Our little journey west brought us next to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, a favorite place.   It is at first glance a desolate place, but Anza-Borrego hides its best features where the casual visitor can’t find them.   We’ve been hooked on it since our first visit in the mid-1990s, when Eleanor and I drove over from San Diego with a tent and slept beneath a tamarisk tree.   After many visits, it feels like home to come back to the little village of Borrego Springs.

The goals of this trip were rather vague.   We knew the desert wildflowers had bloomed, and hoped to see some of those.   The hiking conditions were ideal, so we expected to do some of that.   But really, it was a true “R&R” week, deliberately left unplanned to allow anything to happen that might seem like fun.

We had alerted a few friends to our planned visit, and we were traveling as a caravan of three Airstreams.   Two more Airstreams just happened to be there, and by the time all were counted we had six Airstreams camped together in the Palm Canyon campground, plus Bill and Larry camped 30 miles away in another part of the park.     I was fearful that the get-together might turn into a rally, with commensurate expectations that would cramp our style, but everyone present was happy to just explore the park more or less independently.

Monday’s plan was to hike Hellhole Canyon, which is just a couple of miles from our campsite at Palm Canyon.   Despite the ominous name, Hellhole Canyon is a beautiful place, loaded (this time of year) with desert wildflowers and a pair of perennial waterfalls up at the very top.     The ocotillo are particularly colorful, each tipped with gorgeous red flowers, but there were also indigo bushes buzzing with bees, pink flowers atop cactus pads, chuparosa, and many others.

Unfortunately, it was just not Emma’s day for hiking, and not long after we started, she and Eleanor headed back for a quiet day.   Sometimes that happens.   That left Adam, Susan, and myself to do the hike, which progressed from a gentle upward climb on an alluvial fan to a scramble over granite boulders.   We hiked back to the campground rather than calling for a ride from the trailhead, so our total mileage was 7.5 for the day.

Sun protection and water are the key considerations now that we are into the spring season.   I drank my 100 oz. (3 liter) water sack completely dry, and needed more water in the evening after the hike.   For sun protection, I covered myself completely with SPF 55 sunscreen, plus the usual sunhat and polarized sunglasses.   Even still, I missed a small section on my neck and got a small sunburn there.

We developed a ritual for the next three days.   We’d arise early, get some work done (in my case only, everyone else was on vacation or retired), load up with sunscreen, pack the backpacks with snacks and water, and go hiking.   In the late afternoon, we’d return to the Airstreams, shower off all the sunscreen and sweat, have dinner, and get to bed early to do it all again.   With perfect weather and dry air, needless to say, it was great.

Tuesday was our day for a group hike.   Roger & Roxie, Adam & Susan, Ken & Petey, and the three of us all piled into two vehicles to hike the narrow Slot Canyon, and then hike to Wind Caves.   Both of these trails are accessible only by high-clearance vehicle.   The final stop was Font’s Point for an afternoon look at the badlands.   Total hiking distance was about 2.5 miles, with perhaps 50-60 miles in the car and about 5 miles of off-roading.

Wednesday we picked up Bill and hiked Ghost Mountain, the site of Yaquitepec, the 1940s home of Marshal South and his family.   Bill has done a far better job of documenting the life of Marshal South, and our hike, than I could do, so I will simply refer you to his blog for the details.   However, I’ve posted photos from the entire week on Flickr, which give a few clues to how beautiful and inspiring our days in Anza-Borrego were.   It was, as Eleanor pointed out, exactly what we needed.   We just didn’t realize it until we got out on the road again and started feeling the freedom.

Of course, it didn’t hurt that we had stacked the deck a bit by having friends traveling with us.   We are happy to travel just as a family, since we’ve become used to it, but once in a while it feels good to wake up near good friends and share the day with them.   The days in Anza-Borrego were prime because every day we enjoyed the company of friendly people.   On Monday Ken and Petey had us all over to their trailer for a noshing party that turned into dinner (at least for me, since I was snarfing up all the goodies on the table.)

On Tuesday Roxie and Roger hosted the occupants of all six Airstreams for a potluck dinner.   On Wednesday we enjoyed a fabulous Chinese repast lovingly made by Larry.   It was all great.   I can’t think of many days better than those, with outdoor activity in the sunny southern California desert followed by evenings with friends and family.   Those are the kinds of days that remind us why we got into this RV’ing thing in the first place.

It has been two months since we towed the Airstream anywhere, so it was clearly time to break out for a road trip.   Fortunately, our friends Adam and Susan were heading west from Tucson and wanted companions, so we had a good excuse.   Then I mentioned the trip to our friends Ken and Petey, and then I mentioned it to Roger and Roxie, and pretty soon it was turning into an event.

We met Adam and Susan, and Ken and Petey, in a lonely part of southern Arizona off Interstate 8.   When a place is described as “20 miles northwest of Gila Bend,” you know it’s pretty far away from population centers.   Gila Bend is a blip on the Interstate between Yuma and Casa Grande.

Our real destination was Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, but it’s 300+ mile drive from Tucson and nobody was in a hurry.   For years we’ve passed signs on I-8 pointing to a place called Painted Rock Petroglyph Site, and thought, “Sometime we should detour up there to see what that’s all about.”   So I told everyone it was somewhere off I-8 west of Gila Bend, and to figure out how to get there, and they all did.

(Painted Rock Petroglyph Site is indicated by the “H” symbol on the map above.)

Painted Rock was once a state park, but its status changed when the Gila River was declared polluted, and access to the water was closed.   Now it’s administered by the Bureau of Land Management.   Apparently without water it has become much less of a draw, so the campground was almost entirely deserted except for us.   We thought it was spectacular: quiet, starry, and mysterious because of the hill of ancient petroglyph-covered rocks directly adjacent to the campground.   Eight bucks a night, no hookups, no dump station.

The night at Painted Rock was a great warm-up for our next several days.   We explored the hill of petroglyphs, and then grilled vegetables outside and watched the stars fill the sky at dusk.   We talked about our plans and our recent experiences, and then retired to our three Airstreams for a quiet cool night.

The drive along I-8 and up the Imperial Valley has been the subject of several of my Tour of America blog posts, but still this trip fascinates me.   You pass through vast tracts of the Sonoran desert, skirt the very border of Mexico, cross major canals shunting water to grow Imperial Valley vegetables, traverse the tall Imperial Sand Dunes, dip below sea level, and then roll north to the Salton Sea.   There you’ll find acres of swaying palms, dust storms, an unnatural salt lake, miles of irrigated vegatables, and a Border Patrol checkpoint.   That last roadside phenomenon tied up traffic for about half an hour, but as usual we were waved through once we finally reached the officers.

Our next several days were spent in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in California, and I’ll write about those experiences in the next blog.

I know a lot of people who aren’t comfortable with towing a trailer.   My wife is among them.   I have stopped trying to convince them that they can tow, because I’m not sure if everyone really can.   Towing successfully takes a certain amount of skill, confidence, and perhaps natural ability.   Just as it is true that not everyone can drive a race car well, I think it may be true that not everyone is cut out to pull a trailer.

For me it has been an enjoyable challenge to learn the skills.   I actually like piloting my big trailer around, and things like backing up and maneuvering on narrow roads are sort of fun, most of the time.

So I was amused to see Forbes Magazine publish a list of “America’s Scariest Drives.”   There are eleven listed. In my opinion, several of them aren’t particularly scary except perhaps in the mind of a travel writer.   Not only have we driven many of them, we’ve towed our 30-foot Airstream down three of them (I-15 in Los Angeles, Rt 50 in Nevada, and coastal Rt 1 in California), and didn’t find the experiences particularly frightening.

Let me tell you, there are much scarier roads if you are towing a trailer.   Most of them are in Colorado, where steep mountain passes are almost unavoidable.   Imagine a 8% grade winding up to 10,000 feet for miles, while the thin air robs your engine of power and the temperature gauges on your transmission and engine slowly creep up toward the redline.   This is usually followed by a similar descent, shock-cooling the engine while the brakes heat up and begin to fade.

We’ve done several of these roads in Colorado, including the notorious Slumgullion Pass on Rt 149, but by far the worst one (psychologically) was Rt 550 between Durango and Silverton.   It includes three tough passes and miles of twisting roads atop terrifying precipices. You can’t help but think, “One slip and we’re going to fall a thousand feet.”   Often, there’s no guardrail.   We did it in the fog and a light rain, too.

Steeper than those is the Teton Pass between Jackson Hole WY and Victor ID.   It runs at 10% grade for five miles up and five miles down.   Climbing this hill with the trailer on a warm day was the only time we ever managed to overheat our engine, in three years of full-time towing. On the way down, you’d better have good trailer brakes.

For sheer heat, however, nothing beats Rt 190 from Death Valley to Owens Lake in the summer.   We drove it in late May once, and we were lucky that it was a slightly cooler-than-average day.   The road climbs 5000 feet, and ambient temperatures can easily exceed 110 degrees.   No matter how tough you think your turbodiesel truck is, this is a road to respect in the summertime.

Traffic terror is mostly found in the northeast.   Sure, I-15 in Los Angeles can be hairy, but it’s got nothing on I-95 in southern Connecticut during rush hour.   Imagine fifty miles of S-curving highway crammed with maniac commuters, riddled with potholes and steel plates, rife with exits and entrances, and about as smooth as a New York-style pizza.   You can’t go slower than traffic no matter how bad the road conditions, so expect to find things askew inside the trailer later, and keep your foot ready for a panic stop at all times.

Frankly, compared to any of those experiences, I would look forward   to a quiet uncrowded drive on Rt 50 in Nevada.   It’s a pleasure by comparison, and (honestly) it’s not nearly as lonely as the tourism folks would have you think.   And coastal Route 1 in California? Gorgeous and worth the effort.

I think I’m going to save the Forbes article for future trip planning.   Some of those “scary” roads look pretty interesting.   We bypassed the Moki Dugway on our September trip through Indian Country, but I’d like to give it a try.   What some people regard as scary might just be the highlight of the drive.

It seems that I spend too much time lately writing obituaries for good friends who have left too soon.

Yesterday I got the bad news about Vince Saltaformaggio.  He died suddenly of a heart attack early Tuesday morning.  Most people reading this blog won’t know Vince, but anyone who has encountered him for just a minute will never forget him.  He was the big guy with the big smile and the New Orleans accent, trying to feed anyone who walked within 50 feet of his Airstream motorhome. He was always there, the organizer of parties and rallies, the leader of festivities, and the Head Chef at all times.

I first met Vince and his longtime companion Lonnie Carver  when I was working on an article for the Spring 2006 issue of Airstream Life (see excerpt).  I was looking for people who had escaped Hurricane Katrina in their Airstreams, and they had a doozy of a story to tell.  Vince suffered the loss of his home, and after the hurricane, he and Lonnie moved into an Airstream Class A motorhome on the Irish Bayou near New Orleans, and lived there ever since.

At one point I described Vince as “the quintessential New Orleanian,” for his jovial attitude toward life, his ability to make friends almost instantly, and his amazing talent for cooking.   He liked that, and it stuck. Almost every time I saw him after that, he reminded me of the moniker I’d given him — and then he offered me something to eat.

At every rally, Vince and Lonnie were the center of the party.  There’d be a giant cast-iron double burner running day and night, heavy with stew pots and fry pans, and no matter when you came by there would be something terrific to eat.  There was usually a glass of something near Vince’s right hand, and his beloved pug dog would be nearby as well. I learned to seek out Vince at every rally, because I knew I’d be welcomed with a giant bear hug and the smile of someone who is genuinely glad to see you.

It seems to sell him short by remembering Vince primarily for his cooking, because he was such a generous and amiable person.  But his cooking was so wonderful and honest that it was an emblem of his entire personality. Eating Vince’s food was like being invited to Paul Prudhomme’s home kitchen.  It was spectacular.  Although professionally he was a photographer, I (and doubtless many others) told him he should really start a second career.  But he cooked just for fun.  Vince knew how to speak to people through his cooking.  Every dish was great warm hug, a taste of comfort from The Big Easy, and a reminder that even amidst strife life is worth living.

Certainly Vince lived well.  He and Lonnie were on the road often, attending rallies all over the southeast with their massive outdoor kitchen setup.  They were always happy when I saw them, just enjoying life and their many friends.  Two years ago we met Vince, Lonnie, and a group of their friends who go by the names “Dixie Camperz” in Ft Morgan, AL.  They literally spent day and night cooking and feeding the group in what seemed at time to just be one continuous meal.   No matter what was going on, there was Vince in the background, sometimes wearing chef’s whites and a coonskin cap, cooking, cooking, cooking.

I did something foolish at that event.  Despite the incredible meals we were being served, I let slip that I was surprised there hadn’t been any crawfish boil.  After all, I reasoned, we’re in the south and that’s a traditional meal — and I hadn’t had it in years.  Vince said, “Oh, so you like crawfish eh?”  The next day $200 worth of crawfish arrived for a massive boil-up.

I was simultaneously flattered and mortified.  That was far too much money to spend on my whim, and neither Vince nor Lonnie would accept any contribution to the food budget.  But oh, was it good.  Emma had her first taste of crawfish there, and that night we were inducted into the Dixie Camperz in a hilarious ceremony featuring nose glasses.  I still have the embroidered t-shirt in my collection of momentos from our years on the road.

In the Airstream community, Vince is also remembered for his love of vintage trailers.  He owned a 1959 Airstream Tradewind that he had lovingly restored and polished.  He also owned various other Airstreams, and had started a new restoration project recently.  But as much as he polished his ’59, the trailer was always outshined by his extraordinary personality.  Vince Saltaformaggio was one of those rare ambassadors of Airstreaming who exemplify exactly why we go to rallies, why we travel, why it’s so much fun.  We need more guys like him, but they aren’t made every day.  To say Vince will be missed is barely enough.

Vincent Charles Saltaformaggio