Most Walmarts let RVers overnight in the far corner of their parking lot.  They’ve found that they average about $30 in sales from each one.

After spending several hours driving up forest service roads looking for a place to boondock (too steep and narrow to park) and checking out rest stops (full of noisy diesel trucks idling overnight), we were glad to find a place to stop.

We didn’t expect this to be our last night in the woods quite yet.  A tiny campground in Southern Oregon, with a couple inches of snow.  The “iron ranger” had no blank registration forms or price list, so I just dropped $20 in.

Obligatory Golden Gate Bridge photo.

When we set out on this journey, we thought we’d settle here…and if we were into big cities, this’d be a great choice…but after all this time camping in the wilderness, wandering the blue highways, and chatting with small-town folk, we’ve both lost our taste for the noise, pollution, etc.
Besides, we both already lived in THE city! I’ll always love New York, and especially Brooklyn, but I don’t want to breathe that crap and deal with that frantic energy on a regular basis now. It’s gonna be hard enough adapting to living indoors, and as a matter of fact we have already been talking about the next trip, or maybe full-timing…

Once again, our system of driving until we get tired, then looking for a campsite, has paid off well. We had actually planned to stay at a different state park, but eventually realized we had missed the turn-off for that one – so we consulted our trusty map and decided to give Butano a try.

It was beautiful – out in the redwoods, with almost nobody else around. We stayed for 2 nights, and enjoyed a lovely hike down a fire road (we couldn’t take the dog on the trails), that was absolutely stunning.

The only seeming drawback was that there were no shower facilities. We were heading into San Francisco next, and had already been several days without a shower, so we decided to break out our solar shower. However, we were in the middle of the forest – tall redwoods all around, so there was no sun to head the water – and it was COLD.

Peter decided to try heating water on the stove and pouring it into the solar shower bag. We hung it off the side of the car, stripped down, and enjoyed lovely hot showers in the middle of January in the woods. Needless to say, it was chilly – but quite invigorating!

Boondocking is basically camping without a campground…whether it be in a Walmart parking lot, or on the side of a quiet mountain road as we did, somewhere off Route 1. Here’s pix of a couple of my favorite girls enjoying the redwoods out there:

Just a few shots from our journey up the Pacific Coast…

The incredible Pacific Ocean:

Someone had taken the trouble to make many of these gravity-defying rock piles at one of the places we stopped along the coast:

Peter and the Let’s Go at the ocean:

And our dashboard buddha, enjoying the ride:

Enjoying our little home on wheels:

Pacific Ocean sunsets…wow…sorry Atlantic, but this is mind-blowing:

Weird sand-castles in the morning:

If you have Quicktime, you should be able to click the link below and navigate around in a 360 degree panorama of the beach at Carpenteria:

Carpinteria QuickTime VR Panorama

Crossing the desert:

Spent a night near Joshua Tree Рa surprisingly hip little town, complete with the funky Beatnik Caf̩ (they even serve real chai!):

Crossing the mountains:

And, as we neared the San Diego-Los Angeles sprawl, what did we see? A gigantic wind farm!

Sigh… we’re getting closer to someplace we can call home.