National Parks and making it to LA

Day 7 – 3/19 – Arches and Canyonlands – (Colorado – Arizona)

We got up to a view of the river and we got on top of the camper for the first time. We had separated the car and the camper the night before so we had to find a spot to put them back together. There was a slowdown on the interstate but it was a really pretty area so we didn’t really care. I was trying to find a gas station and ended up picking one in a very small and dense mountain town so that didn’t work. Eventually we got the car hooked up again and we started driving to Arches. That park was pretty incredible, it definitely felt like we were on a different planet. It was a lot of fun to just drive through the park and get out a few times to look at stuff, and both of us are pretty content to just take it all in with the time we have in the parks together. This way of going through the parks was pretty much the same for the next 3 parks as well. Both me and Gabby’s expectations were blown out of the water with Arches, it’s truly amazing. We went to Canyonlands after that and that park was really awesome as well, it was a very expansive place but also with not a whole lot of people which both of us liked. The canyons themselves were pretty awesome and was also different then we expected.  We walked wrong me them ending area of the road we went on for a bit and then went back. Both of those parks were super incredible even in the short amount of time we had in each of them. We wanted to make it to Arizona so we could be closer to get to the grand canyon the next day so we hauled all the way to northern Arizona where we stayed at a free Navajo monument campground for the night. The drive to Arizona was very pretty, especially with the sunset. The campground was pretty nice especially with it being free, and it was nice to have a somewhat regular camping bathroom setup. The stars were also very bright there. The temperature was a lot better there so we weren’t even cold that night.

Day 8 – 3/20 – Grand Canyon and a few ups and downs – (Arizona – California) – We got up and the view from the campground was pretty cool. We made breakfast, although I did accidentally let Gabby’s oatmeal overflow in the microwave. We left for the Grand Canyon. We were making pretty good progress on some pretty bumpy roads until the vehicle started acting really strangely. It didn’t take me long to realize that there was something wrong with towing the car. So I called back to Gabby who was organizing stuff in the back to check the car and sure enough it was fishtailing. Thankfully there was a gas station/country store with great RV parking almost immediately after this started happening. We were able to take the car off and jump it with the RV because it was dead as usual.  We did make it to the Grand Canyon and were able to hook up the car again right before we entered the park so we could use Gabby’s park pass for the one vehicle. The Grand Canyon was of course incredible. It was so much bigger and more vast then I expected. We were able to have a pretty fun and chill time exploring the park a bit and seeing the incredible views. We had a road crew meeting with Ashley in the Grand Canyon parking lot. It was good to get more of a specific deal of what our first week with a runner would be like. We left the Grand Canyon to head towards Joshua Tree but we wanted to find a truck stop where we could shower. We got to that truck stop and wanted to get gas but my company card kept getting declined. Eventually I figured it out, but then we needed to park in order to get showers. The parking was a little weird and I completely messed it up and we had to find a way to unhook the car so we could back up the RV. Thankfully we got help from two guys that were there, one of them helped us jump the car because it was once again dead and the other guy really helped us get the car off the back of the camper. Without his help it might have been nearly impossible to get it off. Both these guys happened to be homeless as well which made us a little unsure at first but they were definitely both extremely helpful. The guy who helped us jump the car was curious about the event we were doing and he was very excited for us about the trip. He also said something about feeling like God sends us people who can help us when we need it because someone else gave him a jump yesterday. We unfortunately had to skip showers in order to make it in time to our BLM spot right outside of Joshua Tree. We got there pretty late so we went to bed right away.

Day 9 – 3/21 – Joshua Tree and an attempt at going to the beach – (Joshua Tree – LA area)

We woke up in the desert and got breakfast and stuff going. The generator stopped working which was very annoying, so we had to do cold breakfast. On some of the drives we tried to figure out a place that could service it for us, although that didn’t go particularly well. We are going to have someone diagnose it on Tuesday. We had to do the dance of getting the car off and turning the RV around to jump the car again but that didn’t take too long. We started to go through Joshua Tree and it was very different then either of us were expecting. The desert was very vast with these interesting mountains all around us along with many different types of cactus and other desert plants. It took awhile to get to the section with the actual Joshua Trees but once we got there it was once again very cool. It definitely felt like we were on another planet but a very different one from arches and the canyons. We finished the section of the park we were doing and then went to the visitor center where we got lunch and got some stuff in the visitor center. This was the last national park and it was super cool to be able to go to all of them, I’m very glad we decided to go to as many as possible even if we didn’t have a whole lot of time in each. It was a lot of fun to go see these true natural wonders with Gabby but also surreal that we were there at all and with someone we had just met a week before all these awesome adventures. After that we started going to Barstow CA where we had to pick up some packages from the KOA there. The landscape on the way there was also kind of interesting. We were able to get an extra night of our first RV park and so we headed there to get set up. The water gave us some problems for a little while but we eventually figured it out with Ashley. Gabby and I really wanted to try to go to the beach for the sunset but the water thing delayed us a while, so the sun was setting while we were driving. On the way there we drove up one of the mountains which was a really pretty drive. We also drove through this canyon and halfway through it got really foggy which was pretty cool. But once we got to the beach it was pretty chilly and very foggy which was a little disappointing but we still got out and touched the water but that was about it. We drove around Santa Monica and Beverly hills while deciding what we wanted to do for food. We tried two separate In-N-Outs but both lines were insane so we ended up at Popeyes. My stomach wasn’t doing great so I only ate half of my Popeyes. We both got showers for the first time in 5 days which was very nice. After our showers we both woke up a bit more so we did some organizing and hung out for awhile. We went to bed around 12:45 and I slept pretty well.