Hello from Yuma Arizona! We left our campsite in Quartzsite at 6:30am this morning and came here in search of an internet cafe to check email, update the site, etc. I have a few things from the past week to write about that Jamie didn’t mention:

• We’ve realized that because it is winter & we are in the Northern Hemisphere, the sun sets right around 5:10pm every night. We thought that Southern California & Arizona would stay lighter longer than Seattle but they really don’t. This means we have to find & set up a campsite before 5pm which is a pain. We are then left with a lot of time hanging out at a campsite picnic bench in the pitch dark after we’ve set up camp. Boring! Here’s a picture of me learning how to use our stove in the dark. We are so happy we brought headlamps – they make everything much easier in the dark.
• Last night’s campsite – the one in the gravel RV parking lot in Quartzsite – was kind of creepy. Even better, as we were setting up camp Jamie suddenly remembered stories his friend Chris Kopperud had told him in junior high about packs of Javelinas that roam the ditches of Arizona. Javelinas are small little warthogs that travel in packs and are really mean. I don’t think we were in any danger but it was hilarious to see the look on Jamie’s face when the possibility of a gory Javelina attack occured to him. Here’s me working on our Budweiser & Sun Chips dinner.
• Joshua Tree was beautiful and our campsite was only $5 per night! This made me very happy after the other $25 sites we found in California. It was pretty hot there; we ate a delicious watermelon for lunch.
• The day after Thanksgiving we went to a country bar called Pappy and Harriet’s near Joshua Tree. It had really good live country music – Jenny even got to dance with an old local guy. We spotted a couple we named the Rockabilly couple. They had obviously driven to the bar from LA and were dressed to the nines in their tight Wranglers, sleeveless T’s, and cowboy hats. They looked like they were wearing costumes…but we saw them the next morning at a breakfast place and they were all dressed up at 9am! Do they go to work like that too? I am really sorry we didn’t get a picture of them.

Sarah and I have entered Arizona, land of the RV and senior citizen. We had a great time in Joshua Tree with Jenny and Brandon. We camped at Jumbo Rocks and were lucky to get a site there as the park was very busy over Thanksgiving weekend. The lovely campers who used the site before us let their dog poop all over the site, so we cleaned it up for them. Poop was a common theme in the park – we think a lot of campers had too much beer and turkey on Thanksgiving because afterwards all the toilets in the park had poop all over the seats. Very nice indeed. Sarah and I both really liked Joshua Tree. We went cycling through the park and did some hiking and bouldering with Jenny and Brandon. Last night we camped at the Desert Gardens RV Park right off I-10 outside Quartzsite, AZ. The park was restricted to those 55 or older like most of the RV parks around here, but we snuck in and no one bothered us. We set up our tent in a gravel parking lot, did our laundry, and tried to mingle with the locals but all the snowbirds were asleep. So, we walked over to the truck stop and got two 24oz cans of Budweiser served in two paper sacks which we drank with some SunChips for dinner. We left before the 9am exercise classes started. Today we are heading to Tucson, AZ and the beautiful national parks of the Southwest. Sorry, no laptop yet, so you will have to wait for our pictures.

Hello from the Ventura Public Library! Today we are staying in the campground at McGrath State Beach for the exorbitant price of $25 per night. The camping prices in California are not cheap. Yesterday we camped at Pismo State Beach for $20. At Pismo, Sarah saw one Monarch butterfly in the nesting area and she also spotted the famous Pismo clam. We were too slow to catch any though! We also got some good pictures of the sunset, but we don’t have any way of posting them to the site yet, so that will have to wait as will the Route page. Sorry guys, we should have a laptop soon. Today we spent most of the day in Santa Barbara which was really beautiful. While there, we even got to go on a bike ride to Julia Child’s favorite taqueria! The line was out the door but the food was great. Tonight we are staying in Ventura and then tomorrow we are going to make a bee-line for Joshua Tree National Park since we heard from some Los Angeles locals that the traffic will be pretty crazy this weekend. We both really like California. Every time we go through a city, Sarah asks, “should we add this to the list of places we want to live?”

Confidential to Emily: We saw a Mountain Lion at Mt. Tam right outside of San Francisco! Sarah wet her pants a little bit for you.