Ten Things: Lessons in Boondocking

Kernut the Blond Posted on by

Announcer’s voice: While we await the return of the Sacred Laptop with the Sacred Photos of naked men and Sacred Videos from Kernut’s trip, she’ll share a few tips on boondocking. Regular posts with photos will resume shortly. No posts about naked men will be missed. Ever.

Ten Lessons in Boondocking, or Ten Things I Learned Camping in Slab City

What is this? A “Ten Things Tuesday” post?

Yeah, yeah. I know. I haven’t done one of these in a while.

It’s probably not even Tuesday.

Whatever. 

Boondocking: To stay in a recreational vehicle in a remote, often rural, location, without connections to water, power, or sewer services.

This Glamper (Glamper: a person, often female, who likes “glamorous camping”) learned a few things over the three weeks she spent boondocking at The Slabs, aka Slab City. (The place where the guy died when I was there.)

Mainly, that I like electrical power.

*sigh*

Lesson One: Power. Power is important. Don’t play that DVD when the clouds are coming in at night or you’ll drain your house batteries before your solar panel (as in singular, uno, one) is able to recharge them. Waiting for the sun to recharge your batteries takes a lot longer than you think. This means no power all morning, too.

It sucks to be totally out of power on a cold night and morning. Mittens and a beanie are my new best friends. Yeah, I look hot in the morning.

Two:  If you ignore Lesson One, But, wait! There’s more…

Slab City, Calif., the Last Free City in America

Kernut the Blond Posted on by

Slab City, Calif., is a desert oasis in a down economy.

There is no running water, no electricity, and no sidewalks. There are no buildings, unless you count the outhouses. Structures are either RVs or trailers, or a combination of scraped parts from the two.

Building codes don’t apply here.

For all it lacks in amenities, Slab City – about two and a half hours east of San Diego — has a lot to offer: two libraries, two churches, several social clubs, a night club, a skate park, a pet cemetery, a golf course, hot springs, and kitchens providing free meals. Local churches and charities regularly deliver bags of food and clothing.

There is enough folk art to fill two metropolitan museums.

Slab City, California, sign, just a hint of the folk art you'll find.

Slab City, sign, just a hint of the folk art you’ll find.

And it’s all free. Yes, free.

Slab City has an estimated 150 year-round residents. From November to April approximately 3,000 snowbirding RVers arrive to camp for the winter in the warm southern California desert.

In a place such as this, I wanted to know how people feel about the state of the economy. But, wait! There’s more…

UPDATED: Woman vs. Machine x 2

Kernut the Blond Posted on by

Or “The time my laptop died, and the windows let in the rain.”

Believe it or not, these things are not related.

Don’t worry, the post about the naked guy in Quartzsite is still coming, but there’s been a slight delay…

The Sacred Laptop, holder of all photos, articles, and videos, has decided to take a vacation… just when I have a deadline for a Yahoo! News article. All 200 photos of Slab City, the town on which the article is based, are on said dead laptop, along with the aforementioned, soon-to-be-due article.

I’ve rewritten the article from (what’s left of my) memory and notes. If worse comes to worst, I do have ONE back up photo. Just one photo for the article. I certainly would have preferred choosing several from the 200 photos, but at least I’ve got a Plan B.

Meanwhile, all is not lost. As a 30-year resident of Silicon Valley, some things you just learn by osmosis… like how to rescue your hard drive. It’s been a long time since I’ve done this, and some memories are hard to retrieve. Like what I had for breakfast this morning, never mind the basic programming I learned 20+ years ago. (And how do you get to the DOS prompt in Windows Vista??? Gees, it used to be so easy.)

The Yahoo! News article is due tomorrow (Tuesday). Yeah, no pressure.

As if The Universe thought that wasn’t enough, But, wait! There’s more…

London Bridge is not falling down, and there are lighthouses in Arizona, but no fog.

Kernut the Blond Posted on by

The song may say otherwise, but I assure you London Bridge is not falling down. I stood on it.

If it can hold me up, I’m sure it’s fine.

But back in the early 1960’s the bridge was falling down, unable to hold the increase in traffic over the previous 130 years.

The City of London decided to put the 130-year-old, crumbling bridge up for auction. The founder of Lake Havasu, Arizona, Robert P. McCulloch, won the bid with a cool $2,460,000 in 1968. He then spent another $7 million to bring the London Bridge to Lake Havasu – brick by brick. It took three years, and it was then reassembled over Lake Havasu.

A video view of London Bridge at Lake Havasu…

They put a little English Village next to the bridge. Probably so it wouldn’t feel homesick. But, wait! There’s more…

A Death in Slab City

Kernut the Blond Posted on by

Announcer’s voice: “We interrupt our regularly scheduled post on Lake Havasu to bring you a more pressing issue. The post on Lake Havasu will air shortly. No posts will be missed.”

Slab City, California sign

Slab City, California. An oasis in the desert.

You won’t find Slab City, California on a Google map. A place in the middle of the southern California desert, it is not recognized by the government as a city or town. There are no sidewalks, no electrical power lines, and there’s no running water. From November to April approximately 3,000 snowbirding RVers arrive to camp out the winter. There are an estimated 100 year-round residents.

It’s a land with no rules where the residents rely on a code of honor. Not everyone is honorable.

For all it lacks in amenities, Slab City, aka “The Slabs”, has quite a bit to offer: two libraries, two night clubs, two churches, several kitchens providing free meals, and five social clubs. There’s an 18-hole golf course, although the back nine are a bit rough. There’s a hot springs pool and a “shower”. The shower is the drainage-ditch runoff that comes out of the hot springs.

I’ve been golfing everyday on the grassless sand and gravel course. My golf buddies and I are most appreciative to Bob and Nancy Unden, a couple from San Diego who built the wonderful 18-holed oasis in the desert.

But from now on I’ll stay far away from the hot springs.

But, wait! There’s more…

Flying saucers, people living in a giant golf ball, praying to the God of Golf, and giant animal statues. Also? Beware of donkeys.

Kernut the Blond Posted on by

A bit of randomness from western Arizona…

The infamous Area 51 is in Arizona, a state where many people claim to have seen UFOs.

I’ve met some of them. The people, not the UFOs.

One told me there is a local support group for alien abductees.

Huh? (I looked, but I could not find a link to the meetings.)

To capitalize on the alien folklore by simultaneously combining themes from Area 51 and nearby Route 66, some enterprising folks came up with Area 66.

It’s in a town called Yucca. Yes, it is.

A "UFO" at Area 66

A "UFO" at Area 66. It's just landing, and in a minute the green VW Bug will be flattened.

The woman running the small convenience store at Area 66 has seen UFO-type lights. She seems completely sane. Probably because she considers they were most likely aircraft from the nearby military facility.

However, the guy who insisted on building the above flying saucer for Area 66 claims to have been abducted by aliens.

Okay.

But, wait! There’s more…

Birthplace of Route 66, the Mother Road. And I saw Pandora’s Box in the men’s room.

Kernut the Blond Posted on by

Seligman, Arizona, a small rural town, is known as the birthplace of Route 66. It’s full of Route 66 memorabilia.

Territorial Jail House in Seligman, Arizona

Reportedly held notorious outlaws that they didn't teach us about in school. And the evening news is worthless as usual. Thanks for nothing, FOX.

Along with a few themed restaurants and shops, there is the old Territorial Jail House from 1860. At one time it housed notorious outlaws such as Seligman Slim, Four-fingered Frank, and Carl “Curly” Bane. (Don’t feel bad. I don’t know who they are, either. Sorry, Dead Guys, but it’s been 150 years.)

While researching my trip, I’d read somewhere “not to miss Pandora’s Box” in the men’s room of The Roadkill Cafe.

Of course, a place named The Roadkill Cafe sounded like a good place to eat, anyway. And I was on a mission to find this Pandora’s Box in the men’s room.

When I walked in to the restaurant, three friendly ladies greeted me. I inquired about ‘Pandora’s Box’ in the men’s room. They all gave me blank looks. No one knew about it. Well, none of the ladies. Not so sure about the men.

I began telling them how I’d heard it was in the men’s room and ‘not to be missed’.  But, wait! There’s more…

Huge phallic rocks, fertility gods, castles, and vortices. Love, Sedona.

Kernut the Blond Posted on by

How can you not love a town with castles, energy vortexes, fertility deities, and huge phallic rocks?!

Sedona, Arizona has everything a traveler could want. Well, travelers who like men.

Ahem.

Shall we start with the spiritual stuff, and work our way down? Err, I mean south. Wait, scratch that. NO, NO, don’t scratch that!

Moving on…

Energy Vortexes

Sedona, in case you’ve never been, is known for its spiritual and metaphysical community. The town has four energy vortexes, places where you are likely to feel energy coming up from the earth.

Whether it was the suggestion of such or an actual spiritual experience, my friend (the one I connected with while standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona), and I both “felt” something. (Now, now. Remember we’re talking about the spiritual stuff here.)

This is a view of Sedona from the top of the Airport Rd Vortex.

View of Sedona from Airport Road Vortex

Me: I felt it, did you? Him: *dirty laugh* I felt a lot of things.

Kokopelli, the Fertility God

Every where I looked there were tributes to Kokopelli, the fertility deity. Although, none I saw were depicted with the large phallus as mentioned in Wikipedia. Too bad.

And the World’s Largest Kokopelli is in Camp Verde, Arizona where he watches over cars in a parking lot. Seems a bit undignified for a fertility deity, don’t you think?

But, wait! There’s more…

Get Your Kicks On Route 66, Part One

Kernut the Blond Posted on by

(cue Nat King Cole)

If you ever plan to motor west,
Travel my way, take the highway that is best.
Get your kicks on route sixty-six.

It winds from Chicago to LA,
More than two-thousand miles all the way.
Get your kicks on route sixty-six.

Remember how I went to that dinosaur museum in St George, Utah and they didn’t have any dinosaur statues?

I know why! The dinosaurs have all run away to Route 66.

Dinosaur at a rock shop in Arizona

This is how it started...

Route 66 is a long treasure-trove of the wonderful, goofy, and uniquely odd sights in America: Dinosaur statues, Wigwam Motels, 2.9 million-year-old alligator in Arizona, Longest Map of Route 66, Standing On A corner In Winslow, Roadkill Cafe, etc.

Who thinks of these things?! Oh, how I love this country and it’s quirky marketing ideas!

Here’s how the advertising pitch must have gone:

(First) Rock and Fossil Store Owner: I want help promoting my rock and fossil store. What do you have for me?

Advertising Agency: We’ll get a few of those large, fake dinosaur statues and place them out front. People will come from miles around just to see your rock and fossil store!

Store Owner: Umm, do you mean those big dinosaurs that look like cheezy replicas of Godzilla? But, wait! There’s more…

Grand Canyon North Rim, A Spiritual Experience

Kernut the Blond Posted on by

This post is a slight departure from my usual. The Grand Canyon’s North Rim being one of the most beautiful places I’ve yet seen on my travels, I feel it deserves reverence.

North Rim of the Grand Canyon

North Rim of the Grand Canyon

Words can’t express the emotions that wash over you as you stand on the edge of these expansive vistas, hearing only the occasional bird and the rustle of the wind.

Peace, tranquility, and serenity come to mind. But even those descriptions feel somehow incomplete. Magical? Humbling?

A picture is worth a thousand words, and a few feelings, too. Rather than try to tell you about it, I’ve created the photo slideshow below. And below that is my video of the North Rim set to relaxing music. Take a little time from your day and enjoy the peace and serenity. (to see the slideshow and video, click the following link… But, wait! There’s more…