Wandering Wahls

We hope your holidays were enjoyable. We rolled the RV into the Sacramento area to my brother-in-law’s house and parked it there for an extended stay. He lives in a rural area outside of Sacramento (Wilton) on 5 acres, so our RV was unobtrusively parked along his property line. Mary Claire’s family met up there and we had the first family Christmas gathering in quite awhile (given our overseas assignments). The holidays were quite fun and busy.

I realized though that I have missed a few travel episodes from our journey to California. One such stop was the lowest and driest point in the country – which led to an ironic problem with our RV.

From Las Vegas, we headed to the lowest point in the USA – Death Valley, CA. The weather was beautiful, and we ventured out to hike, play in sand dunes, and relax by the campfire. The stars were brilliant. Also, the campground is a 30 second walk to the Visitor’s Center. Each night, the family would take some hot chocolate and walk under the expanse of stars to the Visitor’s Center to hear a nightly Ranger talk. I’m missing that as I write this.

Our only mishap though was that in the driest point in the country, our water pump went kaput! Unfortunately, the campground did not have water hook ups, and there was no shower. So we “roughed it” like real campers, hauling water in bottles and washing dishes at the central campground spigot. Our “roughing it” gave me a feeling of camaraderie with the tent campers who were camping without water and showers as well – of course, I then climbed into a queen sized bed and watched a little TV!

Two days later we headed to an RV service center in Bakersfield, and the water pump was easily replaced. (Mary Claire took a shower while I paid the bill.)

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