Travel from Desert Hot Springs to Orange, CA

We departed Catalina Spa and RV Resort in Desert Hot Springs, California, and headed to a couple of weeks at Orangeland RV Park in Orange, California — conveniently located about 10 minutes from Disneyland. Yep, we spent five days at the Disneyland and Disney California Adventure parks! You can bet there will be posts about those coming up soon.

Here’s the route map (right to left); 100 miles, about three hours drive in our coach. A non-stop drive, since California apparently doesn’t believe in rest areas (or road maintenance):

Map route

Paladin started on top of the kitchen counter; he complained a few times, but was quiet for most of the journey:

Paladin

As always, Jenn drove our coach. She prefers to drive, and doesn’t enjoy being a passenger, and I feel the opposite, so that works out best for both of us:

Jenn driving

It’s much more common for men to drive RVs than women, so people are sometimes surprised when they learn she is the driver. She’s a member of a Tiffin Lady Drivers Facebook group (with 824 members), for female drivers of Tiffin motorhomes.

The onramp to the I-10 freeway, with a snow-tipped mountain and wind turbines in the background:

Mountain, wind turbines, freeway

Paladin used his top-entry litter box while in transit:

Paladin

One area attraction we didn’t get to, but will in the future, are some big dinosaurs:

Dinosaurs

I have a phone holder to help me keep an eye on one of the RV-safe GPS apps; I have it mounted via a suction cup to a plate on the pull-out desk for the passenger chair (on which rests one of Paladin’s cardboard nests):

Phone holder

The shortest route, via CA-60, was closed for repairs, so we continued on I-10:

Freeway closed

More freeway scenes:

Freeway

Nearing our destination:

Freeway

The entrance of Orangeland RV Park:

Orangeland RV Park

After unhooking our truck, I drove it following our coach to our site:

Our coach

As usual, I’ll have a post about our experiences at this RV park after we’ve left it. And a timelapse video of the trip tomorrow. I still need more subscribers to the Sinclair Trails channel, so if you haven’t yet, please do so.

Catalina Spa and RV Resort

One of the first campsite reservations we made when starting this adventure was at Catalina Spa and RV Resort in Desert Hot Springs, California. (Campground Reviews listing.)

Dates: 2022-01-20 to 2022-02-06 (17 nights).

Weather: sunny, windy several days (gusts up to 40 mph), high temps around averaging 70°F, lows around 50°F.

Noise: from neighboring sites, but no trains or road noise.

Site: back-in, sand, full hookups (50 amp power, water, sewer), small, about 45 feet long by 18 feet wide, with hedges on both side. No table or fire pit. Not really enough room for our truck, but fortunately there was parking behind our site.

Internet: unreliable single-device Wi-Fi; T-Mobile good, AT&T and Verizon okay.

Amenities: mail service, daily garbage pickup, pool, rec room, various outdoor games.

Here’s the review Jenn wrote on Campground Reviews:

So much potential, in need of a refurb

We had high hopes for this resort based on reviews and YouTube walk-throughs, but it seems to have gone downhill since then. At its peak, this would have been a fantastic place, but it’s looking a little rough around the edges. The pools and spas could have been spectacular but were kind of average. The temperatures were erratic (for instance: one day, the upper spa was maybe one degree warmer than the pool), and the plaster was starting to look a little shabby. Despite numerous signs that you must rinse before going into the pool, I never saw anyone else doing so. Signs regarding glass containers were similarly ignored, especially in the “family pool,” which was party central in the afternoon. If you’re looking for a nice quiet soak in the hot springs, look elsewhere. It is nice that the pools are open 24/7, but they need to fix the lights around the upper pool. Several streetlights are missing or burnt out, and it was a very dark walk back to the coach after we had a post-dinner swim.

Our site was supposedly an “Elite Plus” site, described as “50 amp service, landscaped dirt/gravel/sandy mix site; may come with a cement slab; full hook-ups, includes wifi & cable, more spacious & private site with a great view maximum size 55′”. Not in a million years would I describe the site as “spacious” or “private” or as having a “great view”. Our 40′ motorhome barely fit from front to back and we had to trim some of the oleander shrubs to make it work. There was no way we could fit our tow vehicle beside it and have any outdoor living space so we parked it around the corner. Even so, we barely had room for our rug and chairs between the coach and the shrubs. Our neighbors were so close we could watch and listen to their TV. When there wasn’t someone in a site across the way we sort of had a glimpse of the distant hills, so I guess that counts as a “view”, but mostly all we could see was our neighbors and their trucks parked all along the roadside. I would knock out about half the interior sites and make them all really long pull-throughs. Considering that the park was never full the entire time we were there (in peak season), it’s not like they’d lose a ton of revenue.

The paid WiFi we got with our site was very slow and continuously disconnected and was only good for one device. In order to do Zoom calls for work, I had to use the 5G connection on my cellphone for reliable service. We camped at Catalina Spa RV Resort in a Motorhome.

Here’s the map:

Map

The satellite view:

Satellite view

Pulling in off the road, a welcome sign and a glimpse of the office:

Office and sign

The entrance security gate (opened via a proximity card):

Security gate

Horseshoes, cornhole, etc games:

Horseshoes, cornhole, etc games

An entertainment / party area:

Entertainment area

The lower clubhouse:

Clubhouse

They have a mail room, but were getting overwhelmed with packages, so had non-USPS ones available for pickup in the clubhouse:

Clubhouse

Looking out the window at the lower pool:

Pool

The pools at this resort are fed by mineral hot springs, which is quite pleasant… though the temperature regulation was a bit inconsistent, being warmer or cooler on various days. We enjoyed the pools several times during our stay:

Pool

A sign:

Sign

Rock art:

Rock art

Our campsite:

Our campsite

We could almost fit our truck next to our coach, but it would have been a tight squeeze:

Our campsite

Our rug, chairs, and table:

Seating area

Me sitting underneath the bedroom slide-out for shade:

David

Jenn:

Jenn

A view of our campsite from the back:

Our campsite

We couldn’t go back any further, due to a shrub. But there’s a gap behind the shrub leading to an overflow parking area, where we parked our truck:

Our campsite

Our truck

Our truck and coach

The hookups were conveniently located, though I couldn’t get a good seal on the sewer, as the screw was mounted too low:

Our campsite

A wander around, looking at other sites:

Other sites

The upper pool, which we preferred:

Pool

Playground:

Playground

Pickleball:

Pickleball

Mini golf:

Mini golf

We enjoyed a round:

Mini golf

Cabins:

Cabins

A pair of ponds:

Pond

A pair of ducks; I always enjoy a duck sighting:

Pond and ducks

Duck

A bird visited our site:

Bird

A raven made a ruckus in a palm tree behind our site:

Bird in a palm tree

The wind here was pretty bad at times, with gusts up to around 40 MPH; we considered bringing in our slide-outs, to protect the toppers, but didn’t; they survived okay:

Wind

One last pic of our campsite, after our downhill neighbor left:

Our campsite

National Parks in 2022

Along with exploring every state, another of our many objectives of this full-time RV lifestyle is to visit all 63 national parks. It’s long been one of Jenn’s life goals.

We’ve already been to several, and in 2022 we have planned our route to hit about 22 more. See yesterday’s 2022 plans post for the route map.

Jenn has a book to commemorate our visits to each park. She has added flags for each of the parks we plan to visit this year, color-coded by state:

National Parks book

The book includes a map with locations of all of the parks; there are a lot on the west side of the country, where we will be all year:

National Parks book

For each park there are some factoids, a sticker to add, and space to write some notes about our experience (and for Yellowstone, Jenn added a Junior Ranger sticker she got from a nice ranger who stopped by our campsite):

National Parks book

Here’s one of the ones we plan to visit this year:

National Parks book

We also have a road atlas book with more national park info and lots of maps:

Road Atlas book

We generally use our Macs, iPhones, and GPS units for navigating, but it’s useful to have paper-based tools, too.

Follow along as we visit each of the national parks!

2022 plans

[I previously published a variation of this at the end of the 2021 travel post, but thought I’d re-publish it separately and update it, since I know some people missed it after all the stuff in that post.]

We started 2022 in Arizona, and are currently in California (and will shortly head to Disneyland for Jenn’s birthday in February, and to the coast), then will go back to Arizona, including the FMCA convention, then north into Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming to hit more National Parks. Then via Idaho into Oregon to visit doctors and dentists. After that, we’ll head north to Washington, east to Idaho and Montana, then south through Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico (including the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta!), ending up in Texas for next winter, as we slowly make our way across the country.

Places book out months in advance nowadays, so we like to have about six months booked, where possible (or longer, though many popular places only allow six or fewer months). Currently, we already have reservations up till late-July, during the Oregon portion, plus a few busy times later in the year, but the rest of the year is subject to change.

Here’s the current route and stop map for 2022 (updated since the 2021 travel post); starting from the Phoenix area, heading to the coast, then going basically clockwise:

Route map

Still a lot more of the country to see, but we’re working our way across, with trips back to Portland each year. The maps for subsequent years will be similar to the 2022 one, but heading north from and ending up further east each time:

USA

I hope you’ll enjoy following our journey!

States map

A fun tradition for many RVers is to display a map of the places they’ve been on the side of their RV. We’ve had such a map for a while, but finally got around to installing it. (You may have spotted it in some of the Xscapers posts; I actually wrote this post before the bash, but pushed it out for more timely topics.)

We mounted it on the side of our front slide out, next to the entry door. A fairly common location.

The map consists of a self-adhesive base map of the United States, plus corresponding stickers to add on top as each state is visited. Our rule is for it to count, we need to camp at least one night in the state.

Here’s me adding the base map, trying to avoid bubbles:

David adding map base

The base map:

Map base

Adding state stickers for the places we’ve been since buying the coach:

David adding states

So far we’ve been to Washington, Oregon, California, and Arizona in our coach. Plus we decided to include the Yellowstone trip, since we were camping in a rental travel trailer while our coach sat at home (only because our coach wouldn’t fit in Yellowstone National Park). So that adds Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming (we’ll visit them again in our coach in a few months time anyway):

States

A view of our coach and map from further back:

Coach with map

As mentioned in the 2021 travel post a few weeks ago, in 2022 we plan to add Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas to that map. It’ll be years before we visit every state. Alaska and Hawaii will be particularly tricky; Alaska we can reach via Canada, but we’ll have to fly to Hawaii — we have been there in the past, but won’t count it until we visit again… and may have to rent an RV there if we want to be strict with our self-imposed rules.

Travel from Phoenix, AZ to Desert Hot Springs, CA

Three days later, we picked up our coach from NIRVC in Phoenix, Arizona, then headed back into California, to Desert Hot Springs.

NIRVC successfully fixed the driver chair power issue, fixed the slide-out glide block issue, and serviced the slides. They didn’t get to the remainder of the (lower priority) items on my list, so hopefully we’ll get those taken care of when we visit them again in March — I had already made that appointment in anticipation of needing more time, plus generally like to schedule service appointments every few months, just in case, since things inevitably break, and there’s regular servicing needed.

I admit, I had high hopes for NIRVC, based on their excellent reputation, so was a bit disappointed that they didn’t get much done. But they only had a short time, and they’ll have another chance to impress me soon.

Here’s the map route for this travel day (going from right to left); 262 miles, about six hours drive in our coach. A bit longer than we prefer, but we didn’t want to add another interim stop:

Map route

Our coach at NIRVC:

Coach at NIRVC

Heading west out of Phoenix:

Heading west

We were passed by three of these oversize loads (going rather fast):

Oversize load

Paladin still wasn’t pleased with travel, but not too bad this time, perhaps because it was only a few days after the last time:

Paladin

Lots of trucks on the freeway:

Trucks

Funky mountains:

Funky mountains

Goodbye cacti; fewer and fewer as we head west:

Goodbye cacti

Freeway

We stopped at Love’s in Quartzsite for diesel; it was pretty busy, and some trucks were being inconsiderate in blocking the exit, resulting in some honking by other truckers. It’s the last fuel stop before the California border; diesel was about $1 more across the border:

Love's fuel stop

While waiting for trucks ahead of us, I snuggled with Paladin; here’s a view of the coach in travel mode, with the slides in and the GPS mirrored to the overhead TV:

Coach and Paladin

More of Paladin:

Paladin

Back on the road, crossing into California:

California state line

A stop at the agricultural inspection station:

Inspection station

They didn’t actually ask us if we had anything this time. We were wondering if they’d object to the little cacti we bought in Arizona.

Welcome to California sign:

Welcome to California

Heading down the freeway:

Freeway

Paladin looking relaxed at a rest stop:

Paladin

Downhill:

Downhill

The overpass bridges around the desert cities have nice decorations:

Indio sign

Bridge art

Cathedral City bridge

Snow-capped mountains; pretty sure there wasn’t any snow when we were here a month ago:

Snow-capped mountains

The highway nearing our destination:

Highway

A cell tower nicely disguised as a palm tree:

Palm tree cell tower

Our destination for 17 days: Catalina Spa and RV Resort:

Catalina Spa and RV Resort

Stay tuned for a timelapse video tomorrow. If you haven’t watched them before, they’re a fun compressed view of our journey; watch a few hours of travel in mere minutes. With music! If they aren’t fast enough, you can also tell YouTube to play at 2x speed, or jump ahead, though you may miss interesting sights. Or slow them down if too fast.

I enjoy making the videos; I hope you enjoy watching them. And everyone please do subscribe to the Sinclair Trails YouTube channel; I need a bunch more subscribers to be able to get a nicer URL.

Coach to NIRVC and a second stay in an Airbnb apartment

We had an appointment with the National Indoor RV Center in Phoenix, Arizona to fix the driver chair issue, a slide-out glide issue, and a bunch of other stuff. So we drove the short 22 miles (half an hour) from the nearby Buckeye campground to NIRVC to drop off the coach. Here’s the route (going left to right):

Map route

The colorful front of the NIRVC building:

NIRVC

In the reception area:

NIRVC

The waiting room:

NIRVC

We had the option of sleeping in our coach on-site (with a power hookup), and hanging out in that waiting room while it was being worked on, but that wouldn’t really work with a cat, and we’d be more comfortable staying somewhere else.

So again, we rented an Airbnb apartment; see that listing for more information. Here are a few pictures:

Airbnb apartment

The carport was a bit tight for our truck. The apartment was upstairs:

Carport and stairs to apartment

Pool, grill, table:

Pool, grill, table

Pool (we didn’t use it, but it seemed popular):

Pool

We’ve recently booked a third Airbnb for another visit to NIRVC in March, to (hopefully) finish off the items on the list.

Travel from Lake Havasu City to Buckeye, AZ

We departed the Xscapers Annual Bash near Lake Havasu City, Arizona, and headed to a one-night stay at Leaf Verde RV Resort near Buckeye, Arizona.

Here’s the route map (top to right); 165 miles, about four hours drive in our coach (including a lunch break):

Map route

A fairly familiar route, having been along I-10 a few times this winter.

But the trip had a bumpy start; we couldn’t bring in our front driver-side slide-out, or move the driver chair, due to a disconnected wire underneath the chair:

Disconnected wire

This stop was the first time we had rotated that chair around to face the living area, so we guess the wire didn’t have as much slack as it should, and got pulled out.

Obviously this is a big problem; we can’t drive with the slide out. The reason the slide was affected is the switch to extend or retract it is on the side of the chair, to help ensure the chair is forward enough to not get hit.

Fortunately there is an emergency retraction button in the fuse bay in the basement, so I was able to use that to bring in the slide:

Emergency rectraction

Also fortunately we had an appointment at the National Indoor RV Center in Phoenix the next day, so we only had to live with this issue for one day.

That issue worked around, we moved the coach to a clear space at the Xscapers Bash grounds to hook up our toad (tow vehicle); you can see our truck and the neighboring coach (nice folks, that we enjoyed meeting and chatting with):

Xscapers General section

Our coach, ready to hook up the truck:

We’re on our way; a bridge over wetland:

Bridge over wetland

Wetland

Colorado River:

Colorado River

Hilly highway:

Hilly highway

Our coach has an RV-safe GPS, that knows the height and other info about our rig, so it doesn’t route us places we can’t go (we also have a label above the GPS as a reminder for low bridges):

GPS

A fun and handy feature of the GPS is the ability to mirror the output to the (otherwise pretty useless) TV above the windshield — useful so I can see the GPS more easily (it just displays grayscale for some reason):

GPS on TV

TV and windscreen

In Parker, Arizona we encountered several VW buses, probably leaving a recent gathering of them at London Bridge in Lake Havasu City:

WV buses

Highway:

Highway

Quartzsite sign:

Quartzsite sign

I-10 freeway:

Highway

Mountains:

Mountains

Cacti:

Cacti

We would have liked to stop at the first rest area on the I-10 portion of the route, but it’s been closed for a while for renovations:

Closed rest area

So we continued to the next one, half an hour later:

Open rest area

Crackers, summer sausage, and cheeses for lunch:

Lunch

Paladin wasn’t thrilled when we started going, but settled down in one of his nests during lunch:

Paladin

When we got underway again, he was a little happier than earlier. We do hope he gets more used to travel days eventually:

Paladin

Our exit:

Exit

We had a one-night stay at Leaf Verde RV Resort; I won’t bother doing a separate post about it, since we basically just stopped there to dump our tanks after dry camping for over a week during the Bash, to catch up on laundry, and as a location fairly close to the National Indoor RV Center:

Leaf Verde RV Resort

The map:

Map

From the little we’ve seen of it, I wouldn’t call it a resort; while the transient campsites are mostly pull-through, they are fairly tight “buddy” sites, where pairs of RVs face opposite directions, and thus their doors face each other. Not very nice:

Campsite

Notice that we didn’t extend the front driver-side slide-out, since the switch wasn’t working:

Campsite

We didn’t bother unhooking our truck, since it’s just an overnight pitstop (an advantage of a pull-through site):

Campsite

A timelapse of this travel is coming tomorrow. Please subscribe to the Sinclair Trails YouTube channel; I need a bunch more subscribers to be able to get a nicer URL.

Travel from Salome to Lake Havasu City, AZ

We departed Salome, Arizona and headed to Lake Havasu City, Arizona, for the Xscapers Annual Bash. Our first coach drive of 2022.

Here’s the route map; just 83 miles, a couple of hours drive north in our coach:

Map route

Heading down the highway to Quartzsite:

Highway

Love’s fuel stop:

Love's fuel stop

We weighed our coach and truck again at a CAT Scale at Love’s:

CAT Scale

The weight was up a bit, in part due to adding more stuff, in part due to having a full tank of water, in preparation for dry camping at the Xscapers Bash. But still within acceptable tolerances:

CAT Scale report

Paladin wasn’t enjoying the trip, as usual:

Paladin

Heading north on the highway:

Highway

Road to park

Entrance to the bash:

Bash entrance

Sold out:

Entrance

Another Tiffin:

Another Tiffin

Paladin settled down:

Paladin

Backing in to our spot:

Backing in

We arrived a few days early, as Jenn is volunteering in the mail room. So there’s lots of empty space now, which will be filling in as everyone else arrives today:

Empty space

Our truck and coach in our spot:

Truck and RV

If you’re at the Xscapers Bash and see us, feel free to say hi. We’re introverts, and this is our first time at a rally, but we’re looking forward to it:

Xscapers stickers and badges

Stay tuned tomorrow for the timelapse video of our journey.

Black Rock RV Village

We spent the holidays at Black Rock RV Village in Salome, Arizona. (Campground Reviews listing.)

I thought I’d start adding some extra information about our stay, for future reference:

Dates: 2021-12-18 to 2022-01-06. Yes, I prefer to post about a campsite after we’ve left it.

Weather: sunny, a little drizzle, windy at times (gusts up to 30 mph), high temps around averaging 60°F, lows around 40°F, dipped just below freezing a couple times.

Noise: a bunch of side-by-side vehicle traffic, but no trains, negligible road noise.

Site: back-in, gravel, full hookups (50 amp power, water, sewer), large, about 80 feet long by 30 feet wide, with a hedge on the passenger side. No table or fire pit.

Internet: no Wi-Fi; AT&T okay, about 1 Mbps down, 4 Mbps up; T-Mobile unreliable, about 1 Mbps down, 3 Mbps up, when it works.

Amenities: mailboxes and mail room, cafe, pool, rec room, park, various outdoor games.

Here’s the (very much not-to-scale) map:

Map

A satellite view shows the layout better, especially over where we were staying. As you can see, a lot of the sites have park models or other long-term structures (park models are like tiny homes that can be moved, but generally aren’t, and aren’t self-contained, requiring hookups):

Black Rock RV Village satellite view

Entrance sign:

Entrance sign

Our campsite was quite large:

Campsite

Electrical and water hookups; the ground is damp as I always run the water for a bit before hooking up, to flush any contaminants. I also had to use a short hose connector, as the tap was so low to the ground:

Electrical and water hookups

Campsite:

Campsite

“The first RV”:

The first RV

This park is a popular place for side-by-side vehicles, being next to public lands:

Side-by-side

Office:

Office

This park is unusual in that it has a public cafe on-site:

Cafe

It also has mailboxes:

Mail

The mail room; we used it a lot, with packages from Amazon pretty much every day. Receiving mail is complicated when traveling the country; I should do a blog post about that sometime (if anyone’s interested):

Mail room