Moved from the desert to the mountains....

What a day! For whatever reason I slept 10 hours last night....so we were starting out later than anticipated. You know what that means....yup! That was the first of our issues. LOL! We got ready to go fairly quickly....then the truck wouldn't start. Barely turned over and then quickly died. We ended up hooking up the generator to quickly charge enough to get going.

The ride was wonderful....the Salton Sea, then snow on the mountains, followed by HUGE wind farms. Wow! We headed to what our GPS told us was a Sam's Club (close to a Wal-Mart) in LaQuinta, CA. For whatever reason BIBS (our GPS), took us through downtown. That was fun.....LOL! Next, there was no sign of Sam's Club but fortunately the Wal-Mart Supercenter was there. Researching this tonight, I found the announcement for the closing of that store.





We filled the cart, $200 worth of groceries and $50 of other stuff. I wanted a cotton thermal blanket now that we are boondocking more and not running heat at night. I also wanted a tea kettle....much easier to use than a saucepan.

We made a splurge stop at lunch....McDonald's inside Wally World, but were good with both of us getting grilled chicken sandwiches and splitting a medium fry. Okay, so we both got ice cream...it's low fat yogurt, honest!

We continued on our journey, another 35 or so miles to the town of Banning. There were turned south to the mountains. Oh my, definitely the mountains! The warning sign for semi's should have given us a clue...LOL! Amazing drive and views. Can't wait to ride it with the motorcycle. We twisted and turned up to over 4000 ft (the Salton Sea is 227 ft BELOW sea level) before dropping down a bit and turning into the campground, Silent Valley Park. In one photo you can get a sense of what I was seeing...gulp! Glad Stu was driving....





The park is a member only park and we used our Coast to Coast membership. It's huge and the layout is very different. They use a first come-first serve site assignment...or non-assignment actually. There are two sections, one family and one adult. We opted for the adult section which also has a heated pool and hot tub. We toured the section, choosing what we thought was the best spot for us. Stu did an admirable job of backing in...only to discover the hookups would be on the wrong side. We then noticed that many sites were set up this way. Motorhomes could easily pull in and back out, utilizing them. Of course all this was after negotiating a VERY tight turn to the right, stone walls on both sides, wooden bridge to cross.





So we pulled out and went back on the search for a good spot. We found a nice long pull-through, albeit a bit narrow. One of the rules here is no parking on the grass. We just made it in but have plenty of room at the front or the back of the rig for Big Red.





That said, after reading the rules, we don't know if we will be able to stay very long. Motorcycles are not to be used IN the park....if we can use them for ingress and egress, we will be fine. The office was closing when we arrived so we will find out tomorrow when we register and pay. If we can use the bike, we might stay here a bit longer. With our membership we only pay $10 a night and the area is gorgeous!

While coming up the mountain, Stu noticed an area that had been burned. I had posted a Google map of our location (and the road we came in on) and his old partner mentioned that we are very close to the 2006 Esperanza fire. There were five firefighters lost in the battle. We will ride in their honor next time through there.

As usual, all the photos are in our SmugMug album. Sorry for all the windshield bug splatters....LOL! It is that time of year. I will grab some more tomorrow as we walk around the park.

Till next time - keep on rollin',
Donna & Stu