national parks – Page 2 – Workplace Navigator

I’ve just completed a solo 10,000-mile sojourn through North America in my RV, Abeona. It’s been quite the adventure and while this was some fanciful dream just 4 months ago, I’m amazed that I actually completed it without any major snafus and that I learned so much about myself and Abeona on the journey. I visited 22 states from the deep south to the southwest, up central California to the Pacific Northwest. I took a ferry from Bellingham, WA to Skagway, Alaska, drove through the Yukon Territory on the Alaska Highway and back down through British Columbia and Alberta, Canada with an incredible 5 days in Jasper National Park just days before the fire. I went to three countries, the US, Canada and a 90-minute trip to Las Boquillas, Mexico by crossing the Rio Grande in a row boat followed by riding a burro into the village. I’m happy to report that I can still speak Spanish relatively well.

Myself, daughter Natalie and son -in-law Kevin hiking in the Sammamish River Park

While I was planning the trip, I had a certain cadence to each week. I worked Tuesday through Thursday and would need to have WIFI and electricity since my air conditioning only works on “shore power”. I would find my campsites on an app/website called RV Life which shows reviews, the amenities available and the strength of the WIFI connection based on the carrier. I had each site reserved in advance and the app would show me the route and approximate time and miles between each spot. This was invaluable and outside of one or two changes in campsites due to visits with friends, I stuck to the route as planned. Spots that were a must see such as Big Bend National Park and Joshua Tree National Park were all planned out so I knew how much time it would take to visit each spot. I did some detours to visit a few spots when I realized how close they were like White Sands NP, Guadalupe NP and Carlsbad Caverns NP. In all I went to 11 National Parks and 2 Canadian National Parks. Many I had visited before but the stand out new parks were Joshua Tree NP and Theodore Roosevelt NP (where two bison were crossing the road and right by Abeona!). My favorite revisited parks were a hike with my brother Rick to Olympic NP with marmots, deer, wildflowers and snowcapped peaks, the stunning Crater Lake NP and the incredible Jasper NP and Banff NP in Canada.

I went to several state parks including Catalina SP in Tucson, Smith Rock SP in Oregon, Big Basin SP in California with my oldest brother Dave. Many adventures were completely unplanned and were some “might as well” sort of opportunities. I went on a glider plane ride in Tehachapi, CA because I was camped next to the runway for my workweek and decided I would be mad at myself if I didn’t give it a try. It was terrific and completely an analog as in nothing electronic which surprised me. Not even a radio between the guide plane and the glider. I saw signs for Shasta Caverns and decided to sign up for a tour which included a boat ride and hike through the caverns. The best adventure by far was taking a helicopter ride to the Meade glacier near Skagway AK. I signed up to walk on the glacier but the helicopter ride was terrific through the mountains and glaciers surrounding Skagway. I was fortunate to sit in the front seat of the helicopter and I felt like a photographer for National Geographic gliding above the glacier lakes and waterfalls.

Abeona handled like a champ on scary drives like the always windy Tehachapi pass, the 11 percent grade on the Klondike Highway out of Skagway and the countless gravel roads and unmarked portions of the Alaska Highway. I accidentally backed into a large boulder in Catalina SP which dented my sewer system. I was so fortunate that there was a remote RV repair guy in Joshua Tree that repaired it in 112-degree weather. I had a leak in my main water inlet but my brother Dave and a call to Leisure Travel Van (the manufacturer of my RV) helped me do a fix until I got home. I also learned to manually shift coming down the dreaded Tehachapi pass, I finally figured out my tire sensors after some help from a Facebook group for Leisure Travel Vans. The only other issue was a hitchhiking mouse I picked up in the Yukon but fell victim to a trap I set months before. I learned that tire places are perfectly happy to check and fill your tires for free (thank you Les Schwab!).

I had the opportunity to see many friends and family along the way. I have a dear friend Tammi and her husband Larry who took me to Saguaro NP and some fantastic Mexican food in Tucson. I visited an old coworker, Jeanne at my previous employer in Scottsdale and an old elementary school friend, Michael, in Mountain View. My brother, Dave, drove me to the Redwood Groves in the Bay Area and he and his wife, Judy, hosted me for several days in Palo Alto where I was able to see my nieces and my great nieces and great nephew. I met up with my daughter and her husband along with friend, James, in Portland for incomparable vegan food. The big celebration for my mother’s 90th birthday was a relaxed trip down memory lane and some great time spent with the entire family. I met with another elementary school chum, Jim, in Fernie, BC where we took an exciting drive up a mountain in his indestructible car (Abeona would not have survived). I was able to visit my dear old friend, Johno, from my NYC days in the mid 80’s. He has a lovely lakeside house with his husband, Jim, in Indiana. I got to see Johno do a back flip off a swim platform and I went tubing around “Lake Jimmy John” (first time I’ve done that in 20 years). I wrapped up my trip in Covington, VA visiting my Aunt Karen, her children, Craig and Kristin and her husband, Angelo, for a lovely meal in Lewisburg, WV.

I cannot tell you how many times I talked to Abeona and thanked her for being such a bad ass for getting me on and off the ferry, and for the air conditioning working for the massive back up I experienced out of Phoenix where it took two hours to go ten miles when it was 115 degrees. There were countless evenings where the air conditioner was on all night and it never quit! There were also the tight squeezes through road signs in Palm Springs, the pouring rain near Rusk TX, and windy roads of the Olympic Peninsula. Abeona never faltered.

My wanderlust is definitely a gene imparted from my father and so is my hesitancy towards heights. I left my father’s ashes in places he had been to and other places where he wanted to travel and sometimes when I knew it was a view he would have loved. He said in his last few years of life that Peyto Lake was the most beautiful place on earth. I was able to travel there on this trip and leave his ashes from the overlook. I know he would be proud of me on this cross-country sojourn and I’m proud of myself for taking it on, doing it scared and always having Daddy riding shotgun.

I went to Joshua Tree National Park and the town of Joshua Tree in Southern California in early June of 2024. It’s always interesting to travel through a desert but when temperatures are starting to hit triple digits, it adds an element of danger. I remember traveling through Death Valley a few years ago when it was 120 degrees. You think twice before you head out that you have plenty of water, the tire pressure is good, gas tank full and check for sunscreen. Cell phone coverage is non-existent and there are no restaurants or gas stations for 50 miles. It pays to be prepared.

Here is what I found in Joshua Tree:

Standing in front of rocks and boulders at Joshua Tree National Park

Wilderness. I entered through the Cottonwood entrance at the southern end of the park. This is definitely the road less traveled. There is a visitor center about 6 miles in but there is about 30 miles of blank wilderness desert for most of the road to get to the heart of Joshua Tree National Park. There are vast swaths of desert that lead to the Coxcomb Mountains and well beyond the immense Pinto Basin. This is all untouched land. I didn’t expect to see so much empty arid desolate land that goes on for as far as the eye can see; there are only a few cacti. I find the entering any National Park from the less traveled entrance has advantages because there has never been a line and I end up traveling the park in the opposite direction from the rest of the crowd.

Cholla Cactus Garden. This is one of the few stops and parking places when entering from the Cottonwood entrance. When you actually walk through the Cholla Cactus Garden, it looks as if someone intentionally planted all these cacti. There were probably thousands of the cacti for miles in every direction. The same cactus for miles. Almost like someone planted them all to harvest them, but it’s in the middle of the desert in the middle of nowhere. It’s intimidating walking on the trail through the garden because their barbed cactus spines are easily detached or “jump” off the plant onto a passerby.

Rock Formations. When I turned the corner and got on Park Boulevard, the entire landscape transformed into what can only be referred to as Bedrock or the land of where the Flintstones resided. It went from desert wilderness to jumbled rock formations. There were hundreds of these rock piles in various sizes and dimensions. I found an interesting video on how the formations formed over millions of years but basically the tectonic plates moved and the magma eventually belched up and then cracked to create these formations. I would drive a half mile and there would be formations and then another half mile and even more formations. There are no bad spots to pull off and walk around; they’re all other worldly.

Joshua Trees. The plant for which the town and National Park are named is not actually a tree but a succulent Yucca Brevifolia. 19th Century Mormons named them after the biblical figure because they believed that the outstretched tree limbs guided them on their westward journey. I’m sure that there are thousands of Joshua Trees in the park and in the surrounding area. Sometimes I would see one lone tree in front of a rock formation or come across several acres of trees seemingly marching across the landscape. Some are tall with many branches and some are low to the ground with just a palm frond top. Unusual and fascinating.

The Town. I camped in the town of Joshua Tree which seems like a desert oasis for rock climbers, artists and off grid folks. There was an enormous farmers market on the Saturday that I arrived with produce and treasures for sale. The actual main visitors center for the National Park is in the town and outside of the park itself which is very unusual. It’s a bit confusing because you have the actual plant, the town and the national park all referred to by the same name.

It was an interesting adventure through the park. There was one area I didn’t get to visit because RVs were not recommended to drive to Keys View overlook which has a panoramic view of the Little San Bernardino Mountains. As I learned in White Sands National Park, be sure to read if a road is recommended for RV’s, if not it’s likely to have hairpin turns, steep inclines or, as in White Sands case, ten miles of unpaved roads across the dunes. Regardless the landscape and flora were epic.