The cool rock formations are leftovers from the ash deposit of a massive volcanic eruption about 35 million years ago.

Due to the remoteness, I spent a full three weeks here without ever leaving. I had enough groceries and just settled in. Civilization seems so far away...

Here are a bunch of photos.

A rising "super moon"

Men are from Mars :)

The non-electric campsites here are *very* awesome!

Overlooking the "City" from a nearby hilltop. It is the brown rocks in front of the distant mountains.

A Prairie Rattlesnake! It was on the road while I was walking. Scared me a bit, though it was dead. It didn't appear to have been run over by a car. A ranger speculated that a hawk picked it up and dropped it and left it to die.

Blooming cacti were a treat!

There are 8 or 9 lakes here. Formed from sinkholes. Deep and pretty.

My shadow petting Buddha's shadow :)

On a long walk with Buddha. Overlooking my campground. My van is one of the little white dots on the far side of the lake.

I took a couple of days to travel. First stop was an RV Park in Uvalde, Texas. Quite a strange area, at least for me. Very farm-centric, lots of farm workers with cowboy boots. Next was Fort Stockton, where I hooked into some free wifi at an RV Park and downloaded some important updates I needed for development. Having to pay for generally slow bandwidth is amusing and odd in today's world. It is better than dial-up, for sure, and is the only way I can make my life-on-the-road work. But when I get access to unlimited bandwidth, it feels like turning a firehose on. And I tend to leave it on and splash in the waters for a while.

The journey from Uvalde to Fort Stockton was amazing. I took Texas 90, which hugs the Mexican border. At one point I had to go through a border control checkpoint. There was a german shepherd sniffer dog and they ran him around my van to check for contraband. I don't know if it was Buddha or whatever, but the sniffer dog started dancing in circles. It made me laugh, but the two border agents, both of whom seemed to be ex-military types, refused to smile. The dog was having fun, though. I went past lots of ghost towns. It was really kind of eerie. I don't know anything about the area, but everyone left for some reason. I was running a little low on gas at one point and saw a sign for a public school and thought I was surely entering an active town. But, no, it was just dusty closed buildings, including an old motel which looked kinda cool, but the windows were all busted out. In addition to the ghost towns, I was almost the only car on the road, with the exception of an occasional border patrol car. I started to think I was in a dream.

Another day of driving and I found my way to Brantley Lake State Park, about 15 miles north of Carlsbad, New Mexico. It was a nice and quiet place to stay, but was a bit bland. There was a lake, of course, but not much else. And it was flat. Desert nothingness. And true to my experience of New Mexico, the winds were freaking intense!

I spent the winter (a little over 2 months of it) in southeast Texas, at Lake Corpus Christi State Park. Which is a bit of a misnomer as it is 45 miles northwest of Corpus Christi. Quite remote and very quiet. The nearest town was Mathis, about 5 miles away and bustling with a population of nearly 5000 people. It had one main food store, but they had a decent selection, so it worked well for me.

This is the farthest south I have been for the winter and it was almost too hot at times, reaching 90 on a few days (with enough humidity to make it feel uncomfortable). But mostly it was pleasant with sunny days and very little inclement weather. The park itself was quiet, with a lake (all parks I stay at have lakes it seems). There weren't any trails, but there was a lot of roadway to take long walks with Buddha.

The biggest negative were the "no see-ums", little teensy bugs that swarm by the thousands and bite. They were only annoying when I took walks on windless and hot days. If there was a breeze, they didn't bother me, but otherwise it was a nuisance. I don't tend to get bit my mosquitoes and dislike repellant, so I just dealt with it. My neck area was itchy for most of the winter...

Another weirdness was bees. For some reason, a bunch of them insisted on committing suicide by diving into my roof fan. I could never figure out where they came from or why they were attracted to my fan. I would hear a constant whirring sound as one of them got stuck in the fan blades, slowing it down in the process.

And I saw a big snake that lived in a hollowed out part of a tree not far from my site. I only saw it twice, but it was somewhere between fascinating and freaky. I don't think it was poisonous (no triangular head or obvious other signs), but it was large. And it made me worry about Buddha who is always sticking his nose into things.

A few photos...

I drove past mile after mile of Saguaro cactus. Almost a forest in some spots.

My spot at Butterfield RV Park in Benson, AZ

The Butterfield RV Park Observatory

A Meade LX 200 GPS telescope. I can get one of my own for only $13,000 :)

The next day I stopped at a little grocery store in Laytonville. It was so wonderful. Filled with everything I like (and more). I got some BBQ tofu nuggets that were so good I had to force myself to stop eating them and save a bit for later. And some very tasty pesto pizza. And some really good coconut date bars. And more. While Eureka is a major city (28,000), Laytonville is more quant (1200) and the feel is total hippie vibe.

I kept going for a while and started heading east and passed through the Clear Lake area. Very nice. If I was in the mood to stop, it would be a nice vacation spot. I decided I wanted to get south of Sacramento for the night and getting past such a major city was not on my fun list. At first I told my GPS app to avoid freeways, but that was much too long a route, so I decided to allow a stretch of I-80 and managed to get through unscathed. I hadn't seen a truly big city in a long while and it was crazy … office buildings, malls, factories, warehouses, stores, and lots and lots of cars.

Once I got near Sacramento, a dark gray foreboding sky and steely fog set in and didn't let up until I was about 30 minutes from Boron.

I spent the night in a little town south of Stockton. The next day brought some easy driving straight south down State Route 99, passing through agricultural and industrial areas of the Central Valley of California.

In Bakersfield I  turned east and started heading up towards the Tehachapi Summit (4700 feet). I went through (and I'm being serious) the most intensely dense fog I have ever experienced. It was insane. I fell into a strategy of putting a car as far in front of me as possible where I could still see its lights. But I had to keep pace, otherwise it would disappear and that was scary. I couldn't stay in the right lane because some of the cars were going dangerously slow. My eyes are still burning. I had to engage my x-ray vision. Discerning the slightest change in fog density … oh, yes! … that is a semi I am passing. Most of the cars were driving very carefully … only a couple assholes who insisted on weaving through traffic. This is one of those cases where I couldn't stop on the shoulder because it would probably be more dangerous and taking an exit would mean I was stuck in the middle of nowhere in a fog bank. So I pressed on. 

Finally, just after the Tehachapi Summit, it started to clear a bit. Then, the fog and clouds vanished and bright sunshine was washing over everything. I started playing the Who song in my head … I can see for miles and miles and miles and miles. It was almost too much. It hurt! And I realized how intense the previous 30-45 minutes were. Wow.

I arrived in Boron, CA and spent the night. The wind was howling and it was rather chilly. Boron is sort of creepy, not in a bad way, but just a little bit odd. It seems very remote. It is "famous" for the world's largest boron mine and for the being the location where the movie Erin Brokovitch was filmed.

Yet another day of driving. Lots of wind and clear skies. I ended up in northwest Arizona. Two weeks at Cattail Cove State Park, about 15 miles south of Lake Havasu City. Nice to get away from the craziness of city life and I was able to enjoy some very scenic walks with Buddha.

Some gentle coastal fog, feeding the redwoods with moisture.

The Eel River in Redway, CA

Lake Havasu is a man-made lake formed by a dam on the Colorado River. The water is clear and blue.

Notice the shadow figures of me & Buddha :)

Desert life. Lots of cactus (and rattle snakes and scorpions, though they are quiet this time of year)

I arrived on a beautiful sunny day, but was treated to a full-on storm for the next several days. Lots of rain and wind. Very much fun! Then back to a mix of sun and clouds. I took some long walks with Buddha, got a bit of work done and feel happy to be back on the move again...

My spot. Nothing exciting, but very close to the harbor and the beach.

There was a lot of damage to the harbor from a tsunami caused by the March 11, 2011 earthquake in Japan.

I've been a couple of miles from the ocean for the past 6 months, but have only rarely made it to the beach.

The Chetco River. Lots of salmon!

The port filled with boats, mostly commercial.

Crab pots. The dungeness crab season starts back up on December 1st.

On the bridge between Harbor and Brookings, overlooking the Chetco River.

I continued my journey from Cloverdale and wound up in Eureka, a smallish town on the coast in northern California. I had intended to stay for a few weeks, but several things kept me there all summer:

1) The weather. It was almost an ideal climate for me. With a few exceptions where the temperature hit a blisteringly hot mid 70's, most days it settled around the mid 60's. And I was a couple of miles inland, so away from the cold blankets of fog.

2) Errands. This was the first app that I wrote for iOS. I am proud of what I did, but it was in need of a major update. I kept putting it off, partly because it needed a lot of refactoring work and partly because I just wasn't motivated. Sometimes being my own boss isn't good for productivity. It is too easy for one part of me to convince the other part of me that procrastination is the best policy. Why do today what can be put off until tomorrow. I decided that staying in one place would eventually lead me to the desperate realization that I had nowhere to hide and might as well do the work. And I did! Errands 3 is out and is doing great and I feel re-energized as far as my work goes.

3) The name of the town. Just being silly, but I started watching the Eureka TV series on Netflix while I was in Eureka, so I had to stay, right?

4) Walking to stores. I often stay in state parks and generally remote areas, sometimes 15 miles from the nearest tiny town. In Eureka, I could walk to grocery stores, the laundromat, etc. It was kinda fun to be in a town for a spell.

It seems like Eureka is burned into my retinas. Seared into my consciousness. But I am back on the road again and it feels very liberating. Here are a few photos from my stay in Eureka...

I stayed in this spot the whole time I was in Eureka. I only drove on a couple of occasions, instead walking everywhere, usually several miles each day.

Shortly after I arrived, the Humboldt County Fair took place. The loop ride behind me was amusing. Hours of cyclic screams. And the folks camped next to me for a few days were true "carnies".

A few weeks after the fair, the Monster Truck show came to town.

I went to the Monster Truck show with this wonderful family that camped next to me for a month or two. The girl with the dog print shawl really loved Buddha and had a great time playing with him.

This bread is from a bakery in nearby Arcata. It was wonderful and delivered daily to a small grocery near where I stayed. I had literally stopped eating bread as I can't stomach the factory stuff, but this summer it became a renewed part of my diet. I miss it already :(

I was right next to a redwood forest that was on private land (complete with no trespassing signs, which I ignored after noticing others do the same). I took some nice walks with Buddha, though occasionally a logging truck would come by and throw up a bunch of dust.

Humboldt County is renowned for both the quality and quantity of herb it produces. It is big business in these parts and I was constantly amused at how openly it was talked about in the local press. There were many other little signs of the business, such as trimming scissors sold in in little country stores, turkey bags sold in bulk packs of 100, organic fertilizers and root hormones sold everywhere, numerous hydroponics stores and so on. However, the overall vibe was that of normal small-town USA.

Notice the blue tongue (silly girl!)

The Shrine Drive-Thru Tree in Myers Flat, CA

In Shelter Cove with the ocean in view.

It was very foggy here ... a bit creepy in a Stephen King sort of way...

Our campsite at Richardson Grove State Park, outside of Garberville, CA

There's that tongue again ;)

Never far from her iPhone...