New fridge and closet shelves, October 2011

Uwe, who owns Area 63 Productions in Orange, hooked us up with a new Norcold fridge.  It works like a champ.  Finally, frozen lettuce!!  He also made us some awesome shelves for the useless closet in the Bambi.  New fridge + usable storage space = happy campers!  Thanks, Uwe!

Lake Mead, Zion, and North Rim of the Grand Canyon, August 2011

Finally, a trip with Terry and Greg!  We'd been plotting and planning for a long time... What a fun trip!  We started out with a refrigerator that just refused to work (it got replaced right after the trip), and a tire with a huge bulge on it.  Thanks to Tucker Tire in Covina for saving the day!  We made it to Lake Mead and met up with Terry and Greg at Lake Mead RV Village for a couple of nights.  Then, instead of driving back through Vegas and up I-15, we drove around the lake, through the recreation area.  This was a much more scenic way to go.  Lots of red rocks and solitude.  Gorgeous.  Then we hooked up with I-15 and made our way through Saint George, then route 9 to Hurricane, and on into Zion National Park.  We stayed at Watchman Campground, where we met our new Airstream friends, Ric and Rita!  We spent a couple of days exploring the park, hiking, sight-seeing, and just relaxing.  Then, we drove to the Grand Canyon and camped at North Rim Campground.  Once again, words and pictures just don't do it justice.  It's spectacular and breath-taking.  If you haven't been, you really ought to go.  There's an old lodge there with a restaurant, a bar, cabins to rent, and tourists from everywhere, but not nearly as many tourists as on the south rim.  Apparently the north rim gets maybe 10% of the traffic.  The other 90% goes to the south rim, which is why we went north.  We're so smart!  Anyway, we left the Grand Canyon after a few days, parted ways with Terry and Greg in Flagstaff, and Jason and I continued on our way home to LA.  This was our longest trip so far with R2, almost 2 weeks, and 1300 miles.  It was an amazing trip, even with a fridge that wouldn't work.  I'm so ready to go on another long road trip!

Eastern Sierras and White Mountains, July 2011

My friend Jenny and I have been hiking around in the Sierras for several years.  We usually rent a cabin near Mammoth, like up at Lake Mary or Lake George.  But now that we bought the trailer, we've got a cabin on wheels!  We started this trip near Yosemite.  We hiked around Saddlebag Lake and the 20 Lakes Basin.  My iphone died up there, so no pictures.  Then we headed over to the White Mountains and the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest.  We stayed at Grandview campground, and hiked up to the top of White Mountain, which is the third highest peak in California, at 14,246 feet.  The trailhead is at 12,000 feet, so it's not as hard as you might think.  Still, it's a good, long hike!  Then from there we headed over to Lake Sabrina, and hiked around up in the Bishop Creek Recreation area.  Words don't do it justice.  Neither do pictures, really.  I'd never hiked here before, and I really fell in love with it.  It's always a weird shock to the system to go home to LA after being in all this beauty!