Everyone who knows me well (or maybe even a little bit) knows that I am the ultimate planner, and that I will take weeks and months (if I have that available) to put together the absolutely perfect plan for whatever it is I’m planning. Could be a trip like the one I’m on. Could be a big move to a new place. Could be a plan to look for a job after I move. Could be the plan for executing the perfect plan. Could be a plan to get ready to plan something. You get the idea…

So when things don’t go according to the plan (and it’s pretty much inevitable that there will be surprises along the way), I’ve learned over the years the necessity of being flexible and adaptable, ready to pivot and make a new plan. As a lawyer I was taught to plan for all eventualities when preparing a legal case because you never know what’s going to happen in the courtroom. This is especially true for contested trials with unpredictable witnesses and lawyers. You have to be able to “punt,” as my law professors put it, and just keep on going.

So with that as my preface, here’s how the last three days have gone:

Phoenix to Joshua Tree

The morning began bright and early. I had a long drive ahead of me (over 400 miles), and I could already tell it was going to be a scorcher, but I was happy to be getting back on the road after three (almost) unbearably hot days in the Arizona desert. Also, I was going to another happy accident of a meet-up, this time with my friend Angela (who, by the way, confessed that she is the one responsible for my quickly dwindling supply of caramels). Angela is a financial advisor guru extraordinaire, and was in Phoenix for a conference. I had rearranged my schedule ever so slightly so that we could overlap, and we had a great breakfast at the very poshy resort hotel where the conference was happening.

My next destination was over 400 miles away, at the Black Rock Campground, which is located within the Joshua Tree National Forest. I was excited about staying in the national forest as I have heard about it from other van campers who live in the Southwest or head this direction for the winter months. I had two 1938 stops along the way, the first in Blythe, CA and the second in Desert Center. Blythe was important because it is right on the border in California, and the 1938 travelers spent an overnight there and got their car inspected (it passed, according to the certificate in the scrapbook). As an aside, I went through an inspection station also, which I thought interesting, especially since they didn’t really inspect for anything and simply waved me through. I drove around Blythe just to get the flavor of it and find a park to let Sadie out for a bit. It was another blistering hot day, so we made our out-of-the-car breaks brief and kept on going.

Desert Center looked like it would be fun, based on the 1938 photos. I wasn’t taking small roads that day because the small road that the Larsons took simply doesn’t exist anymore, having been replaced by Route 10, which traverses across Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Desert Center was one exit and I took it, thinking maybe I’d find another park or ice cream or a snack.

I kept pushing and as I got further into California, Interstate 10 got bigger and busier. I was grateful when Google told me to get off and I got on a backroad that took me through several towns and across the beautiful landscape and up into the mountains where my campsite was. The Blackrock Campground was at the top of a mountain, and the view was breathtakingly beautiful! Nelly struggled a bit to get through the rough roads in the campground, but I managed to back into the site without falling victim to the many ruts and potholes in my path. Hardly anyone was camping way up there this time of year, and so it was peaceful that evening and the next morning.

Joshua Tree to Riverside

I took my time leaving Joshua Tree because I only had about a two hour drive to get to the next campground. I decided that I would make a day of it and hit both Banning and Riverside before going to the Silverwood Lake Recreation Area. I will talk about why I wanted to go to those two places in another article, because there is some important historical context for the 1938 group and what they saw there. For purposes of this article, all you need to know is that I wanted to go to those two specific towns and they were sort of on my way to the Silverwood Lake campground. A bit of a detour, but not by much and I had plenty of time.

As I got closer to the Los Angeles metropolitan area and my interim destinations, I found myself on an eight-lane super highway and I swear everyone was going 100 mph and they were all driving big 18-wheeler trucks. I also wanted to fill up with gas, having missed the opportunity to do so when I was still in Arizona, not realizing that as soon as I crossed into California, the per-gallon price immediately jumped by $1.00 or more (I am not exaggerating…). Many of you may already know this, but Native American lands often have gas stations with significantly cheaper gas, probably because they are not subject to the same taxes and fees that the states and federal government impose. So when I saw a string of casinos coming up, I suspected that I was in Native American territory and that there might be cheap(er) gas available. Yay! I was right! I filled up and was grateful to pay $4.39/gallon (I paid $2.97 in Alabama, and watched it steadily go higher and higher as I headed west). It has been way over $5.00/gal everywhere I’ve seen in California. I drove back onto the highway, threading my way into the speeding traffic, forcing them to let me in.

When I got to Banning I reset my Google maps to avoid highways and took small(ish) roads all the way to Riverside, which was great! That drive included passing some farmland where I saw a herd of burros standing and munching on a hillside with no fencing. There was no place to pull over to take a picture, but I definitely got a 1938 vibe for that part of the way from Banning to Riverside.

Eventually I got to Riverside, which is kind of huge and I didn’t really see anything of significance to the 1938 trip. After wandering around aimlessly I decided I had seen enough and was ready to get to the campsite.

Riverside to Silverwood Lake

It was 3 in the afternoon and I decided to leave my “avoid highways” on so that I wouldn’t get caught on the big highway during rush hour. I could already see some back-ups and figured the small roads might be slower but at least I’d be moving (and I wasn’t in a big hurry). So the road out of Riverside and through San Bernadino and all the towns in between was all on side streets, with lots of turns, stop signs and traffic lights. Having deliberately avoided highways while going through different cities several times now, it is becoming clear to me that once those big highways get built for the commuters and long distance drivers, whatever roads served that purpose in the past simply disappear, or degrade into nothing recognizable. To find one still intact is a treat. For someone like me trying to traverse several towns but not go on any highway, the only option is to drive through neighborhoods, passing local businesses, schools, and parks that serve only those neighborhoods. Sometimes I follow the highways but either right beside them or underneath them. I kind of like being on the urban back roads, seeing the city up close and personal rather than driving over it and missing everything. Super interesting! I had the same experience in Louisville and New Orleans, seeing those cities at the ground level. El Paso was a different story, it seemed virtually impossible to get anywhere there without being forced onto a big superhighway passing over or around the actual city streets.

At any rate I passed through all that urban area, where “real” people live, and eventually ended up at the foot of a very tall mountain. There was a sign suggesting that drivers may want to turn off their air conditioning for the next 14 miles to avoid overheating. I took note of it and kept on going. After all, I was going to be turning off the road after 10 miles and wouldn’t be going the whole 14.

Omg, omg, omg! This road went straight up into the San Bernadino mountains, and I mean straight up. The only good thing about it (initially) was the fact that it was four lanes and had multiple places to pull off, which I thought were for the scenic vistas, but in actuality they are for drivers who need to rest and cool their vehicles down before continuing. Nelly Bly roared her way up and up and up, and I tried not to look down or to the right of the vehicle because I was on the outside edge and the guardrails were very low, if they were there at all. No shoulder. Just a straight drop-off. The hairpin curves were posted at 25mph or less. I used the pull-out areas to take pictures but also to catch my breath. I thought driving in the city earlier in the day was stressful, but this mountain was on another level (literally and figuratively).

The drive was not all uphill, some of it was also downhill because I was driving through mountains (plural), meaning I was going both up and down. I finally got pretty high up and Google told me to get off at the only exit I had seen on the way up, at which point I assumed that things would level off even though I still had another 10 miles to go. Nope. It was just as bad as before, the only difference being that now I was on a narrow two-lane road instead of a wide four-lane one. Still no shoulder. Occasional pull-out areas, which I used to let faster vehicles nipping at my heels pass me by. Up and down and all around. Tight hairpin curves. Braking on the down and roaring the engine as I accelerated on the up. Then I made the mistake of missing a turnoff in a little town built right into the mountainside and had to figure out how to turn my rig around. Went a mile or so in the wrong direction before I could safely turn around, and when I got back to the turn I had missed, I had to navigate an extremely sharp right turn (it felt like a 45 degree angle turn rather than a more sensible 90 degree turn) to get on the correct road. Made it - whew!

Now I was on yet another, more narrow, road going about 10 miles per hour to make sure I navigated all the curves successfully. By this point I was cursing myself for not reading my manual about how to use the gears to downshift when on steep hills. I was driving down on a 7% grade for much of the way down to where the lake and campsite were, nestled in a valley in the middle of the mountains. My Promaster didn’t have an obvious way to downshift (symbols and pictures that I didn’t understand), and I wasn’t sure how to do it so I just carefully and slowly made my way down the mountain, trying not to ride the brakes, but being aware of how hot my little van’s engine and brakes probably were and hoping they would hold on.

When I finally saw the road level out and the speed limit go up to 50, I heaved a sigh of relief. The rest of the trip to the campground was a piece of cake compared to the previous hour and a half of white-knuckle driving. I’m surprised I don’t have lockjaw from all the teeth-gritting I did.

Throwing Out The Plan

It seems obvious now that when one is planning a trip to an unfamiliar place and making decisions based only on maps, you won’t necessarily be aware of the changes in topography between the points on the map unless you ask the question and do the research. On a map one town looks like another. Roads are just thick or thin lines and look manageable, even the curvy ones. Cities and towns are dots of varying sizes. It’s all rather flat, as maps tend to be. So I skipped the step of researching the condition of the roads I would be driving on, and just assumed I’d be able to navigate myself everywhere I want to go, even in mountains. You’d think a planner like me would have more sense than to live up to the proverb about making assumptions. You know the one, right? Well, I am living proof of its accuracy.

In the original plan for the trip, I had booked this site at Silverwood Lake (which I thought was just outside of the Los Angeles area) for four nights, intending to use it as a base camp while I explored the city and found the 1938 destinations and addresses that I want to check out. The harrowing trip up the mountain and down to the lake sent that plan out the window. I was an hour and a half from anywhere and couldn’t see making even one three hour round trip back and forth on those mountain roads over the next three days.

At this point, I was faced with a dilemma. I could forego the sights in the LA area and just spend some refresh and renew time at the campsite for the next three days. I would miss seeing those sights but then again, I did not relish the idea of facing the famous LA city traffic and navigating those busy roads again.

That might have been a reasonable pivot except for the fact that after my harrowing driving adventure to get here, the campground itself turned out not to be the respite that I needed if that’s what I was going to do. There were several issues that made me hesitant to stay here more than a day:

• The campground was not located anywhere near the actual Silverwood Lake. I could see it from the road as I was approaching the park turnoff, but as soon as I turned into the park I lost sight of it and discovered that there is no place from the campground area where you have a view of the lake, which is some distance further down the mountain.

• I chose my campsite spot because it was at the end of a line of camp spaces. Normally this would be a good idea because I only have one spot next to me and no one on the other side or to the back of me. However, just off of my spot is a circle loop where the bigger rigs have to go to turn themselves around when entering or leaving. Also, there is a dumpster right there so I not only had the smell from the dumpster (and a lot of people traffic coming and going to said dumpster), but also the smell from the exhaust whenever a truck or RV went down to the loop to turn themselves around.

• This is a weekend, and the campground is full. It is clearly a destination campground for families because there are children everywhere and dogs everywhere. Generally I don’t mind either, but I didn’t find it very relaxing to be around so much noise from vehicles coming and going (mostly very big trucks), adults talking to children and to each other, children laughing or screaming or crying or just generally being children, dogs barking, music blaring. I’m really glad that these families are having such a good time, but that isn’t the vibe I was looking for or needed, especially after my relatively quiet nights in Arizona and Joshua Tree. In fact, most of the places I’ve been camping have been quiet and peaceful places even when there are young families around.

Bottom line was that within the first few minutes of arriving I knew I didn’t want to stay here for four nights. And it wasn’t just my fatigue and stress talking. But I decided to sleep on it and see how I felt in the morning.

Punting to a New Plan and Making Lemonade

So after my most stressful and tiring lemon of a day on this trip so far, here is how I made lemonade:

1. Had a morning Zoom call with my brother Sam. I had not had anyone to bounce this around with so he listened while I talked my situation over and hashed through my options.

2. After the Zoom call Sadie and I went on a long walk down the mountain. I was determined to find the lake and we did! It was very beautiful and it was early enough in the day that almost no one was around and I could let Sadie run around to her heart’s content. She even got a bit of a swim! (don’t tell anyone, dogs were strictly forbidden to be anywhere on the beach). She clearly needed a respite day as well.

3. After returning from the walk I set to work researching my next move. I studied my maps and put together a new game plan for seeing the sights that I wanted to hit in Los Angeles. I figured that navigating the complexities of the city on a Sunday morning will likely be infinitely easier than trying to do it on a workday. So I plotted out what I wanted to see and the order that I wanted to see them so as to take full advantage of the (relatively) quiet Sunday morning traffic.

4. Then I went to Booking.com with an idea of where I wanted to end up after my Sunday tour. I found a reasonably priced pet-friendly Motel 6 (reviews said the room was clean and perfectly adequate for 1 or 2 nights) and booked it for two nights. Made a plan for Monday that would not require a trip into the city of Los Angeles or Hollywood but would cross the remaining must-see spots off my list before leaving for Bakersfield. Done!

5. I went to the campground office and told them I would be leaving after 2 nights, not 4. They happily refunded my last two nights. Yay!

6. At that point I felt great and very relaxed about everything. I had put the question to my senior van camping ladies group on Facebook about the best way to navigate the mountain roads in my camper, and got a lot of very helpful responses. So I’m feeling pretty good about driving my way out of here in the morning.

7. To top off the day I decided to give Nelly a much needed bath. I have water and electric hookup, and my site is located at the very end of the strip of sites, and most of the other campers and their families were out and about and not at the campsite. Even though using the water at a campsite for this purpose is generally frowned upon, if not actually prohibited, I decided that Nelly had been bearing up pretty well on all the dirt roads, rutted roads, pothole-filled roads, and narrow mountain roads, and that she deserved to be rewarded for her efforts. Also, she was filthy and it was getting harder and harder to tell if she was actually white or rather an off-white beige. I tried to be judicious with my water use, and she sparkled when I was done (of course, I could only reach so high, so there is a bit of a dirty rim around the top, and the front top edge is still full of bug spatter, but I ask you, who looks up that high?).

Next Steps

Feeling refreshed and renewed, I will find my way back down the mountain (after checking the map I’ve determined that there may be a less harrowing route available) and explore Los Angeles tomorrow. In a future article I will bring the Larsons back into the story and chronicle the historical context of their 1938 Los Angeles experience. I will also be working on an upcoming “Life in the Van” article for the curious among you (thanks for the idea, Roberta!), and invite you to email me questions you might have about my van lifestyle. I’ll try to answer them and also provide some tips for anyone considering a trip like this or wondering what it’s like and what I’m learning along the way.

Till next time!