalls, and switch configs. It’s also about people. It always has been.
Hard to believe that it’s been 38 years since my wife and I eloped; and took my family with us. This year we decided to take a trip up to Humboldt Redwoods Avenue of the Giants for the week. We packed up the trailer and went to church and afterwards headed off to our first stop.
Incidentally, if you look closely you see a white strip above the black bumper of the trailer. Just under the ladder you see a small black dash in the white strip. That black dash is my travel mug for my coffee. There’s no telling how long the mug rode along on the back bumper of the trailer. All I know is that it was never seen again.
Nelson Family Vineyards
Since it was a long drive we decided to break it up into two days. We drove up to Nelson Family Vineyards, a member of the Harvest Hosts program, to stay our first night. It was absolutely gorgeous and peaceful. It was cloudy when we arrived but the clouds cleared off that night and the stars were unbelievable. We enjoyed the walk along the vineyards and the old-school playground they had there for the kids. Probably installed back in the1960’s. Very quiet stay; the only noises we heard were coyotes.
Ancient Redwoods RV Resort
The next day we made the short 2 and 1/2 hour drive up to Ancient Redwoods RV Resort. Per our reservation it told us to drive directly to our site, no check in needed. We did and found our receipt and reservation information on the power pedestal. We were parked up near the front in a pull-thru space. There was no RVs next to us the entire time. There were some 5th wheels and Class A’s clustered together toward the back of the park but we had plenty of privacy and a great view. The pictures below were taken at the entrance to the RV park.
The Redwoods
We spent two days exploring the redwood groves. Not two consecutive days; we tried to break it up between beach days, shopping, and forrest. Here are some of the pictures we took.
Our first redwood day was spent walking on the Founder’s Grove trail. Just a short two-mile round trip walk in the woods.
On another day we visited the Garden Club of America Grove which was technically closed but only to automobile traffic. We walked in and enjoyed the peace and quiet of the end of the season.
We also drove down onto a gravel bar on the Eel River. We spent some time enjoying the peace and quiet of the river.
Victorian Architecture
We also spent some time exploring some of the wonderful Victorian-era architecture of the area. There were two great examples in Eureka and and then the entire town of Ferndale. They just don’t build them like that anymore.
Eureka
Ferndale
Coastal Drive
We also spent a couple of half-days at the local beaches. Just walking and breathing in the clean air. We pretty much had these beaches all to ourselves. The first was Samoa Beach, the second was Clam Beach. I don’t have pictures of the sandy beaches we walked on because they were pretty featureless very long strands of beach. I did get photos of the coastal cliffs and rocks we explored, and those are below. They were taken just south of Trinidad, Ca.
Shopping and Dining
Of course what trip would be complete without shopping and eating out, including coffee-getting. I’ll be honest, we were hoping to get some good seafood being that Eureka is a coastal town. However, the reality is that most fishing off the north coast has been shut down. Most of the seafood is deep-fried, sadly. However, one gem we did find is Vista Del Mar. It’s half-bar, half-cafe that served some killer grilled fish tacos. The other restaurants were so-so. Cristy did do some shopping in their downtown and picked up some oysters at another bar. While she was off doing this I was playing ham radio while parked on a waterfront street. I contacted the USS Iowa in Los Angeles and some guy doing Parks On The Air near Boise, ID. Not bad for a battery powered mobile high-frequency rig.
Coffee
Although it never used to be, coffee has become a passion of mine. I hated coffee growing up but within the last 5 years or so I’ve experienced a sort of coffee renaissance. A few mornings I made my own coffee using some some coffee I pre-ground before the trip. My favorite coffee is purchased from Revive Coffee in Sonora, Ca. Their Confluence Espresso blend is my absolute all-time favorite so far for just straight-up coffee. On one of our coastal excursions we decided to try a local place. The highest rated in Eureka was Witness Coffee Roasters. We ordered caramel lattes, with Cristy getting her customary decaf. We were a little disappointed in how weak the coffee was. Looking to console ourselves we drove to Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate and got THE best coffee of the entire trip. It was rated lower that Witness but was much more flavorful. I ordered ANOTHER caramel latte and it was really good, but the magic happened when we poured the drinking chocolate Cristy ordered into my latte. We mixed to two and Cristy’s brain just lit up! Second best coffee of the trip was at Mind’s Eye Manufactory & Coffee Lounge in Ferndale.
And since all good things must come to an end our trip came to an end on Saturday when we drove back down to Nelson Family Vineyards to stay one more night before driving back home. It was just as peaceful as the first time we stayed there. These trips always feel too short when we’re on them and have to come back. Our consolation this year was that I wouldn’t have to rush home so I could get back to work next year! Looking forward to it!
Well at least for us it’s new. Hip Camp has been around for several years. It’s a service that offers alternative places to camp rather than just RV parks or campgrounds. It combines both home- and landowners as well as some RV parks to offer alternative places to camp. We have tried it out twice now at a camping spot in Sonora, California. The name of the spot on Hip Camp is Green Acres.
Green Acres has two spots to rent. One is a large destination trailer that has permanent hookups for sewer, water, and electrical and is rented out as part of Air B&B. The second spot is an RV site that also has full hookups. We’ve stayed there twice now and the first time there was no one else there but us. It was so peaceful. The second time there was a renter at the Air B&B next door but he was pretty quiet and we only saw him once.
Air B&B Destination Trailer
Our campsite was a little off-level, and somewhat challenging to back into but we got settled and plugged in.
It was still such a quiet and peaceful place to camp and we really enjoyed it there.
We camped here two times over the last 3 months and both times we would drive into Sonora for coffee at the BEST coffee shop in California; Revive Coffee. We order their coffee beans and grind them at home for my morning coffee. Afterwards both times we paid a visit to the Sonora Farmer’s Market which is about half a block away on Saturdays. Both times we also visited Nature’s Whole Food Depot which has a great array of groceries (many of which are guten-free specialty items we can’t find elsewhere), and homeopathic supplements and medications. It’s one of Cristy’s favorites.
This last time we were there we also took a morning hike on the West Side Trail, a railroad bed that has been converted into a hiking trail. Because it was graded for freight trains it has a very gentle grade both up and down. I was quite proud of Cristy this day for hiking BEFORE breakfast! It was going to be a hot day so we took our hike earlier in the day. Once we got back I made her breakfast.
We really enjoyed our stay at Green Acres via Hip Camp. Since this is a nationwide service we’ll start checking for Hip Camps in any area we travel to. And that travelling is coming up very soon!
This year’s Red Hills Fly-In saw a much lower turnout than in previous years. This was primarily due to 2 factors. The first is that last year Jack Moyle told me that it had to be the last year. It was just too tiring for he and his wife Myrna to host the fly-in. I sadly relayed the news to the other pilots. Less than a week later I got word from Tanner and Hannah, Jack’s grandchildren, that they wanted the fly-in to continue and would take over duties for hosting the fly-in. But I think the pilots all made other plans for the next year. The second factor was a lot of last-minute cancellations. We even had one that didn’t want to show up because Donald Trump won the Presidential election. True story. That being said we did have a bunch of drop-by’s and one other camper aside from Cristy and myself.
On Saturday, Charlie took his PPC flying in the early morning before it got too bumpy and windy.
Saturday evening we had a nice little pot-luck with Charlie’s paella as the center piece. Never knew Charlie was a retired chef! We know now!
Sunday morning Charlie took another flight and this time took Tanner flying with him. Then we had a home-cooked breakfast and home tour next door at Tanner and Hannah’s house. They built it next door to their grandparents. When I say they built it I mean THEY BUILT IT. All on their own. And now they are getting ready to add on an extra room… for the baby Hannah is expecting! They will be welcoming their little girl to the world in October.
Our new hosts and expectant parents; Hannah and Tanner Moyle!
All in all for me it was a very enjoyable weekend. It was nice seeing the few people who did stop in. It was really nice camping in a super peaceful setting. Looking forward to next year!
For a few months now I’ve been looking at home prices in Pahrump Nevada. Why Pahrump? Well, it has the cleanest year-round air, no risk of flooding, and no sever weather (unless you count heat). So for my first vacation this year we decided to head to Pahrump and look at the housing market there.
Rather than drive from our home all the way to Pahrump in one shot, a 9+ hour drive, we decided to break it up into 2 days. We stayed the first night at a Harvest Hosts location at the Tehachapi Winery. It’s free to stay but you are encouraged to patronize the host. It ended up costing us more that one night than any one night at both of the other RV resorts we stayed at. Still, it was a beautiful, peaceful place to stop over and break up the trip.
After a peaceful night off the beaten track in Tehachapi we began the drive down to Baker, CA and then on to Pahrump. Our route was Highway 99 to Bakersfield, then Hwy 58 to Tehachapi and on to Barstow. Highway 58 used to be single lane with stop lights through Boron and Kramer Junction. It’s now a 4 lane highway all the way to Barstow. We jumped on I-15 north towards Las Vegas until we got to Baker, CA where we got onto Hwy 127 which took us to Shoshone where we hung a right onto Hwy 178 and then all the way into Pahrump.
I should point out here that I got the best mileage ever while towing on this trip heading out to Pahrump. For most of the trip we either had a quartering tailwind or a full tailwind. I was seeing MPGs of anywhere from 18-22 MPG! I usually get about 12 when towing the trailer. It was all fun and games until I got to a rock formation called the Charlie Brown Outcrop where the 35mph tailwind I had been enjoying turned into a direct cross wind when I rounded a curve. That was mildly exciting but nothing the truck couldn’t handle. Woke me up for sure. After that it was an easy trip down into Pahrump.
Here is a pro-tip for travellers to Pahrump: DRIVE THE POSTED SPEED LIMIT. We were told by the realtor that Pahrump and Nye County make a lot of money from traffic violations and if the other drivers in town are any indication, they have a zero tolerance policy for exceeding the speed limit. Not even the internationally accepted standard of driving 5mph over the posted speed limit!
Now, sadly we didn’t take any pictures of the RV park but you can find many online. The name of the park was Wine Ridge RV Resort and Cottages. It was clean, quiet, and had a hot tub; everything I require of an RV park. We rested the first day and spent the next two days looking at area homes that were for sale. The first day was with a realtor and her adult realtor son. She guided us around to about 5 houses. Some were nice, others were not quite as nice. One home was absolutely beautiful but it was in a trashy area and smelled heavily of cigar smoke. The second day we drove around Pahrump on our own so we could see the neighborhoods at our own pace.
Biggest takeaway from Pahrump is that the city is very spread out. Lots of space between homes and neighborhoods. There is no centralized shopping district unless you count Hwy 160 which runs between Las Vegas and I-95 to the north. Lots of casinos, fast food, and a few supermarkets including Walmart. The city is about 10 miles across as the crow flies which is pretty big for a relatively sleepy desert town. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Pahrump has two brothels on the extreme southern border of town. With a landing strip between them. We didn’t make it down to that part of town but Google Maps showed all we needed to see. Also, we were there in the Spring which is a windy time for Pahrump so windy and dry did not do well with our skin. That was the only major detractor we found.
On Wednesday we drove down to Las Vegas. The reason for the trip was to visit Red Rocks National Conservation Area and also to drop in on a vendor of mine from work to see his new home near Red Rocks. This is an absolutely stunning and underrated area on the southwest side of Las Vegas. We spent some time hiking in Calico Basin which is literally a desert oasis. Red Spring feeds a small meadow of grass and trees in the middle of the barren rocks.
Probably the best view of Red Rocks NCA is on the Hwy 160, also known as Pahrump Valley Highway as it comes into the Red Rocks area.
After our hike we drove to the visitors center and then drove the scenic loop around the canyon. Those puffy clouds you see in the above photos turned into a rain storm along the hills. But it stayed along the hills. All the rainfall in the mountains must be what feed the springs around Las Vegas.
After visiting Red Rocks we drove over to get some lunch at La Madre Canyon Grille. Lunch was delicious and since I hadn’t had my coffee yet that day their Cinnamon Roll Latte really hit the spot for a dessert. Then we headed over to my vendor’s house and was given the grand tour of his home and visited for a while. He and I really didn’t get along very well when I first started my job at San Joaquin General Hospital but we’ve since become good friends. Commiserating about the state of politics and Extreme Networks, the products he sells, helped us build a common bond over the years. Afterwards Cristy did some decompression shopping at Summerlin Downtown, a shopping plaza design to look like a downtown shopping area. Then we headed back to Pahrump.
The only item on the agenda for the next day was to hang around town and relax after all the driving I’d done lately. I did want to tick one more item off my list for Pahrump; to visit the Art Bell Memorial. If you’ve never heard of Art Bell, he was an AM radio personality who had the dubious distinction of having a radio show that played from midnight to 6am in many markets. I began listening to Art Bell on KGO as I commuted from our home in Modesto to my workplace at Lockheed in Sunnyvale at 3:30am. His show was always about UFOs, Sasquatch, chupacabra sightings, paranormal stuff. Think X-Files. It was “out there” but it helped keep me awake on my commute. We found his memorial at a park in Pahrump called the Calvada Eye (because it’s looks like an eye from above). The other pleasantly unexpected surprise at this park was the horse that came galloping into the park while we were there. I’m still not sure if they were wild horses or just abandoned horses. The western romantic in my wants to think they were wild horses descended from the ponies the conquistadors let loose many years ago.
After a few more restful days just hanging around the park and stocking up at Walmart it was time to head back home. The wind had picked back up in the night and it made me a little nervous about what the wind would do the next day but it actually died down a bit. It also had switched directions so we again had a tailwind on the way back to Tehachapi. However, long before we got to Tehachapi, we got caught in the middle of the 34th Annual Baker 2 Vegas relay race. Apparently it’s a big deal in the law enforcement community. A local friend of mine is a police lieutenant has even wanted to run in it. All I know is that it generated a ton of traffic and our only white-knuckle moments as we were driving back. Let’s just say cops generally don’t believe the rules of the road apply to them and leave it at that. Most were well-behaved though. Each runner was followed by a car and they had “stages” of the race they were assigned to run and then hand off the baton. Luckily they were all running the opposite direction. Much to the chagrin of non-participating traffic trying to get to Pahrump.
We finally made it through the races and back over the hill into Bakersfield were we decided to stop for the night at Orange Grove RV Park. The next day we headed home and called an end to our week-long Pahrump adventure. Will we be back to Pahrump, maybe. Will we move there, probably not. The biggest takeaway of the trip was how much we loved travelling. It’s funny, it’s hard to get ourselves to leave home but once we do, it’s even harder to go back. Don’t get me wrong, we love our home and family, but we just want to travel and see more things. Until next time…
Air Prayer 