Hoover Dam and Lake Mead

Tuesday’s planned activity was a visit to Hoover Dam. We towed the Escape across the top of the dam, found free parking, had some quick sandwiches inside the camper and then toured inside the dam and the visitor center. 

Hoover Dam on the Lake Mead side

If you visit here, get ready for plenty of dam jokes, such as “Hi, my name is Susan. I’m not your tour guide for today, I’m just your dam elevator operator.”

Nevada-side turbines

Our tour (the cheaper version at $11) took us inside one of the four diversion tunnels, each 50 feet in diameter, which were cut through the walls of the canyon to re-route the Colorado River in advance of construction of the dam. We also got to see the tops of the Nevada-side turbines, which I enjoyed at a certain level of ignorance, but which were hot stuff to Tall Son and Great Husband, who are both engineers.

As for me, the human side of the construction of the dam was of more interest, such as learning the job titles of the workers, including Mucker, Flunky, and Easy-Dough (boss).

There is a great viewing area on top of the visitor center, but even better views if you walk up on top of the new Pat Tillman and Mike O’Callaghan Memorial Bridge, designed by HDR of Omaha.

Hoover Dam seen from the new bridge

Get those dam tourists out of the way
 so we can see the Escape!

We camped the night at a beautifully landscaped campground in Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Due to drip irrigation, every site had flowering trees in pink, white, or red. The guys took a swim in Lake Mead, which they described as clear, but very cold.

Camping at Lake Mead National Recreation Area

Mileage While Towing

It seems the right time to write a bit about the mileage we have been achieving with a 2012 non-Ecoboost Ford Flex towing an Escape 19. We have just left Mojave National Preserve on I-40 East, and made a run to Needles (home of Snoopy’s brother Spike) to get a very necessary hit of gas, even if the price was $4.99 a gallon. We then backtracked to Highway 95 and are now headed north to Lake Mead to see Hoover Dam. Gas stations are few and far between in this remote area.

Today’s mileage report:  Level terrain, California desert, no wind, 78 degrees, 87 octane fuel – 16 mpg at 60 mph, 18 mpg at 55 mph

For our broader trip, when climbing, 11 mpg is not uncommon, and 24 mpg is not uncommon while descending. Great Husband has concluded that the fuel economy is much more sensitive to the grade of the road than to the speed of travel.

Mojave National Preserve

On Sunday we drove from Sequoia National Park to Bakersfield, CA for Mass, and passed gorgeous orchards along the way, with incredible fragrances which we presumed to be orange blossoms. By the end of the day we had made the long drive to Mojave National Preserve, passing through Barstow of Route 66 fame, and entering Mojave on Interstate 40 from the south.

As is regrettably typical, we arrived after dark, and had no sense of how this desert would appear in the morning. We pulled into an available site at Hole in the Wall Campground, and found it pleasingly spacious and level, so we didn’t unhook, went straight to bed, and looked forward to a daylight discovery of whatever Mojave would be.

Prickly Pear in Bloom

This place brought no disappointments. There was incredible desert life in so many forms right outside our door--desert night lizards, blacktailed jackrabbits, barrel cactus, Mormon tea, Mojave yuccas, Joshua trees…

In the morning we hiked the Rings Trail, so named because of a difficult zone toward the end where metal rings have been hung to assist your passage and climb. Tall Son 

scouted out that area for us and recommended we return the way we had come rather than get injured trying to climb through the challenging area of the rings.

Mojave Yuccas

By this time the sun was scorching and we retreated to the shade inside the Escape to enjoy ourselves for the afternoon. We couldn’t put up the awning because of the wind. Although the temp was 97 degrees F, the camper stayed remarkably pleasant with the windows open and the Maxx fan running.

As evening approached, we re-emerged and had a terrific time by the campfire, making grilled cheese sandwiches in the pie iron, saying the Rosary, and playing the harmonica. None of us know how to play it, but in short order, Tall Son was doing a credible job playing recognizable songs. 

Mojave National Preserve is the perfect place to escape crowds and enjoy desert beauty and total peace and quiet. Campsites at Hole in the Wall are large, level, and well-separated. There is potable water to fill your tank and a dump station. Since we arrived low on gas, we did not drive around to see more of this vast preserve, but a quiet day here was a true blessing. We just skimmed the surface of the possibilities here. Just watch out for rattlesnakes.

Mojave National Preserve

Sequoia National Park

The Senate Group on Congress Trail

We have a knack for arriving late to new campgrounds. Although Great Husband called ahead to make sure we could camp in Sequoia National Park, sightings of other human beings were rare as we arrived, even at the scenic overlooks. The visitor center and store had already closed for the day. We had been told that perhaps our fire ring would be snowed under so a campfire would be impossible, but that was an understatement. There was so much snow that we could not even tell where the roads and campsites were. Was coming to Sequoia in April a huge mistake?

After much consideration, we decided to set up on a piece of dry pavement that might normally serve as a drive to three neighboring campsites. It was impossible to tell exactly. Clearly, the park was not really set up for the camping season yet.


Regardless, we had a wonderful time in Sequoia National Park! In our one day there, we fell in love with the giant sequoias and took two hikes--the General Sherman trail, and the Congress Trail. Few other people were on the Congress Trail, even though there were many day visitors in the park. We finished our visit with a climb up the intimidating Moro Rock and a drive through Tunnel Log. 

The Ford Flex passes through Tunnel Log

Yosemite National Park

Tip 1 – Absolutely don’t drive on Old Priest’s Grade to get to Yosemite from the north. It is incredibly steep and twisty and not meant for a trailer. So why isn’t there a sign other than "Turn Off your Air Conditioning"?

Tip 2 – There is no gas available in Yosemite Valley, so don’t arrive on E. There is one gas station inside the park before you descend into the valley. Don’t miss it! Pay whatever outrageous price they ask!

We arrived at Yosemite just two days after a major snowstorm which meant that for a time everybody had been required to have chains on their cars and trailers. But our timing was lucky, and snow in the valley itself was mostly melted when we arrived on April 15. We had reserved a site in Upper Pines Campground and the melting had created some unglamorous “lakes” and mud around our particular site. Mornings were cold enough to put on winter coats, but the days quickly warmed to jacket or short sleeve weather.

Yosemite is wonderfully uncrowded in mid-April, and we stayed for five nights, enjoying the beautiful mountains and waterfalls, guided nature walks, and hikes from easy to strenuous. Yosemite draws a very international crowd and foreign languages seem at least as common as English. Later in the season the waterfalls dry up, the temps go beastly and the crowds get overwhelming. Yosemite runs a great shuttle service so you can leave your car at the campground for most activities.

Recommended at Yosemite:

• lunch at the Ahwahnee Hotel. We were seated in an alcove at the far end of the beautiful dining room, with a view of one of the falls. Queen Elizabeth II sat here when she visited in 1984.

• live show by actor Lee Stetson, who portrays naturalist John Muir

Regarding the campgrounds—there are no sites with utilities, but we made it five days with conservative use of water and battery power. In fact, our 12V battery still read G (good) after our time in Yosemite. We were E (empty) on fresh water at the very end of our stay.

Upper Yosemite Fall

Clouds descend on the Yosemite Valley

Half Dome

Dead End Adventure

In case you are ever in search of the Traditional Latin Mass in an unfamiliar city named Sacramento, and you are going there while towing an Escape 19, and you have brought with you the wrong address, and you have driven down one road a whole block, following by turning left, which is your only option, and driven down that second road a whole block until you finally see a small sign at the very end which says “Dead End”…

I hope you have in advance mounted extended towing mirrors on your car, because you will need them in the worst way for all the backing up you are about to do. And I hope you will ultimately escape your dilemma and get to drive forward once again. 

I hope you also have with you a Garmin GPS unit which most fortunately happens to know the correct address for the church, and I hope that despite the Dead End Adventure you will arrive at the Mass no more than 20 minutes late so you will be there just in time for the sermon. And once all this has happened, I hope you can go see the California State Capitol, have lunch in the camper while parked out front, and then quite happily proceed to Yosemite National Park.

California State Capitol, Sacramento

Two Days to Sacramento

Great Husband was monitoring our gas mileage during our Friday tow, and taking delight in seeing mpg at something like 17.5 as we towed through Seattle on I-5. Even though it was fun to see the Space Needle and Mount Ranier as we passed through, we were really anxious to get away from the city and away from traffic.

Somewhere along the way, Great Husband remembered that he needed to start checking the lug nuts, as recommended by Rease during our training. The lug wrench which came with the Ford Flex did not fit the camper lug nuts, so we spent an inefficient day searching for auto parts stores along our route. It was amazing that a big Sears store could be so efficiently hidden! We never did find that one. Even when we found a full-fledged auto parts store, they didn’t have what we needed, and all this fruitless search was a frustrating waste of time. At last we arrived at our Friday night campsite, Valley of the Rogue State Park in Oregon, once again after dark and in the rain. We repeated the ease of the first night, again having a pull-through site, and no challenges to getting set up and quickly to bed.

We had another day of driving ahead of us to get to Sacramento by Saturday afternoon, where we planned to pick up our oldest son, who would be flying in from Kansas City to camp with us. Since he is 6’6”, I’m going to call him Tall Son in these posts. Sounds rather Native American, doesn’t it?

We continued south on I-5 into California, and enjoyed the beautiful mountains and orchard country. MPG were ranging from 13.5 up to 18.5, depending on the terrain. Great Husband was thrilled to be able to tow so well. We also loved the ease of pulling off at a rest stop and make a simple lunch in the camper. By now we were also proudly giving our first tours of the beautiful little Escape and passing out the promotional cards which Tammy had given us.

We connected with Tall Son at the Sacramento airport, did our grocery shopping at a Walmart that was amazingly understocked*, and set up the camper again without disconnecting, this time at one of those big gravel parking lots (Cal Expo RV Park) that are good enough for an overnight if you don’t look out the window much. Even so, there was a big dog show going on there, and we enjoyed watching the contestants and their humans. But we were getting really excited for our first REAL destination – Yosemite National Park.

*By understocked, I mean that Hubby got the last two potatoes in the joint, and I had to ask an employee to go get pork chops off of the delivery truck!