It's nearly 1,000 miles from Santa Fe to San Diego via Flagstaff, Needles, Barstow, and Escondido. The first 500 took us across the high desert to the Flagstaff KOA, with a stop at the Painted Desert, shown above, and the Petrified Forest. These were separate National Monuments the last time we were here, but they have since been combined into Petrified Forest National Park.
At most national parks, the routine is very similar. You manage to find a space in the overcrowded parking lot, bypass the teeming gift shop, restaurant, and visitor center, pick a trail, and begin walking. After at most a quarter mile, the crowd magically disappears and you get to enjoy what the park was set up to protect. Oh yes, and 90% of the people you encounter on the trail are speaking German. But the Petrified Forest is truly American in that almost everything is visible from the car, or at worst from 100 feet or less from the car. This is fortunate, because that day the temperature was in 90's with a strong wind.
At 7,000 ft., Flagstaff was cool, pleasant, and piney. We remembered the KOA from '95 when we had stopped there in another RV with the kids who were then little. The big difference between that trip and this one is that on this trip, we have a pretty strict schedule dictated by the need to take possession of our rented house in LaJolla on the 18th. It's much more relaxed when you're on the road with no time constraints. We would have liked to spend more time in the Smokies and in the Santa Fe area, but that will have to wait for the next trip.
Setting out the next morning for the final 500 miles, we soon found ourselves descending from the Western Plateau into the Mohave Desert. And as we did so, the thermometer climbed accordingly. At Needles, CA we scored a fairly impressive 103F. But I remembered (barely) the last time I had been in Needles, which I think was in 1962 or thereabouts. It was a midnight in August, and the temperature was 110. During this crossing, the desert was hot, windy, and monochromatic for the most part. As we refueled at Ludlow, which consisted of two gas stations, a restaurant and a motel, I found myself wondering why it was there, and how that had come to be. But there was no time for contemplation, as it was quickly back to fighting the wind gusts again.
At Barstow we finally abandoned I40, our constant companion for the past two weeks, and turned south on I15 towards Escondido. You might wonder why Escondido was on the itinerary. That was a late addition, prompted by the fact that there is a big RoadTrek dealer there, at whose service center we spent most of yesterday getting our propane system fixed, as well as some well-deserved routine maintenance for the vehicle. One of the things I learned on the trip is that modern diesels use something called DEF, which is one of those TLA's (three-letter-acronyms) that the diesel cognoscenti know all about. It stands for Diesel Exhaust Fluid, and it's used for emission control. Who knew? But when the DEF light came up on the dash, we looked it up in the manual. We're supposed to go 10,000 miles between refills, but we only got 5,000. That left us trying to get across the Mohave desert with the mercury at 105F wondering if the engine was going to quit on us or what. A bit of suspense there, but we made it to the Escondido RV resort without a hiccup. Our last RV park of the trip proved to be the fanciest one. We luxuriated in the hot tub and the 80 degree temperature. And, after 6+ hours with Holland RV service the next morning, we arrived at our rental to meet with the landlady at the appointed time of 4PM, with all of five minutes to spare. The Pacific Ocean never looked cooler, calmer, or more relaxing.
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