Getaway time! April 2026

 

Jimmy and I believe in "Zooming away on Wild Adventures," but this was more like slipping away on a mild escapade, 120 miles from home southwest to Napa.  April is such a lovely month to be Out and About.  I checked the weather in advance and the week of April 21-24 looked clear ... till a few days before we left, then rain entered the picture.  Harumph.  I changed our dates at Skyline Wilderness Park to the 22nd - 25th.  Okay!  We packed a couple changes of clothes (layers, doncha know) and some grub in Tergel and took off.  Wincing at today's $5.59 average gas p/g prices, we thanked our lucky stars that we'd filled Tergel's gas tank before arriving home when we left the desert in early March!

Skyline Park is an 850-acre wilderness area at the southeast corner of Napa.  We've camped here before (check Skyline label at left) and really enjoyed ourselves.  With over 25 miles of trails for hiking, (mountain) biking and horse riding, there's plenty of room for everyone.  This time of year, green is the dominant color, which mixes harmoniously with blue skies and cotton-candy clouds, above.

We did a recon walk-about our first afternoon, looking to see where the trails began and checking the grounds.  Lots to do here.  The RV park wasn't crowded and I had great access for bird watching from our dinette window.  Our site had W/E.

The next morning (Thursday), we set out on the Skyline trail, a sort of arduous climb to the top of the park -- but, oh the views!  Jimmy, above, is all set to go.  We had plenty of water, our hiking sticks, and granola bars.  We didn't hurry; the trail was too steep.  Leeching rainwater formed little rivulets on many parts of the trail.

Spied a number of these cuties.

Huff puff!  Half-way-plus, it was instant recognition when we came to the old rock wall.  "Hey, I remember this!"  And we also recalled a hole in the wall/fence where we could step through and look south with its fantastic vista, as you see below:

Wow, how's this -- the Napa estuary and San Francisco Bay beyond, with Mt Tam poking into the sky.  I think it's Mt Tam.  We could faintly make out a city skyline with binocs, which we thought was either Oakland or San Francisco.  This is one of those places where "you can see forever."

And, looking north, we had sweeping views of Napa Valley and beyond, to surrounding mountains and possibly even to Alaska (just kidding about Alaska).  The trees in the park are a sight in themselves -- the venerable sturdy Coastal Live Oak, California Buckeye (above, in flower), and California Bay (laurel), etc.  My bay leaf jar at home was empty so I picked bay leaves, enough to last, uh, quite a while. 

We made it to the top!

At 1630’ elevation, Sugarloaf is the highest point in the park.

Elevation gain on this trail was many hundreds of feet, but in this photo, the ground appears level.  Short-sleeve shirt day!  We dodged all the Poison Oak in the park, successfully, I hope.

Overlooking Napa green-green vineyards.  We found a bench on our trek down (photo below), where we ate our granola bars and split a Gatorade, all the while admiring this picturesque scene.  Our Tergel is parked at the yellow checkmark.  Obviously, we still had a way to go before getting down to our "home."

What a nice picture, and a fine spot for a most welcome bench!  Steep trail!  We had to be careful where we placed our feet even on the downhill.  I'd say we were in shade a third of the time, but the day was so fine, we were never too hot nor too cold.

I wouldn't tire of the view.

Discovered this "guy" scampering across the rocks on our return, not far from Tergel.  While it may look fierce, it's a Pipevine Swallowtail caterpillar.  We named it "Bob."  And we left it alone!

In early April, Jimmy and I walked the Buttermilk Bend trail near Nevada City when wildflowers were covering the hillsides, along with a multitude of Pipevine Swallowtail butterflies.  So, the caterpillar morphs into this beauty. 

Getting closer!  Howdy, Tergel.

Between the Acorn Woodpeckers, above, probably making another hole in the pole, California Quail, and Anna's Hummingbirds, we never lacked for entertainment!  Quite a large variety of birds here.

Oh, and these fellas, too.

Each morning we heard gobble, gobble, gobble.

A four-mile hike was enough for us, considering the elevation gain, and we napped a bit in afternoon.  After dinner we scouted around on foot, found a large archery range, two disc golf courses, and more.  Back at the ranch, a weather check showed rain on Saturday.  Phooey.  We didn't want to drive home in the rain, so we decided to leave Friday.  April may be lovely, but she's capricious!

After a leisurely morning, we checked out, but left Tergel on the grounds.  Smartie took us to Gott's Roadside in Napa where we used a gift card from Matt and Jen for a delicious burger lunch.  The restaurant was packed with a waiting line when we got there and likewise when we left!  Because of the crowd, we shared our booth with two ladies from Redding, Cathy and Bobbi, which made lunch all the more enjoyable.  Good company.

Home before dark and before predicted rain.  Short and sweet getaway.

Something different. April 2026

I wrote this 34 years ago. 

Remembrances from Niagara Falls days 💖

 PA … a memoir … 

    By day he masqueraded as a mild-mannered chemical engineer, sitting at his desk concocting indecipherable formulas and noxious stews as unrecognizable to ordinary people as the mysteries of the universe. He maintained this guise for over 40 years.

    But at 5:30 pm each workday, an amazing transformation took place, complete with costume change, and our Dad became Super-Gardener! He'd peel off coat and tie as he came in the door, eager as a hound after a squirrel to trade in his stuffy day garb for the farmer togs that hung on a clothes tree in a corner of his bedroom – when not hanging on him. He looked like a tramp when he emerged in his baggy brown pants (no short rise here!). Oftentimes he'd forget to empty the dirt from the pant cuffs and this added weight made those old pants sag even more, not to mention the dirt that scattered over the bedroom floor, much to Ma's annoyance. "Empty those cuffs outside!" she'd yell. His ancient brown shoes weren't allowed in the house: "I don't want those muddy things in here," she'd told him. On cool days, he'd don a light cotton short-sleeved shirt, thin enough to read the newspaper through. (I could say threadbare.) Hot sticky days, he'd forego the shirt and out the back door he'd go, brown of neck and arms, his round belly hanging over his belt looking for all the world like one of his melons.

    Whistling cheerfully, he'd pick up his hoe and begin ... looking for his kids!  There were five of us and we all learned early on to scatter like startled birds when Pa needed workers. We weren't always quick enough, and we'd end up hoeing weeds in the eggplants instead of playing. Sometimes we'd go willingly, chattering like magpies, happy to be in Pa's domain with him.

    Pa's garden was big and it didn't just materialize overnight. Evenings, while incarcerated by the Northeast winter's long icy fingers, he'd crack hickory nuts in the cellar and pore over seed catalogues.  When the ground warmed and was dry enough, Pa'd hire a neighbor to plow the soil for his super-spread. Ma, dreading the annual summer canning and freezing chores, would implore him "not to have such a huge garden this year." Nevertheless, the day after Memorial Day, if it wasn't raining, Pa would don his shabby duds and commence planting.

    Daily he'd check his seeds and chortle with the joy of a new father over the first green tendrils. With an eagle eye, he’d watch these shoots, hoping to forestall disasters and hungry insects. Muttering, "Dagnab it," he'd go after the bad bugs. Good guys, such as daddy long legs and toads, were encouraged. More than once I nearly fell over when a disturbed toad leapt out from under its leafy hiding place. If a Praying Mantis was found anywhere in the yard, we'd carry it (prayerfully, of course) in clasped hands and deposit it on a needy vegetable plant, the kind with tiny holes in the leaves.

    Pa'd often whistle or better yet, sing. He had several favorites and we could usually count on hearing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," or perhaps "The Yellow Rose of Texas," of which he was inordinately fond. I can still picture Pa standing in his tumbledown pants with hoe in hand, his blue eyes a-twinkle in his brown face as he surveyed his fertile land, singing merrily, "Mine eyes have seen the glory ...."

    The long summer days soon became heady with the good smells of ripening produce. That's when Pa would stride to the garden with a saltshaker in his pocket. He'd pluck a big red tomato, redolent of the warm earth, cut it with his pocketknife, sprinkle it with salt, and in a flash that tomato would be gone. "Aaahh!"

     

    Soon bushel baskets of Pa's vegetables strained the kitchen table and Ma's good humor. Harvest time meant work: picking, shucking, shelling, blanching, etc. We all worked. But during the dog days of August, the canning and freezing chores fell on Ma. Sweating over the hot stove, Ma'd holler, "Next year don't plant so much!" Presently the freezer'd be filled to the top. The fruit cellar shelves groaned under the weight of canned fruit and veggies, and pumpkins and squash were spread out on the earthen shelf above like soldiers standing guard over their cache.

    Sometime after Labor Day, frost would cast a lacy white blanket over Pa's crops, decorating the sun-baked leaves with exquisite ivory filigree. The growing season now at an end, Pa retired his raggedy pants to the clothes tree and returned to the cellar to crack nuts and dream of a bigger Eden next year.

    As arctic air settled over our home, Ma'd cook up big pots of the world's best vegetable soup, always accompanied by a fresh loaf of Italian bread from DiCamillo's Bakery. She's convinced that those homegrown vegetables made her soup the finest. All the hard work then seemed worthwhile – we ate well every winter from Pa's summer garden. As Pa aged, his gardens did get smaller, but he always planted something. Ma sighed with relief at the decreased canning/freezing workload. She grew tired of making vegetable soup anyway. But Pa loved the eternal seasons and the land, and I think he was happier in his garden paradise in those awful brown pants than anywhere else – ever.

    Pa's been gone now for fifteen years. I guess Ma threw those pants out when he passed away, but each spring at the earth's yearly rebirth, most of Pa's children don their own costumes, whether blue jeans or baggy shorts – and gather hoe and seeds. Lovingly we turn the soil, in silent communion with Pa and in reverent confirmation that here's where we belong. Our strength goes into and flows out from the soil, just as it did for Pa. It is the bond of God's love, open to all, like Pa, who tend His earthly garden.

# # #

    Here I am at one of our backyard garden plots on Saturday, April 4th, still at it, ready to plant seedlings.  Snow peas already in the ground, while onions overwinter, and garlic shoots up.  A few daffydills thrown in for good measure!

Happy Easter to all.

A side trip home - to 3/4/26

I'm not sure where I heard about it or perhaps I read something in a magazine, e.g., AARP, but since we were already "in the neighborhood," why not stop by?  I'm referring to Trona Pinnacles, a "unique geological feature" located about 170 miles north of Desert Hot Springs and 28 miles east of Ridgecrest in the Mojave Desert.  While we've been all around this area, we'd never been to Trona or Ridgecrest.  Because it's BLM land, dispersed camping is allowed and I thought it would be grand to camp below one of those tufa spires.

We found it easily.  At the entry, a sign read that the 5-mile-long dirt/gravel road is generally accessible to passenger vehicles (if you're willing to drive on a washboard), but after a rain, the road may be impassable, even to four-wheel drive vehicles.  Rain had fallen two weeks earlier; we figured we were safe. 

With Smartie in tow, Tergel started down what used to be a dirt road, transformed into a dried mud (like cement) track, with deep, irregular ruts.  We made it possibly a quarter mile before crying Uncle!  Then we had to turn around and make our way back toward the entrance.  Truly, that was an awful experience for Tergel, Smartie and us.  Nearer the entrance we found level ground and, since camping was allowed, we decided to stay where we were.  Too bad we were still five miles away from the pinnacles.  And we said, ain't no way we're walking that far!  Well, at least we could see them.  

Tergel sits all by herself with the pinnacles in the distance and train cars parked on a siding.  (Can you see her?) We'd taken Smartie for a spin so we could check out the ghost town of Trona.  Not much to see there.  The town is still functioning, but only barely.  A huge chemical complex closed down years ago, and we all know what happens then.  A new outfit is pulling sodium and potassium minerals out of Searles dry lake, but Trona is floundering.

This train was moving toward Trona (at a snail's pace),

going to pick up some raw material?  Flashy cars.

We went for a walk to the siding with the rail cars,

looking, examining, supposing ....

Toward dusk, I climbed a ridge behind Tergel and found a treasure trove of wildflowers.  The bottom two are Brown-eyed Primrose and Desert Five-Spot.

I took this picture of the pinnacles from atop the ridge.  Isn't it fantastic?  I'm glad we stopped here even if we couldn't get any closer.

In 2016, the BLM designated Trona Pinnacles as part of the California Desert National Conservation Lands due to the area’s significant scientific and ecological values; this means that the area will be managed to protect those values and will be permanently protected from development.  Good.  (They could work on that road, however!)

This pic is from Wiki.  As you see, people were closer to the spires.

There's Tergel/Smartie (and my shadow where I stood on the ridge).  Being camped here was extra-special, and with no one else around the silence was pervasive and so welcome.  Aside from the pinnacles, the area isn't particularly scenic, but we appreciated both the vastness and the tiny wildflowers at our feet.  I didn't fret that we couldn't camp at the base of a monolith tufa, nope.  Just happy.  Period.

And the sky!  We saw the breath-taking full moon rise above yonder mountain -- what a sight!  We didn't expect this which made it even better.  For sure, we wouldn't see many stars nor the Milky Way, not with the super bright moon filling the sky.  Alone as we were, there wasn't any need to close our windshield curtains.  We watched the moon climb in the sky.  I got up once in the night to look around, and it was like daylight out there.  So quiet.

The next morning was cool and sunny, blue skies all 'round.  Whoa, I looked out our dinette window and saw this black smoke.  We didn't hear anything, but China Lake Naval Weapons Station is beyond the hills.  The smoke continued and spread eastward in the sky.  It looked like a plane had crashed, but, like I said, we heard nothing.  Just about the time you think you're alone in the world, bang, a reminder you're not.

We left the site after breakfast, heading for Tehachapi (the -ugh- wind tunnel) and eventually I-5.  It didn't take us long to reach Hwy 58, the road to Tehachapi.  Meanwhile, we were treated to mountains and flats blanketed with blooms, the yellow you see on the peak above.

And here!

Yellows and purples and masses of white,

but hard to get a great photo at 60mph!

I'd also hoped to stop at Red Rock Canyon, but the entrance came upon us too quickly and we missed the turn in.  Nowhere to turn around!  Well, okay, two for two: we came, we saw, we almost conquered!

From the road, the place looked stupendous.  Maybe next time.

We moved on, with a headwind in our face, through Tehachapi, down to Bakersfield and on to the Baker Museum in Coalinga, a Harvest Host site we used a couple of years ago.  After a delicious meal at Los Reyes Mexican Grill, we enjoyed a peaceful night at the museum.  No dinosaurs disturbed us.  We shared our site with one other camper, a lady from Oregon named Eileen.  Always lovely to meet fellow travelers, especially when they become friends!

On toward home the next morning, we endured a vicious headwind, the kind where you feel like you may as well simply pour gasoline straight onto the road. ** sigh **.  We made it home late Thursday afternoon in one piece, glad to see the homestead still standing, having sustained no damage from the snowstorm.  

Five weeks away, loved it all.

West Side Loop, Wed, 2/25/26

 

Black Rock Canyon Campground is in the northwest corner of vast Joshua Tree NP.  This part of the park appears different than the main entrance inasmuch as there are no giant mountains of jumbled rock.  But we've discovered this area still offers plenty to see and do.  West of the campground are several trails, including the West Side Loop trail, a rocky five-mile-long path that weaves through ridges and washes and Joshua Trees.  We decided to give it a whirl today, a repeat from two years ago.

The wind was blowing like stink again in the valley, but up here at 4,000+ ft, the day was really fine, not too hot nor too cool and just a breeze to keep us comfy.  Otherwise, the start wasn't auspicious because a couple of horses had preceded us and tore up the sandy trail.

I guess the park service leaves this sign up permanently, and perhaps the tire holds the sign in place! (We saw it two years ago) The ruts left from rains make it harder to climb the hilly sections, but we dodged 'em and kept climbing. 

I see a monkey!

What do you see?

The Joshua Tree blossoms are big and they're beautiful, and many of the trees are beginning to flower.  This one has a bee crawling on top.

This trail is rated moderate, and you have to work to get to the top of this hill (or mountain).  Next to the red x, you can barely make out two people we passed on our way up as they were descending.  Yup, that's our trail, all right.

Still slogging away, heading up.

I was feeling the 800' elevation gain.

Sometimes you just have to stop and breathe!

We're still not at the crest.

The same sign is up here that we saw down below ... with tricky sections to navigate in between.  The views of the mountains, layer upon layer, culminating in snow-coned Mt San Gorgonio were fabulous.

Beautiful.  Hi, Jimmy!

This we did not like.  Steep, sand-slick downhills followed by aggressive uphills followed by more of the same downhills and repeat.  We had to choose ways off trail to clamber down, often backwards and hanging onto whatever nearby shrub that didn't have spikes or spines.  We didn't remember having to do this from a couple of years ago.  Maybe on purpose?  Or the trail has gone to pot.  Anyhoot, it was scary.  No mas!

We did it, however, and nobody got hurt.  I do recall seeing this Joshua Tree lying down and becoming a a nurse tree with lots of offspring!  The only critters we came across today were lizards, lots of small lizards.

Even the Sotols are shooting up flowering stems.

Egad!  We were stopped in our tracks at the burn scar.  A "brush" fire on the West Side Loop trail broke out a few months ago -- October 2025, cause unknown -- and consumed approx 72 acres!  NPS and BLM worked on putting out the fire.  We knew it had to be recent as we could still see ash beneath the burned branches. 😢

When at last we saw our little Smartie, we were so tired, so ready to be done with the hike -- and sooo happy to see the li'l guy all by itself parked beside a Joshua Tree!  We drove home to Tergel and dove into the pool!  (not literally, no diving)

I talked about wind in the Coachella Valley in a previous post, and blowing sand. Yes?  Evidence, above and below.  As we came down into the valley from JTNP, we were appalled at the mess being created -- huge winds blowing sand and dust.  These pics were taken near the RV Park where we're staying, about six hundred feet above where the sands are being blown, so we're just seeing the tops of the sand being blasted skyward.  

Close the windows, Mabel!

And that's it for this year.  Our month at Catalina Spa and RV Resort is over Tuesday, 3/3/26, and we'll head out in the morning.  Hopefully the manic wind will cooperate and stand down!  We've enjoyed our time here, those terrific pools (I WILL miss my daily swim!), all the hikes we've managed to muster up the energy for.  We found new things to do this go-round, along with some familiars.  Of course there's the mundane, laundry, grocery shopping, and so on.  When we get home, we'll have our work cut out for us.  Till next year, adios Desert Hot Springs!