Week 30.1: Joshua Tree National Park

April 22, 2016 In Road Trip, Travelogues

Week 30.1: Joshua Tree National Park

In late January, we gave our noses a respite from the smell of the Salton Sea and headed to Joshua Tree National Park. Beloved by southern Californians and immortalized in numerous songs (even a U2 album), the park encompasses a vast and beautiful desert, as well as numerous examples of its namesake, the Joshua Tree. It was an unforgettable day.

Cuddly Cactus

Our initial impression upon entering Joshua Tree (through its southern entrance) is that it was empty. Most of the good stuff is in the northwestern corner, and as the park map makes plain, the other three quadrants contain mostly… nothing.

It was nonetheless a really enjoyable area, just a little lackluster after having visited the incredible Big Bend. Guess we’re national park snobs now! But soon, we came to the awesome Cholla Cactus Garden, named after the pretty cholla cactus.

They’re known as the “Teddy Bear Cholla,” and they’re kind of cute! But they’re also very murderous. Even the slightest touch can cause barbs to be implanted in your skin, where they hurt like hell and are nearly impossible to remove. A placard near the garden provided the following quotation:

“If the plant bears any helpful or even innocent part in the scheme of things on this planet, I should be glad to hear of it.” — J Smeaton Chase

There are thousands of cholla cactuses clustered in a small area at Joshua Tree, with a little path winding its way through them. Strangely, they seem to be found nowhere else in the park. We enjoyed strolling through the cholla garden, but we definitely did so carefully.

Rocking Out

After our careful exploration of the cactus garden, we headed further northwest, to the “White Tanks” and imaginatively-named “Jumbo Rocks” campground area. Here, we found huge boulders, scattered across the landscape in fascinating shapes and formations.

We stopped for a picnic lunch in an area that looked like it came right out of the Flintstones. (We’re not the only ones who have made this connection!) We wandered around through fields of giant boulders, many of which take on familiar shapes – ears, battlements, a Martian’s head. It was surreal and awesome.

We soon came to a large natural archway, which Jake climbed up nearly gracefully. The top turned out to be a little too difficult to reach, but he got pretty close. (The theme of the day was: “don’t die at Joshua Tree.”)

We also visited a boulder known as Skull Rock, for reasons that should be apparent. We have to say, in real life it wasn’t too impressive, but the face really comes out in the photos.

Joshua Trees!

Continuing on, we soon came to the park’s star attraction: Joshua Trees. These tall, spindly trees are only found in this region of the world – although not only in the park – and they grow into fantastic, gnarled shapes. A large Joshua Tree often looks like it’s tying itself into knots! (See the one on the far right below.)

To survive in the desert, the leaves are long, narrow, and waxy, preventing water loss. Since there are very few other sources of shade, Joshua Trees are an integral part of the desert ecosystem. They grow in huge, carefully spaced groves, and are endlessly fun to photograph. We stopped the car about 12 times while driving, just to hop out and take a picture of this cool Joshua Tree, then that one… you get the picture.

Lunar Light

One great thing about National Parks is that there’s always something else to do. After seeing our fill of Joshua Trees, we stopped at Keys View for a gorgeous look out over the desert hills, and the Coachella Valley beyond. Our pictures don’t quite capture the panoramic effect, so you’ll have to use the power of imagination.

Afterwards, we explored an area called “Hidden Valley,” which was entirely encircled by stone until a hole was blown open by cattle ranchers. Joshua Tree is big on literal names, apparently. We walked a mile loop inside Hidden Valley, enjoying the scenery, which was a mixture of boulders, different boulders, and trees.

Near the end of our hike, we were treated to a full moon rising over the valley cliffs, resulting in one of our favorite pictures from our entire trip (the featured image at the top).

All Downhill From Here

With night falling, we headed back to the Salton Sea from Hidden Valley after a long but very enjoyable day. The drive back itself was actually pretty great too, because Joshua Tree rises in elevation from south to north. After slowly making our way uphill all day, we rode back in neutral from ~6,000 feet to lower than sea level. It took about an hour total, and amazingly, we almost never needed to use the gas pedal the entire way. We have to say, quietly gliding through a national park beneath the full moon was an amazing experience.

As we exited the park, we were treated to one last delight: a spectacular sunset over the valley below. The desert is awesome.

Previous Post: Week 30: The Stinking Salton Sea

Next Post: Weeks 31-32: The City of Angels (and Traffic)

Roadtrip Status

Still alive? Check.

Where are you now? Portland, Oregon, where we’ve had an awesome string of weather (until today).

Next location? Seattle, Vancouver, etc.

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March 29, 2016 In Road Trip

We Finally Made A Plan

We like to cultivate an air of mystery. People often ask us, “where are you now?” “In our RV,” we will reply, mysteriously. It’s a solid gag, but to be honest, we really do hate planning or doing anything to restrict our future selves. (Gotta leave room for laziness.)

But we did it: we finally made a plan! Our goal of meeting up with people on the road, along with the grim reality of National Park reservations, meant we could put off our strategery no longer. Of course, because we didn’t actually make any reservations yet, or even research any of this, everything is still subject to change.

Nonetheless, the first step is the hardest, so please enjoy our soaring, graceful leap into a marginally structured life.

Check out the itinerary below, slightly vague for our own protection, and let us know if you’d like to meet up anywhere. (We’re getting rather good at sightseeing.) Our hope is to visit as many national parks as possible before the trip ends or we run out of money, because this country’s national parks are amazing.

Since you’re probably now wondering, the tentative end of our road trip is September/October 2016. Final destination still TBD. After, we’ll have to head back to work, relying once again on our wit and our skills to make it to the top.

The Plan

last updated March 29, 2016

We’re nearly at the end of March. We’re finishing up in the Bay Area, then heading north to check out the redwoods in northern California / southern Oregon. That should take about two weeks.

For the rest of April, we’ll be swinging up the coast to Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver. There’s lots of good stuff along the way, including Mount Rainier and Olympic National Park. (Here’s hoping we don’t have to ford any rivers to get there.)

In May, we’ll head southeast and drive a circuit around Utah, visiting Salt Lake City and the many, many national parks in this area, including the Grand Canyon, Zion, Canyonlands, and Arches. Should be a pretty good month.

In June, we’ll keep the nature rolling by driving north into Wyoming, visiting the Grand Tetons before spending two weeks at Yellowstone National Park (hopefully).

In July, we’ll head even farther north to Glacier National Park, where we will meet up with family (also hopefully) forbiddingly far from civilization. We’ll also explore the rest of Montana and the “Duelin’ Dakotas,” as they’re probably known.

In August, we’d like to visit whatever is scenic in Minnesota and Wisconsin, including Madison and Milwaukee. From there, we’ll drop down to our old friend, Chicago, and… well, here’s where things get really hazy (read: unplanned). We may continue on to a few more adventures (bourbon distilleries in Kentucky? Florida Keys with an RV?), but at some point we have to return to mundane life.

Where that will be? Hard to say. Could be somewhere old, could be someplace new.

As we said, it’s TBD.

Cheers from your friends in full-time teamwork,

Jake and Heather

via GIPHY

Previous Post: Week 24: A Forest of Stone

Next Post: Week 24+: Driving Down and Climbing Up in Phoenix

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March 28, 2016 In Road Trip, Travelogues

Week 24: A Forest of Stone

One of our goals of our road trip is to see all the cool stuff you always hear about, but rarely get to see. Lots of people visit the Grand Canyon in their lifetimes, but how many go to Death Valley? (a million people per year, actually) Well, a big item on our road trip bucket list was seeing the Petrified Forest in northern Arizona, the next stop on our tour after Albuquerque. The idea always just amazed us – wood that turned to stone?!

So we checked it out, and we have to say, petrified wood is pretty cool, but it may have been a little too high on our bucket list. That said, the park has more than just petrified wood, and is definitely worth visiting.

Mmm, Dessert

We entered Petrified Forest National Park off interstate I-40 (easiest national park to get to ever), which started us in the northern half of the park. This area doesn’t have petrified wood; instead, it’s a preserved part of Arizona’s Painted Desert, a huge stretch of beautifully colored badlands in northern Arizona. (Badlands is the term for when the area is dry, hilly, and covered with ridges like bunched up fabric.)

The terrain was mostly flat, so we could see for miles in every direction from the overlooks. With bright colors and numerous striations in an otherwise featureless desert, it was extraordinarily scenic. Reminds us of the surface of Mars (probably).

While exploring the Painted Desert, we stopped at the Painted Desert Inn, which is now owned by the park service and serves as an art gallery. (It’s also home to an extremely lucky artist-in-residence!) The upper floor features a preserved 1950’s style diner that we found pretty groovy.

Downstairs, we found a single room with some cheese and crackers set out. A lonely-looking volunteer employee told us that the park service was having a party for the whateverth anniversary of the Inn, but it seemed like they forgot to send out any invitations. (Or maybe it had something to do with being a Tuesday afternoon in December in the empty part of Arizona.)

The volunteer proceeded to talk at us for a while, in a heartfelt but misguided attempt teach us about a local historical figure we have definitely since forgotten. [Ed. note – we think it was this guy] We were too polite to interrupt, but we got to eat a lot of cheese while they rambled, so all in all it turned out pretty well.

Mmm, More Dessert

After admiring the scenery in the Painted Desert, we drove back over the interstate to the Petrified Forest proper. There were some petroglyphs along the way, but we couldn’t get any good pictures of them. Honestly, after Gila, Albuquerque, and Bandelier, we were feeling petroglyphed-out, so we moved on quickly.

There are petroglyphs all over these rocks, but it was hard to see them.

The scenery continued to be beautiful, subtly changing from area to area but still maintaining a stark beauty. We saw the pinks and reds of the Painted Desert shift to blues, purples and grays in the next section of the park, where the ancient Blue Mesa rock formations can be found.

Hard Woods

We soon came to the Petrified Forest. Cool fact time! The trees that created this petrified wood fell more than two hundred million years, then became encased in silt and volcanic ash. Over millions of years, silica leeched into the trees via the groundwater, replacing the organic core with solid rock. They still look just like wood from the outside, but it’s pure stone.

Break off the bark or look from the side, and you can see that the rings have been fully replaced, sometimes with dazzling colors. Interestingly, the crystalline structure of petrified wood causes it to cleanly break apart into round sections. Although it’s the hand of nature, it looks for all the world like two people with an old-timey saw went through and cut it into pieces!

Petrified Forest National Park features a huge variety of petrified wood, although it’s not the only place it can be found. In fact, there used to be much more wood at the Petrified Forest, but people have been stealing it for over a century. Luckily, plenty remains, including some really huge pieces that would be rather… difficult to acquire. The largest weighs 44 tons.

As a final note, you may have noticed a lot of crow pictures in the galleries. Well, aside from being easy to photograph, crows were everywhere in the park, and not remotely afraid of humans. Crows: the squirrels of the desert?

Extra Credit

While visiting Petrified Forest National Park, we stayed in Holbrook, Arizona. The RV park was fine, although a little odd. The attendant was friendly, and we definitely were taken care of hookup-wise, since each spot had row after row of sewer connections. This is pretty weird because we really could only ever use 1; it felt a little like getting 20 calculators to “help” take a math test.

Previous Post: Week 23: That Albuquerque Sun

Next Post: We Finally Made a Plan

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Still alive? Check.

Where are you now? Still in Napa, California, writing a million blog posts.

Next location? Somewhere northwest of here, probably Arcata or Eureka, CA, to see more redwoods and do a little maintenance on our car and RV.

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March 7, 2016 In Road Trip, Travelogues

Week 17.1: Around The Big Bend

We talked in our last blog post about our week in Marfa, a cool desert art town in the middle of nowhere, but our day trip from Marfa to Big Bend National Park deserved its own post. Big Bend is a remote desert wonderland, a giant wilderness preserve chock full of crazy mountains, beautiful vistas, and incredible surprises.

It’s so spectacular, it nearly made us sick.

Location, Location, Location

Let’s start with location: to say Big Bend is “remote” does not do it justice. The park is about 100 miles south of Marfa, which we have already established is in the middle of nowhere, so it is fair to say that Big Bend is 100 miles south of the middle of nowhere. You might call it the edge of nowhere.

The edge of the edge of nowhere is the Rio Grande, which is also the U.S.-Mexico border. The other edges are desert. There are few roads that lead to Big Bend, and the closest airport of any size is in El Paso. The closest “city” is Alpine, Texas, population 6,000, about an hour away. As you will see, the only nearby town, Terlingua, is part ghost.

Suffice it to say, getting to Big Bend is not an easy task, and we saw few other people when we visited (probably less than 100 total). Adding to the feeling of isolation is the park’s huge size: about 800,000 acres, slightly larger than Rhode Island. Unlike Rhode Island, of course, there are no cool hippy markets or walks along fabulous oceanside mansions, but on the plus side, there are a lot of bears.

Wait. Is that really a plus?

Ye Olde Ghost Towne

Our first stop on the way to Big Bend was at Terlingua, a ghost town with a twist. Terlingua was once a mining community, before it went bust, and the ruins of the town still remain, slowly decaying in the desert. Spooky ghost town graveyard? Sign us up.

Terlingua’s twist is that some flesh-and-blood humans still live there, right alongside the ruins. These hardy folk provide services to park entrants and visitors to the edge of nowhere, running a few restaurants, a cafe, and a gift shop. We might have thought they were ghosts too, but no ghost would have the gumption to charge $4.50 for a large iced coffee. (We would have been mad except that the coffee was delicious, and also, there were no alternatives within 60 miles.)

One of the few shops in town is an art gallery, and surprisingly (?), they had some cool sculptures on display outside. Our favorite was a piece called “Blow Out Survivor,” which the accompanying text explained was created from the melted remains of a natural gas well that caught fire. It burned for three days, and at the end, portions of the crankshaft, engine, and gearing were fused together.

We don’t have a gas well, but we were reliant on modern engineering, in the form of our poor Honda Fit. The question of whether it would be “blowout” or “survivor” was yet to come.

Bear Patrol

After we had finished being gouged by the local merchants, we headed into the park itself. On the way in, we got to live the dream of anyone who has ever visited a National Park: we bought a National Parks Pass! $80 for one years’ free access to every federal park and national monument. Access fees are normally $10-$25, so it’s a decent deal if you plan to visit 4 or more parks in a year. It’s an extraordinarily great deal if you do something crazy like, say, quitting your job to travel around in an RV for a year.

And so, pass in hand, we were ready to Big Bend it like Beckham. As we mentioned before, the park is massive, but there are essentially three distinct regions: mountain, desert, and river. Part of the charm lies in how they all pile up on top of each other, particularly the mountains and the desert.

The remainder of the charm is how stinking beautiful it all is.

Our first stop was at the visitor center, located in the mountains. We had planned our trip to Big Bend the way we usually plan things – which is to say, not at all – so we asked about the hikes and the best places to see. While there, we noticed a map on the wall with lots of yellow sticky notes:

The sticky notes turned out to be recent bear sightings. We ended up doing the Lost Mine hike, which is relatively short but offers an amazing view of the nearby valleys. As you can see, the hike also was smack dab in the middle of a field of bear-related post-it notes, but we trusted to blind luck and nobody got mauled, not even a little. There was a tense moment where we heard leaves rustling right next to us on the trail – a moment in which we considered whether cacti could be used as a weapon – but it just turned out to be a family of deer.

After catching our breath and cursing Bambi, we continued up the trail and were treated to some spectacular views.

However, the Lost Mine hike is where we discovered one of the iron laws of hiking: if you ever start to feel like a badass, for example by hiking up a mountain full of bears 100 miles south of the middle of nowhere, you will immediately be disabused of that notion. In this case, it was via the couple that passed us, with an infant strapped to their back, hardly breaking a sweat.

We really wanted to ask why you would ever bring a baby to Big Bend, but they seemed like they knew what they were doing. Instead we just had them take a picture of us, shortly before before they continued on the trail and we wussed out and headed back. Thanks guys!

Just Deserts

After a picnic lunch, we headed down out of the mountains and began exploring the rest of the park. Or, at least, the small slice of it we could see in one day. For two people raised in the temperate Northeast, the desert sights were fascinating.

Colorful mountains and cacti!

Endless wilderness!

Road runners! (!!!)

It’s nearly impossible to capture the grandeur and the magic of Big Bend; whatever you’re picturing, it’s much cooler than that.

Unfortunately, we ran into a small, slightly murderous issue. A day that started off comfortably warm, around 70 degrees, continued to grow hotter as the sun progressed across the sky. By mid-afternoon it was approximately 90 degrees, and even though the park is mostly traversed by car, we had spent a deceptively long amount of time walking around at each of the different stops.

Dehydration is always a special concern in the desert, because of the heat and the sun, but it can sneak up on you. Your sweat evaporates so quickly in the intensely dry air that you don’t realize you’re sweating. We had brought two Nalgene bottles full of water, but they were draining at an alarming rate, and the extreme size of the park meant that we were miles away from refilling stations.

Oh, and remember how we mentioned we don’t always super-plan ahead? Yeah, well, it’s normally fine, but every once in a while, it really bites us in the ass. This was one of those times, because we stupidly split a bottle of wine the night before we went to Big Bend. There was probably a good reason for it, like being a Monday, but we were definitely a bit dehydrated before we ever arrived. Combine with the sun and the heat and that oh-so-dry air, and you’re gonna have a bad time.

Well, one of us, anyway. We both have our strengths and weaknesses: Jake doesn’t get blisters or sunburns, and he can open jars, but he’s bad with heights, or anything requiring “stamina” or “dexterity.” Heather is pale like a ghost and can’t reach the top of our cabinets, but she’s graceful and a trooper, and, as it turns out, immune to dehydration. So she continued driving and taking photos of the beautiful landscape, as Jake slowly curled into a ball in the passenger seat.

We did eventually get more water, at one of the park’s campgrounds – after first refilling a bottle from a bathroom faucet with water so awful-tasting, it must not have been potable – but it was a little too late, and things were progressing from bad to worse. Our final stop of the day was the beautiful Santa Elena Canyon, split by the Rio Grande and therefore standing in both the United States and Mexico. Heather wanted to ford the river for more photos, but the shadows were growing long, so we decided to head back.

A Bump In The Night

Just one problem: actually getting back.

You see, the Big Bend scenic drive is about 45 miles long, and although it looks like a loop, the paved part ends at Santa Elena. The final leg of the loop is actually a dirt road, recommended for four-wheel drive cars only, although a ranger had told us regular cars (like our Fit) drive on it all the time. There’s no other exit there, so the only options were to drive an hour back the way we came to the park entrance, or take a short, 12-mile drive over Old Maverick Road, which is unpaved. (lower left on this map)

With Jake feeling really awful, we picked the dirt road. Let us advise you if you ever visit Big Bend and face a similar scenario: do not pick the dirt road. Why, you ask? Well, it’s more like a “loose fist-sized rocks” road, and every single one of the twelve million bumps will (1) cause you to think your tires are going to explode, just like that gas well in Terlingua, leaving you stranded in the desert emptiness; and (2) make your sick passenger’s stomach do flipflops, to the point where you both begin to wonder whether throwing up in a National Park is a violation of federal littering laws.

Oh, and because the road is in such horrible condition, your max speed will be something like 10 miles per hour, meaning that the route is actually slower than just driving back on the well-maintained, non-tire-exploding scenic drive. Except you’re also racing the setting sun, because the only thing more difficult than driving on that spin cycle of a road is doing it in the all-encompassing darkness of night in a desert National Park located 100 miles south of the middle of nowhere.

via GIPHY

Not to spoil the ending, but we did eventually make it out alive, thanks to Heather’s skillful driving, a Honda Fit that didn’t quit, and our old friend, blind luck. Plus, Jake avoided littering in a National Park! Once we made it back to Terlingua, some general store aspirin and Pepto Bismol set him right as rain, and the drive back was smooth sailing (emphasis on smooth).

We finished off a looooong day with food from the Sonic Burger in the big city of Alpine, tired but happy. Big Bend is an extraordinary place, but it will likely be a long time before we go back – which is just fine with Jake.

RECENT NEWS

What’s now: We are leaving Morro Bay to visit Pinnacles National Park. Another notch for the National Parks Pass!

What’s next: We’ve got a few short stays planned, because everything in California is brutally expensive. Monterey (and Big Sur), San Francisco, and then YOSEMITE!

Obligatory social media self-promotion: If you want to follow along and you haven’t yet, please Like us on Facebook and/or follow us on Twitter (@NothingMundane) and/or Instagram (NothingMundane) to make sure you get all the updates. We promise, no Big Bend sink water.

Shamefully missed a prior post? We made a list of the most recent ones, just for you. To see every road trip blog post, click here.

Next Post: Weeks 18-21(ish): Docked in El Paso

March 3, 2016 In Road Trip, Travelogues

Week 17: Tumbling In To Marfa

After a brief stay at the spectacular Caverns of Sonora, and carefully avoiding some crazy flooding, we headed west to our second-to-last Texas destination: Marfa, Texas. Marfa is a tiny town of approximately 2,000 people, located in the west Texas desert, one of the most middle-of-nowhere places you can find in the United States.

The stars on that map represent places we have stayed on our trip, so you can see the Caverns of Sonora to the east and El Paso to the west. We’ll get to the star near Amarillo much later…

You might imagine this to be the most boring drive imaginable, and you wouldn’t be wrong about that. The distances are long, the roads are painfully straight, and the cactus-to-person ratio is unmeasurably high. It’s certainly more relaxing than driving the RV through, say, New Orleans rush hour (protip: never do that), but you quickly run out of things to do. Jake spent his non-driving time holding his phone steady to make sped-up, “hyperlapse” videos of how intensely boring the drive was:

A 16x hyperlapse, so 5 minutes in about 18 seconds.

Another 16x hyperlapse (as best we can remember), driving into the big city of Alpine, Texas (population 6,000).

That said, the drive was still a lot different than we imagined. When we thought of the Texas desert before this trip, we pictured flat, sandy plains. However, one realization we have made from exploring the deserts of the Southwest is that “desert” almost always goes hand-in-hand with “mountains.” Desert scenery is spectacularly mountainous; if you look carefully in the hyperlapses, you can see ridges in the background. In person, the landscape is arrestingly beautiful.

And there is almost never sand. Sometimes we saw grass and trees, like back home. Mostly, Southwestern deserts are scrublands, endless fields of small green bushes atop brown, rocky soil. This makes the mountains stand out even further, and gives new, important meaning to TLC’s 1990s classic, “No Scrubs.”

The other thing worth knowing about the desert is that it is, as a nature documentary would say, a land of “contrasts” and “extremes.” What they mean by that is “it gets really freaking hot during the day, and really cold at night.” With so little humidity, temperature is overwhelmingly driven by the sun. Stand full in its glare, and you’ll be sweating; step three feet away into the shade, and the perceived temperature drops about thirty degrees, just like that. It doesn’t help that Marfa and much of the southwest is at a surprisingly high altitude (see, e.g., Santa Fe), so the temperature swings at night were, umm, rather extreme.

Wear layers.

So, back to Marfa. As we said, it is tiny, consisting of just a few streets and a single stoplight. Marfa historically existed for ranchers and as a stop-over for travelers, and during World War II, there was an Army base there. However, the future of the town took a very unique turn in the 1970s, when minimalist NYC artist Donald Judd began staying and working in Marfa part-time. He ultimately ended up buying huge amounts of property in the area, including the abandoned Army base, and created some stunning works of art in the middle of the desert. Over time, other members of the NYC art scene visited and worked in Marfa.

Today, Marfa still services ranchers and travelers, but it also has numerous museums and galleries. It’s a fun and funky place, with food trucks, an organic grocery store, and a campground named El Cosmico where you can stay in a teepee or a yurt. To the sometimes-consternation of the residents, these things have lead to Marfa becoming increasingly hip: BEYONCE stayed at El Cosmico. It’s really all pretty amazing, although the incongruities can be a bit jarring: for example, seeing a farmer’s dirty, hard-working pickup truck driving behind a gleaming new Escalade was surreal.

We stayed at an adorable RV park called the “Tumble In,” and it was tough to beat the sunsets or the price. If you’re ever just passing through the Chihuahan desert – as we all do, from time to time – it’s well worth a visit.

Since we were in Marfa, we stopped to see some of Judd’s work. Judd converted the Army base into a showcase for his and his friends’ work, installing large sculptures into the existing buildings. For example, three warehouse-sized structures contained a series of beautiful, polished, waist-high aluminum rectangles, each one with different sides and interiors. We weren’t allowed to take pictures of them, but you can see some here. Outside, 15 huge concrete forms – mostly hollow, open-ended cubes – made for silent, geometric guardians in the desert. It was all extremely cool. There was more, including a series of colored light installations set up in former barracks halls, and a downtown warehouse full of sculptures made from crushed cars, but you’ll have to visit Marfa to see them.

We took a day trip outside of Marfa to go hiking in the Davis Mountains, about a half-hour to the north. (Do you like straight, flat roads with no humans? If so, that is the drive for you.) We stopped in to the visitor center to make sure the hiking trails hadn’t been washed away in the recent flooding, and the friendly female worker there assured us they hadn’t. Then, she excitedly told us that the hike was “great” because there was a “huge black rattlesnake” at the top of the mountain we’d be climbing.

“You and I have very different definitions of ‘great,'” Jake said. But we never encountered the rattlesnake, and the hike was a good tune-up for our next adventure: Big Bend National Park (blog post sold separately).

We’re getting slightly ahead of ourselves, but we wanted to show you one more thing near Marfa, since it’s semi-famous for it. (Marfa is also famous for the Marfa Lights, but the night we tried to see them was cloudy, and nothing appeared.) About 20 miles northwest of Marfa, on the way to El Paso, artists created the Prada Marfa store. It’s a fake boutique with some real (but unusable) Prada products inside, all alone in the middle of the desert. It’s a symbol, a prank, and a fantastic photo opportunity, all rolled into one.

RECENT NEWS

What’s now: We are in Morro Bay, California, celebrating Jake’s birthday!

What’s next: We are heading to Pinnacles National Park, followed by some more of coastal California.

Shamefully missed a prior post? We made a list of the most recent ones, just for you. To see every road trip blog post, click here.

Next Post: Week 17.1: Around the Big Bend

November 26, 2015 In Road Trip, Travelogues

Week 11.5: The Greenbelt in the Beltway

Hi friends,

We’re a bit further behind than usual after spending the last 3 weeks in El Paso making some major renovations to our RV: we replaced the floor, the countertops, faucets, a sink, a backsplash, and more. Not to toot our own horns, but it looks pretty great! We’ll post some pictures soon.

In the meantime, let’s reminisce about that time we went to Washington, D.C. Cue obligatory White House selfie.

Capitol Camping

After leaving Pennsylvania behind, we headed south towards Washington, D.C., with some trepidation. We’ve had bad experiences on the Beltway before, but this trip was mercifully smooth. We headed to a national park right inside the Beltway called Greenbelt Park. Greenbelt Park is spacious, cheap ($16 a night), wooded, and totally empty – apparently because nobody knows about it. From their website’s FAQs:

Why haven’t I heard about Greenbelt Park or the Greenbelt Park campground ? Since we are a federal government agency, we cannot spend taxpayer dollars on advertisements. We rely on word of mouth, Internet, and campground directories. We are a hidden jewel of the National Park Service.

They claim to have never been totally full, and when we were there on a warm weekend in September, we were nearly alone. We saw more deer than people. Definitely unusual for a campground near a major city, so if you’re in the area, you might want to check it out.

Though, you might want to avoid the bathrooms.

They weren’t moving. Just staring.

Incidentally, the campground is extremely close to an Ikea. We went over and strolled through, to dream about throwing away all our crappy RV furniture and replacing it with real furniture. Or semi-real; it is Ikea, after all. But it turned out there was nothing there we really wanted (or could fit) except Swedish meatballs and a 99¢ toilet brush.

Well, we got the meatballs, but the line to buy the toilet brush was about a half hour too long. So, we gave up and, seeing nowhere else to return it, hid it in a potted plant. Sorry, Ikea!

Social Medium

Most of our time in D.C. was spent visiting friends, and we won’t bore you all with the details of people you may not know, but we will say thanks for a great time to Nila & Patrick, LD, Rachel, Ashi, Alex, and the other folks we met up with. We had delicious Sri Lankan food, delicious beers, and even an accidental front-row seat at a bar for the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight.

We did want to give a special shout-out to our friend and unpaid social media coach Kaoru, who allowed us to crash at her place and taught us how to use Twitter for personal benefit (our favorite kind of benefit!). Also, how to use it at all.

Kaoru was once the “Bravoholic,” which is like being an addict for social media about terrible reality shows, and now she is our “social medium,” a new term we just invented for probably the four millionth time. Among her other duties, she politely yells at us when we fail to post things correctly, which is frequent. She also helped us get free cupcakes, using the power of social media. Oh, and! She taught us what all the buttons do in the Twitter app, which sadly is not a joke.

Took @NothingMundane to @GTownCupcake @KatherineSophie Bethesda this morning! pic.twitter.com/Q5mH1wc1R7

— Kaoru (@Kay819) September 13, 2015

We wanted to say thanks for the help, so please feel free to visit her blog or twitter or instagram or… smoke signal region? Whatever the kids are into now. Everyone else, try to think about you how you can earn your own paragraph.

Nothing Mundane growing its social media presence (via GIPHY)

Strolling The Mall

We have both been to D.C. several times, but we decided to walk around and see all the tourist-y stuff again anyway. We took the Metro into downtown and although we walked about 8 miles, according to our pedometer, it felt like we barely scratched the surface. We saw the sculpture gallery, Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, White House, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, WWII & Korean War Memorials, the MLK Memorial (surprisingly weird), and many more miscellaneous fancy buildings. We have photos of some of our favorites below.

Sculpture Garden

National Museum of Natural History

Just like A Night at the Museum, except not at night, and without Ben Stiller or Owen Wilson. And nothing came alive. Otherwise, exactly the same.

We really enjoyed the gem and mineral collection at the museum. Our take aways: (1) the Hope Diamond isn’t all that big, and (2) minerals grow in crazy, cool ways – they can look furry, defy gravity, glow in the dark, and a million other naturally occurring, wholly unnatural things.

Monuments & Stately Buildings

Washington, especially the Mall, is just packed full of monuments and memorials. We tried to look up how many official monuments there are in DC, for a “fun” trivia fact, but our google-fu failed us. So we are going to say there are more than… five! Can you believe it??

Our favorite part? The below sign on the new Trump Hotel, very close to the White House. It reads “Coming 2016, Trump.” Amusing, but also, please God no.

LAST BITS

What’s next: Currently, we are back in El Paso for a home-cooked Thanksgiving. We’re headed back soon to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, where the sunsets are beautiful and the medicinal hot springs can out-cure any brand of snake oil.

Shamefully missed a prior post? We made a list of the most recent ones, just for you.

Next Post: Week 12: Footloose in Richmond