Wow! It is incredibly hard to believe that we have been RVing it for 12 days now. What a beautiful country to explore—and explore we are!
We took some time this morning to do some laundry at the Calizona RV Park before pulling out to continue our journey west. Thank you, Lord for placing us right next to the laundry. 😂 We had four more stamps to get to complete California. So, across the desert and onward to Oro Grande, California we pressed. The views of the mountains are spectacular and like nothing I can recall ever seeing. They fill the entire landscape for mile after mile with their massive beauty.
We made our way through those mountains to the itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny town of Oro Grande. As we drove into the town, we noticed the entire landscape was made of rocks. All of it—rocks. In fact, I’m pretty sure there was a park, or trail, we passed called National Rock…something. Less than 1,000 people live here. The town is in the Mojave Desert and it was h.o.t. There was a little row of shops and when the GPS said “you have reached your destination” we weren’t quite as confident as she was. We walked up and down the little row of buildings, and just when we were ready to give up, we saw a note on the door of one that said they’d moved. We hopped back in the RV and drove down the street.
We walked into a strip mall of antique stores and found that the woman who knows everything about the stamps for the passport book was out sick. (We were thinking we might not get a stamp at all). Thankfully, we found a nice woman who was willing to call her and ask where the stamps were and how to go about it. We discovered her brother works in Syracuse, so that was a cool connection to make. She also recommended that we eat lunch at the Crosseyed Cow and gave us permission to leave the RV parked and walk to it. It was a h.o.t. walk, but it was a really good lunch. They have very cool decor: a boxing glove tied to a rope with a rock attached moves when the front door is open. Knives are part of the booths backrest. An old bike hangs as well as many old photos.
Next stop: WigWam Motel in San Bernardino. This was a rough ride for Mimi as we were now coming DOWN the huge mountain we had climbed. My-oh-my —it felt a little bit too fast for Mimi’s comfort but Papa didn’t seem to agree. 😝 My brake leg was working hard and is a bit sore tonight. There’s a rather large amount of traffic here in California. And while I am speaking of traffic, I just want to give a shoutout to all of the truckers who continue to drive across the country. We passed a lot of truckers and I think we’ve only been scared by two.
The WigWam Motel was very well kept and updated. There was one in Arizona that seemed much older and original than this one. But, you can rent a room and stay there. There wasn’t a ton to see here so we didn’t stay long. On to our last stop for the night: The Cucamonga Service Station Visitor Center & Museum in Rancho, Cucamonga. We found it closed and surrounded by fencing. Papa pulled off on the side of the road, only to discover from a long beeeeeeeeep that we had pulled into a bus stop. Whoops. Bus driver not happy with Papa. We got out of there fast and found a safe place to park for a photo to prove we were there. We’re still not sure if that was a legal parking spot!
We needed to stop at Walmart and while we were there we made a call for a reservation at a RV Park. (One of the items we wanted to get at Walmart was Kleenex and guess what we forgot? 😛) We drove to the beautiful Bonilla Bluffs RV Park in San Demas for the night. Papa backed into our site and, as he always does first, connected the electric. It tripped the breaker. We’d had this happen before so Papa knew the breaker was bad. He walked to registration and they moved us to a new site.
At this site, the same thing happened with the breaker and while Papa was working on it, I met the most precious woman, Carla. We had the best chat! She invited us to come and join them for dinner, which sounded so yummy. Homemade Mexican food and pasta. But, after another failed attempt - we had to move again. Can you believe we moved to a third site only to have the same thing happen? The surge protector continued to show the breaker was bad and we could not get electric to work. The man across the street came over to see if he could help, Papa. Nope, even he couldn’t get the electric.
So, Papa called and they moved us again. Eventually, the man at the office said, “What can I do to help you, Pat?” “Find us a site with working electric?” It was a race against time as the office closed at 7:00pm and it was 6:45. Papa left to walk up to the office but I noticed he was walking in the opposite direction of it. Then, Papa came back to the camper and said, “I found three sites that have good electric. I am moving us to one of them. Pick the place you want.” So, we drove to a new site and then Papa walked to the office and said, “I am on site 132 and the electric works. Can I stay there?” “Yes! Stay there!” was the reply. (He’d never actually gone to the office, he was checking the electric on empty sites. ☺️)
Whew. I thought for sure we were messing up something, but Papa said, “I always learned at work you need to trust the instrumentation!” That’s what he did – even though I was pretty sure it was something the newbies were doing. But, we’re now tucked in between a few hundred other campers on a beautiful lake in the Mountains of California.
We’ve been informed that all of the National Parks in California have been closed, so we won’t be heading north to see the Redwood National Forest. We are bummed about that, but we already know we need to make another journey west to see friends in Washington and Idaho, too..
We’ve had quite a journey and will head to Santa Monica in the morning for our final California stamp and then to San Clemente, We are praying for a place to park the RV while we stay at the hotel for two nights. Please, pray that Papa and Mimi don’t park in spaces that we aren’t supposed to! 😘
And that is another day in the journey of Papa and Mimi.
We love and miss you,
Papa and Mimi ❤️
We took some time this morning to do some laundry at the Calizona RV Park before pulling out to continue our journey west. Thank you, Lord for placing us right next to the laundry. 😂 We had four more stamps to get to complete California. So, across the desert and onward to Oro Grande, California we pressed. The views of the mountains are spectacular and like nothing I can recall ever seeing. They fill the entire landscape for mile after mile with their massive beauty.
We made our way through those mountains to the itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny town of Oro Grande. As we drove into the town, we noticed the entire landscape was made of rocks. All of it—rocks. In fact, I’m pretty sure there was a park, or trail, we passed called National Rock…something. Less than 1,000 people live here. The town is in the Mojave Desert and it was h.o.t. There was a little row of shops and when the GPS said “you have reached your destination” we weren’t quite as confident as she was. We walked up and down the little row of buildings, and just when we were ready to give up, we saw a note on the door of one that said they’d moved. We hopped back in the RV and drove down the street.
We walked into a strip mall of antique stores and found that the woman who knows everything about the stamps for the passport book was out sick. (We were thinking we might not get a stamp at all). Thankfully, we found a nice woman who was willing to call her and ask where the stamps were and how to go about it. We discovered her brother works in Syracuse, so that was a cool connection to make. She also recommended that we eat lunch at the Crosseyed Cow and gave us permission to leave the RV parked and walk to it. It was a h.o.t. walk, but it was a really good lunch. They have very cool decor: a boxing glove tied to a rope with a rock attached moves when the front door is open. Knives are part of the booths backrest. An old bike hangs as well as many old photos.
Next stop: WigWam Motel in San Bernardino. This was a rough ride for Mimi as we were now coming DOWN the huge mountain we had climbed. My-oh-my —it felt a little bit too fast for Mimi’s comfort but Papa didn’t seem to agree. 😝 My brake leg was working hard and is a bit sore tonight. There’s a rather large amount of traffic here in California. And while I am speaking of traffic, I just want to give a shoutout to all of the truckers who continue to drive across the country. We passed a lot of truckers and I think we’ve only been scared by two.
The WigWam Motel was very well kept and updated. There was one in Arizona that seemed much older and original than this one. But, you can rent a room and stay there. There wasn’t a ton to see here so we didn’t stay long. On to our last stop for the night: The Cucamonga Service Station Visitor Center & Museum in Rancho, Cucamonga. We found it closed and surrounded by fencing. Papa pulled off on the side of the road, only to discover from a long beeeeeeeeep that we had pulled into a bus stop. Whoops. Bus driver not happy with Papa. We got out of there fast and found a safe place to park for a photo to prove we were there. We’re still not sure if that was a legal parking spot!
We needed to stop at Walmart and while we were there we made a call for a reservation at a RV Park. (One of the items we wanted to get at Walmart was Kleenex and guess what we forgot? 😛) We drove to the beautiful Bonilla Bluffs RV Park in San Demas for the night. Papa backed into our site and, as he always does first, connected the electric. It tripped the breaker. We’d had this happen before so Papa knew the breaker was bad. He walked to registration and they moved us to a new site.
At this site, the same thing happened with the breaker and while Papa was working on it, I met the most precious woman, Carla. We had the best chat! She invited us to come and join them for dinner, which sounded so yummy. Homemade Mexican food and pasta. But, after another failed attempt - we had to move again. Can you believe we moved to a third site only to have the same thing happen? The surge protector continued to show the breaker was bad and we could not get electric to work. The man across the street came over to see if he could help, Papa. Nope, even he couldn’t get the electric.
So, Papa called and they moved us again. Eventually, the man at the office said, “What can I do to help you, Pat?” “Find us a site with working electric?” It was a race against time as the office closed at 7:00pm and it was 6:45. Papa left to walk up to the office but I noticed he was walking in the opposite direction of it. Then, Papa came back to the camper and said, “I found three sites that have good electric. I am moving us to one of them. Pick the place you want.” So, we drove to a new site and then Papa walked to the office and said, “I am on site 132 and the electric works. Can I stay there?” “Yes! Stay there!” was the reply. (He’d never actually gone to the office, he was checking the electric on empty sites. ☺️)
Whew. I thought for sure we were messing up something, but Papa said, “I always learned at work you need to trust the instrumentation!” That’s what he did – even though I was pretty sure it was something the newbies were doing. But, we’re now tucked in between a few hundred other campers on a beautiful lake in the Mountains of California.
We’ve been informed that all of the National Parks in California have been closed, so we won’t be heading north to see the Redwood National Forest. We are bummed about that, but we already know we need to make another journey west to see friends in Washington and Idaho, too..
We’ve had quite a journey and will head to Santa Monica in the morning for our final California stamp and then to San Clemente, We are praying for a place to park the RV while we stay at the hotel for two nights. Please, pray that Papa and Mimi don’t park in spaces that we aren’t supposed to! 😘
And that is another day in the journey of Papa and Mimi.
We love and miss you,
Papa and Mimi ❤️
    We ran, took the photo and ran back to the RV.  |    Papa being silly with the knives behind him.   |  Cool Volkswagen outside of the Crosseyed Cow Pizza. Wish I’d taken a side view!     Crosseyed Cow Restaurant |
 Town of rocks |  |
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