Travel Diary - Going West Again! (Part 1)

For our second big vacation in 2020 we had made plans early in the year to spend a week in November at Walt Disney World. Unfortunately, COVID-19 hit, and our plans changed. We decided to take another road trip in our Vanagon to stay off the grid and away from crowds. We threw around a bunch of different trip ideas, but we decided to explore more of the western US. We didn’t even come close to tackling everything we wanted to do during our first trip in August, so back to The West we went!

     We left on Friday immediately after work (like we always do), and drove into the night until we made it to Tulsa, Oklahoma (around 9 hours). Well after midnight, we found a Wal-Mart parking lot to crash in. However, as soon as we found a spot to park, a security officer came over to nix that idea. This particular Wal-Mart didn’t allow for overnight parking. Boo. However, he was nice enough to direct us to a Lowe’s down the street where we could sleep. Not the most glamorous of digs, but, hey, it was free. 

     I woke early in the morning, and started driving while Becky was still sound asleep. This has become our usual routine. I always wake early, so I take the first driving shift. 

     Once we made it out of Oklahoma and into the panhandle of Texas, we hit a major headwind. Not the most aerodynamic of vehicles, the Vanagon struggled quite a bit. Her accelerator pedal was literally mashed to the floor the entire day, guzzling fuel. After a very, very long and boring day of driving through the desolate northern part of Texas and eastern New Mexico, we made a pit stop in Roswell, New Mexico to eat dinner in the van. We parked at the coolest McDonalds on the planet! It’s shaped like a UFO and decked out in neon lights. Roswell is a really neat town. They’ve really taken the whole UFO/alien vibe and ran with it. 

McDonalds in Roswell, NM.

     After dinner, we drove a few more hours and found a place to stop for the night. It was a parking lot for the Baylor Pass West hiking trailhead just outside of Las Cruces in the Organ Mountains Wilderness. It was super-quiet that evening. We needed a peaceful night after navigating through that tough wind all day. 

     Sunday morning we took off for Saguaro National Park in Arizona. The park is made up of two districts - one on each side of Tucson. We had been to the Tuscon Mountain District of the park on the western side a couple years ago, so we headed to the Rincon Mountain District this time. Honestly, you could drop us into each one, and we couldn’t tell you which one is which. The two districts are very similar.

     We drove the eight-mile loop of Cactus Forest Drive through the towering Saguaro Catci. We stopped to walk among them a few times. The saguaro cactus is something to behold. Even standing in front of one, it’s hard to believe such a giant plant exists on our planet. They can grow to be up to 40 feet tall, and can age up to 125 years!

We made friends with a white-tailed deer at Saguaro National Park.

     Once we had our fill, we left the park with one place on our minds: In-N-Out Burger. I believe this is the only time we braved the COVID crockpot during our trip. An In-N-Out Burger and fries is worth the risk, right?! If you haven’t had one, you don’t know what you’re missing!

     Our next stop was Organ Pipe National Monument. Organ Pipe NM is a 517 square-mile area of land at the southern border of Arizona that hugs the state of Sonora, Mexico. This is the only area in the US containing a large concentration of Organ Pipe cacti.

The Sonoran Desert has some very unique plant life.

     Before going to Organ Pipe, we found a nice secluded place to camp on Darby Well Road near the small town of Why, Arizona. Finally, we have a nice campsite and some time to enjoy it! We set up the van for camp, and we took a much-needed shower for the first time on this trip. We then lit a campfire, had a few beers and enjoyed the clear night sky of the Arizona desert. 

Our secluded campsite on Darby Well Road.

     We woke and had a hearty breakfast the next morning before driving to Organ Pipe. We stopped at the visitor center to grab our usual sticker, patch, pin and magnet before driving Ajo Mountain Drive. The park’s mostly gravel scenic road is 21 miles long and the easiest way to take in everything the park has to offer. The organ pipe cactus is a very unique looking plant. They are obviously named for their likeness to an organ pipe, and can grow to almost 25 feet tall. 

     After touring the park, we took a break to eat lunch before we headed further west. Our next stop was Joshua Tree National Park in California. For some reason, Joshua Tree had captivated us during our trip research. This would be the furthest west we had driven the Vanagon. 

     We packed up our food and began our journey 5 hours west from Organ Pipe to Joshua Tree. There was not a whole lot to see in between southern Arizona and Joshua Tree, which made for a long drive. We got off the Interstate to try to make things more interesting to no avail. At the agricultural inspection station near the California border, we got a look at fuel prices in California. “Holy Shit! If we need fuel before we leave California, we’ll just call AAA for a tow back across the border!”

OMG! You cannot be serious!

     When we arrived at Joshua Tree NP, we took a chance and tried to snag a walk-in spot at one of the park’s well-known campgrounds. Of course, they were full. On the way to the park, we had spotted some land to camp on right outside of town on Shelton Road. Becky turned the van around and headed that way. Little did we know, we had one hell of an “adventure” awaiting.

Our next blog entry will include the scariest and most eventful day we’ve had on the road.

-Andrew