Segment 2 with Wendy through California

Day 17 – 3/29 – Wendy’s first day on the road – (Barstow CA – Newberry Springs CA) – We got up at 5am so Wendy could get running on the road around 6:30am. We got our stuff together and drove 25 minutes to Barstow to get started. The morning was pretty chill, not a whole lot happened really, there was a road closure but we were able to go around. There was a section that went around a mountain and Gabby got out to go with Wendy for those 5 miles, and that was a very beautiful area. My mom sent us a voice message prayer encouraging us in all the troubles we had been having over the past few days. It got pretty hot so Wendy was using a towel and her hat soaked in ice water to keep cool which seemed to work well for her. We ended the day pretty close to the RV park which was nice. We went back to the RV and Gabby made tuna salad, and even though the top of the pepper shaker fell off it was still pretty good. We chilled for the afternoon, it was very hot in the RV so I read my Dune book outside, although the bugs were pretty annoying outside. Gabby made meatballs and mashed potatoes for dinner and the meatballs were amazing. We hung out with Wendy for awhile and then I got a shower and started heading to bed.

Day 18 – 3/30 – Volcanic Rocks and a 50s diner – (Newberry Springs CA) – We woke up at 5am again and got in the car for a much shorter drive this time to the start. It was pretty nice and chilly outside to start the day and the sunrise was very pretty. We got these cool photos of a old motel sign and I actually used exposure bracketing for the first time in awhile which worked out pretty well. There weren’t any turns in the route so we just stopped every 3 miles for Wendy to get a new drink or whatever else she would need. We started passing all these black rocks which was pretty cool and eventually we stopped and explored them. They were volcanic rocks and it was a very large area with them which was pretty awesome. It kind of felt like Gabby and I were Frodo and Sam walking across Mordor with the volcanic rocks. Later when we were on the side of the road an Australian guy stopped to make sure that we were ok and we told him about our event and he was excited about it for us and was saying how “kick-ass” the relay is. Wendy did great all day and the weather cooperated for her with it being overcast even though it was still pretty hot, around 86 degrees. We went back for lunch and had scheduled to get our propane refilled at the campground. The lady doing it for us seemed to not really know what she was doing and both her and her boyfriend seemed kind of like they may do drugs or whatever. They were both nice enough though, although their propane filler was not working so we decided to just get it the next day. It was definitely a bit of a strange interaction, but not really a bad one either which was good. We also had scheduled getting our AC stuff fixed with Fred, and so his guy Kamran came over after lunch and was working on getting our breaker fixed along with checking a bunch of electrical stuff. This time the AC didn’t flip off and it worked for at least the rest of the day. This was a huge relief for me and Gabby, as it was the source of a lot of stress for both of us. The 3 of us went to dinner at this place called Peggy Sue’s 50’s Diner. This was a very cool place that definitely had the feel of being straight out of the 50s, and we found out that it did indeed originally start in the 50s. I had a burger and a milkshake which was pretty good, and the whole vibe of the place was pretty awesome. We went to Walmart in Barstow one more time before going into the desert the next day to get some things. Once we got back the AC was still working which was awesome! Wendy went to bed and me and Gabby unloaded the car and got showers before chilling together and planning out the route and stuff for the next day. I felt like this day was overall very positive which was a great upswing from all the technical stuff from the past few days.

Day 19 – 3/31 – Amboy Crater, Propane Issues, and Roy’s Diner – (Amboy CA) – Gabby and Wendy woke up before me to start the run, as I was going to move the RV to our first dry camping spot near Amboy Crater. On the way there I got gas and filled up the propane, but the propane guy didn’t do it properly which led to a lot more issues for the next two days. The drive to the crater was pretty cool, and it was easy to find a spot once I was there, but I soon realized the propane was having some real issues. It was leaking at least a little bit and I didn’t really know what to do, so I called Ashley and went through the steps of figuring it out. We figured out that it was probably overfilled and that was why it was leaking when I did the soapy water test. So the people I was talking to were giving me different suggestions of what to do, and eventually I did try to bleed some of it out myself to see if I could get it to stop do I wouldn’t have to drive forever to get it fixed. This kind of helped but I think was ultimately a mistake and I should have just taken it to get fixed in the first place. Nothing bad happened really but it was a lot of time that was unnecessary. It was also pretty stressful trying to figure out what I should do, so that was part of that mistake. I ended up calling an RV guy that was an hour and a half away and he said to bring it in the morning and that was that pretty much. Wendy, Gabby and I hiked up the crater which was pretty awesome, definitely felt like we were on yet another planet. We saw a black iguana which was pretty awesome as well. After the hike Wendy’s daughter Caroline arrived via Uber as she was going to be staying with us for the next few days. She was very cool, immediately fit the vibe with Gabby, me, and Wendy. We all sat around talking for awhile until the wind started going insane and we got in the car to go check out this place called Roy’s cafe. It was pretty much the only thing in the town of Amboy, where pretty much no one lives besides one guy sometimes. But it was still a cool little spot with some interesting things to check out that came right out of the 50s. We met this guy named Adrian who was a German guy around me and Gabby’s age who was riding his bike across the US in just over a month. He was stopped there because of the wind and we got to talk to him for awhile which was cool. We checked out the old motel and stuff, and when we went to leave the lady who was running the store asked us if we wanted to turn on the sign. So I got to turn in the pretty awesome Roy’s Motel sign. She then took a photo of all of us with the sign, Gabby, Wendy, Caroline, and me. We went back to the RV and I went over more of the propane stuff and it was pretty much fine so we went to bed.

Day 20 – 4/1 – Getting propane fixed and venture into the Mojave National Preserve – (Amboy, CA – Mojave National Preserve) – I woke up later then normal because I was taking the RV to get the propane looked at, and I had to drive an hour and a half to get there. I checked it with the soap test again and it wasn’t as bad but I wanted to make sure it would be fine so I decided to make the trip. The drive there was very pretty and kind of long as well. On the way there I was 30 minutes into the drive and Gabby called me to tell me that the car’s battery died while she was crewing. I paused for a second and just said, well I guess I’ll turn around. For some reason I thought we had the jump box in the RV so I was just going to turn around to help her. But then she said “April Fools!” and I was very relieved and I had just forgotten that it was April fools day. She definitely got me pretty good and was a fun moment. Once I got there it was a little weird to get in because it was right on the side of a pretty major road and there wasn’t a lot of space for me to pull the massive RV in. I thought that was kinda weird because it’s an RV place but I made it work. They had me pull it into their gate and they looked at it and didn’t see a leak. I went to Walmart to get a few things and checked it again with the fridge on and it was bubbling. So I called them and took it back again for them to put some tape stuff on the spot that was giving me problems and it was definitely fixed. I drove 2 hours to meet Gabby, Wendy, and Caroline to pick a spot to park the RV. Gabby had found a few different spots, and when she was looking for it she found a spot with a bunch of new balance shoes in a small canyon thing. It was a very strange thing to find in the middle of the Mojave, it was just boxes of brand new shoes, most of them being kids shoes. Both Gabby and Caroline got some new shoes which was pretty funny. We then went to an actual spot and set up the RV. We got there later then expected so we did lunch really quick and then went to hike the Kelso dunes. I’ve never hiked in sand before so that was interesting, it was very hard, especially as Gabby and I went to the top of the dune. But it was so worth it, there was just something different about being on top of a sand dune like that. We decided to go down the fast way, which was a little scary for me because if I fell it would’ve been pretty bad, but Gabby showed me how she does it, and while I was a lot slower then her I did make it down. We got a lot of sand in our shoes and I was still winded from going up when we got towards the bottom. But it was very cool and super worth it, it felt like we went to yet another planet, I was thinking about Dune because I had been reading the 4th book. After we got back Gabby made dinner which was gnocchi with meat sauce which was very good as usual. After dinner when all of us were heading to bed Gabby and I had a conversation about how we should be splitting the work of the meals and stuff better. I definitely didn’t help as much as I should have that night, so it was good for both of us to have that conversation to make sure we were on the same page. We went to bed soon after that.

Day 21 – 4/2 – Running through the Mojave and going to Primm – (Mojave National Preserve) – We woke up to an amazing sunrise and Wendy got started on her run for the day with Caroline. Me and Gabby were in the car for a little while, but we decided to go back at one of the crew stops to get the RV. For the rest of the run that day I drove the car while Gabby and Caroline were in the RV. There were train tracks near there so I got some cool shots with that along with some good ones on the run as well. Gabby found a spot to park the RV, although she said it was pretty sketchy to get it in there. Wendy was able to end her run right at the RV which was nice. We had lunch with Caroline and Wendy and then Gabby and I went to the Mojave Desert Lava Tube. Google tried to take us on a pretty sketchy road so we went around and got there with no problem. On the way we saw a bunch of volcanoes and a new landscape which was cool. It was a small walk to a ladder that went down into the ground into a cave. We had to duck down kind of low in order to get into the big room and once we got in there we were very surprised to see how large it was in there. There were these 2 different light beams from the sun coming through holes in the top of the cave. It was like nothing I’ve seen before, the one in the back was smaller and there was always some sort of dust so you could really see it. There was a bigger one right as we came in and if you threw dust in it you could see the beam of light better. Gabby and I hung out in there for awhile just admiring how wild it was that we got to see stuff like that. After we got back to the RV we went to Primm for dinner with Wendy and Caroline. We didn’t realize that Primm was a town with just a casino and another closed casino, so we had a hard time finding any good food. After looking in the casino we ended up at a Mexican place which was very mid. Caroline was trying to get an Uber to Vegas so she could go to a hotel she had with her friend but no one picked it up so she went back to the RV with us. We got back pretty late and made sure we had a plan to move the RV in the morning. 

Day 22 – 4/3 – Getting the RV stuck and new RV park – (Mojave National Preserve – Las Vegas, NV) We woke up and Wendy started right from the RV. Gabby was going to move the RV to the RV park with Caroline, and she asked me to try and help get it out. This didn’t go well and I got it stuck on the enormous dip to the road that was way bigger then I thought it would be. I should have taken it slower than I did, but I didn’t think about it enough. We didn’t have service and I had to crew Wendy as well, so I drove the car to go get service and to meet Wendy at the 3 mile mark. It was extremely windy all day, so Wendy was going slower, so I had time to call Ashley and a tow place so we could get out of that spot in the Mojave National Preserve. It took awhile to figure it out but they were able to come out and get the RV out. There wasn’t a whole lot of damage to the RV itself, the back corner just got crunched a little bit. I crewed Wendy for the rest of the day which went pretty well despite the wind. Gabby took the RV to an RV park in Vegas and got it all set up. We had lunch with Wendy and then Gabby and I tried to check out the hot tub but there were a lot of people in there so we just went back to the camper. The rest of that night was pretty chill, we didn’t really do a whole lot besides normal stuff like dinner and cleaning up and media stuff.

Day 23 – 4/4 – Editing morning – (Las Vegas, NV) – I needed to finish Chris’s video so I took the morning to work on it, which went well. It was nice to sleep in a bit and make myself something good for breakfast. I got that video done and also worked on Wendy’s video some. I made lunch before Gabby and Wendy came back and we had a guy come look at the damage on the RV. Once they got back we had lunch and worked on the Instagram post and then we chilled for a little while. I did an interview with Wendy while Gabby made dinner. The interview went well although we had to redo a few questions because of the sun going down too much. We went to Walmart because Gabby wanted to get some Easter stuff for Wendy, as the next day was Easter. We got back and did the route for the next day and went to bed. That day we were talking about going to the sphere to see The wizard of Oz and Wendy decided that she wanted to get the tickets for us. It was a really nice thank you gift from her and and me and Gabby were very grateful for that.