Wide Turns and Slow Lanes- Day 2

Awww, beautiful Saturday morning you never looked so good! We wake up again filled with excitement for the weekend. We decided that there is no better place to start our journey than where it all began in Joshua Tree. Jordan and I met there four days after we reconnected, then we camped there several times and then we were married out there. It holds a special place in our hearts and is so relaxing. After spending months preparing for this trip and working on our motor home we were in desperate need for some R and R.

 

We spent the morning in my dad's yard getting ready for our day. I cooked our first meal for real: eggs, toast, avocado and coffee! We dumped our tanks and for the first time didn't spill on any ones shoe (haha big accomplishment for us to walk away without a 'poop shoe'), then we filled up our fresh water, covered up the jetta and headed on our way. We had one more FINAL (wahoo) errand to run before we finally got on the road, go to Camping World to exchange our fan. I tell you details in this because of what happened next. We finished our quick little stop we walk out to Destiny to find an older man, we'll call him Mr. Anderson, staring at our rig. I nudged Jordan on his side to somehow quietly signal, ' hey babe there is some man staring at our house! do something haha'

 

Being who Jordan is, he quickly started up conversation with the man. Come to find out he's quite the certified nut! I say this of course in the most loving way, but really he is. As we're talking we see that his whole truck, which he is living in, has foil all around the dash and just about everywhere you can see. Apparently At&t is on a man hunt for him, and trying to kill him. He even said then send out small search parties to track people down and then murder them. In the midst of the crazy humbo jumbo talk though, Mr. Anderson did give us some potentially life saving advice. He told us to go to Discount Tire and they will make sure you are road ready for free.

 

We said our goodbyes, laughed about the weird interaction but decided to take his advice. A few miles down the road was a Discount tire so we stopped in. They checked all 6 of our tires and our air shocks. They even jacked up the motor home, rotated the dually so they would be easier to check next time, all for free. Turns out we were low on air all around and the second they added air to the shocks our whole motor home was instantly leveled! We felt an instant difference on the way Destiny handled as we pulled away.

 

Sometimes, it pays off to talk to a crazy tin foil man! Thank you Mr. Anderson!

 

hard to see, but there is a HUGE pumpkin at the top of the hill!

If you head out to the desert you have to stop at the dinosaurs!



glad these creatures are not roaming the world anymore!



almost to palm springs!



another beautiful sunset!
 

As if that wasn't enough luck for one day, we were granted some more later that night! We arrived at Joshua Tree around 4-5pm and drove out to one of our favorite campgrounds only to find that it was full, so we drove to another one- full, then to a third one that is never busy- and it was full too! We drove for about 45 minutes trying to find a place to stay. In all of our times coming out to Joshua Tree we have NEVER seen it so busy. We were bumming pretty hard, knowing that there was a good chance we would have to leave tonight. But on a whim we drove out to Jumbo Rocks and found one by complete randomosity. We had our down-trodden faces on after searching when someone peeked their head into the road in front of us and asked if we needed a site. A man and his family, after paying for the campsite for the evening decided that his 2 girls (12 and 5) would enjoy a pool in Palm Springs more that the sun and boulders that makes up our favorite place in the world (so far!). We got to talking with them as they were finishing their wine and packing up the rest of their stuff we found out that his last name was Cote too! Mr. Cote and Jordan talked about our journey and he gave us advice on all the places we "had" to go. Before we said goodbye, he introduced us to our neighbor for the evening, the self-proclaimed "Rock'N'Roll Grandpa", Jim.

Jim is about 60-65 years old and has been living in his custom van for seven years now due to his house fire in 2005. He had lived in Pioneer Town right up the road from where we were staying that night and lost everything. He was a very generous man who helped out a handicapped neighbor camper that he hardly knew by asking if he could bring them a few pieces of our firewood. He also noticed in between his stories that our firewood was to large to burn and he offered us his mighty "firewood friend," a wood splitter and mallet that he was proud to say could split any wood known to man. He showed Jordan how to use it and after a beer's payment for the demonstration and generosity, we split the rest of our wood. He brought his guitar by later that night when Darren, an old friend, arrived and sang us a song called, "Mountain Right." Jim and Hoyt Axton wrote it on tour before he died. He told us how it made it all the way up the charts to #1 on MTV music videos in '97 (i think, the video is on you tube haha). He told us stories about playing with Fleetwood Mac, how he knew Gram Parsons, and such. We gave him another beer for his songs and stories before he turned in for the night.

The fire was wonderful, the shooting stars incredible, and the fellowship was awesome. We had a great time enjoying the outside air and catching up with our friend before he left for Hawaii.