#stovepipe wells

[travelbinge]

By Atanu Bandyopadhyay

Stovepipe Wells, Inyo County, California, USA

[nsdclassic]

Chevrolet Suburban

[thedaveandkimmershow]

The transition from October to November was kinda awkward. For example, October definitely had its moments of oh hey, yeah, this KIND of has a summer vibe.

But November?

Yeah.

We're sleeping under a heating blanket, for crying out loud. There's no doubt where we are in the year. 😕

As I look back on November, the thread running through it is looking forward to Linzy's birthday show at The Sunset Tavern. We spent pretty much the entire month talking it up and, in doing so, remembering the period of her life from which Linzy intended to draw her set list.

Now, we had no idea what specifically was gonna be on that set list. Her band, though, would be a magnificent cross-pollination of The Little Lies and Midnight High performing these songs in that time capsule that brings back the memories of hearing each one brought to life. And I still do remember the heart that delighted in each one.

So yeah. Our November was filled with expectation. ☺️

In other news, I'm still getting distracted by the ability to take a picture like this with my cell phone...

And turn it into this:

Just. Can't. Help it.

In other, other news, November marked the beginning of my Christmas card efforts. Can't help that either because there are things I want to start now so they don't pile up in December. With that in mind, I inventoried the Christmas cards we have on hand going several years back in order to figure out the number I have still to buy.

Having done that quick inventory, I kicked off the process of writing this year's Christmas Letter, a two-pager sprint around the bases take on what we did this year. Thankfully, it's not the effort it used to be because I write a Month in Review blog post for every month of the year… so the process so far is me going through each of those blog posts and pulling anything of note regarding myself, Kimmer, Linzy, our cats, our doing's as a family, our doing's as a couple, and any insights that may have occurred along the way. ☺️

Also...

Aside from the expectation running through the month about Linzy's upcoming birthday show at The Sunset Tavern, there were also a few other gigs to complicate her month that included her private vocal tutoring and band rehearsals for her Sunset Tavern show.

Now, this end of the year has always been big on celebration not only because of Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year events but because each of our birthdays lands here: Kimmer 'n Linzy in November, me in December. And so it was that on the day before Kimmer's birthday, we found ourselves on our way to the east side to meet up with our youth pastor, the Dick Clark of youth pastors because for the longest time the man did not seem to age, like, a single day.

Shortly after we arrive, Wally, our former youth pastor, the man who married us, shows up with that unmistakable beard of his and that patented grin that manages to make its presence known to the world even with a full beard in front of it. It's always good to see him. Always. It's essential, if I'm being honest, that he exists in the world somewhere because we do need someone to look up to, someone, yes, older and wiser. That age difference does make a difference even at our age.

Also.

Wally's on a very short list of people we turn to for advice when life gets especially calamitous. He's on a very short list of people with whom we compare notes: he was a youth pastor and we were in youth ministry. He's on a very short list of people we turn to for straight-up wisdom. And he does, he does leave us feeling cared for, cared about. He is and always has been a light in our lives whether that light made our lives brighter or that light was the light at the end of a tunnel.

Okay so that happened on Day 1 of Kimmer's birthday.

Day 1?

Yeah... these fall and winter days have so little daylight in 'em that we spread Kimmer's celebration across two days. So among the things we did on that second day, we stopped in at Top Pot Donuts along the Edmonds waterfront. HUZZAH!!!

We didn't go crazy, of course. We split an apple fritter. We split an old-fashioned donut. Kimmer's ordering a cup of coffee. And I have my thermos of hot tea I brought from home. So that's what we do. Kimmer hops in line to place her birthday order while I head upstairs to the library, this area set with tables and chairs with a back wall fitted floor to ceiling with bookshelves filled with books from one end of that floor to the other. It fully reminds us both of our first Top Pot experience in downtown Seattle next to the monorail many years ago after (or before, maybe?) an interview in the city. A lovely revisit of memory lane.

So yes. During the day of the second day we were out 'n about exploring. Afterward, we returned home to celebrate with the "kids". Finally. All of us under the same roof. 😁

Later, It's a nice scene around the table. A lot of incandescent light coming from the kitchen. A lot of incandescent light coming from the living room. A string of White Christmas lights hanging over the French doors that form the far end of our dining room. It's a lovely setting for singing Happy Birthday to Kimmer as she presents her birthday coffee cake. You see, for heatlh reasons, the cake has to be made in a just-so way and it's Kimmer with the baking chops to make it so. Basically it's a vegan cake. Works well for us because of the nutrition as well as keeping us away from nasty sugars and toxins that give our bodies and cognitions a hard time.

Highlights aside, it was a great pair of days, exploring about and spending time with people we love.

Plus the donuts. You know?

A week later, it's almost Linzy's birthday. It's November 21. Time for her birthday show at The Sunset Tavern.

So how'd it go?

Oh sure it was a bunch of things. It was a show at The Sunset Tavern produced by Linzy. It was a performance by Amy Hall and her band, a performance by Young-Chhaylee and his band. It was a date night. It was the first Linzy Collins headliner. But most of all…

It was a birthday party.

That was the vibe from start to finish. The crowd buzzed with energy and an enthusiasm to engage with each of the performers, culminating in an enthusiastic round of Happy Birthday.

After the show Linzy was invited to perform at the Rabbit Box Theatre by the venue's booker who was in attendance this night. There were also a ton of people excited to speak with Linzy about her music, her voice, her performance. They were truly excited to share their experiences with her, to encourage her and, of course, to wish her Happy Birthday.

The show wound up being a wildly successful night for the Linzy Collins debut. It was next level for her, an inevitable mastery of both stage presence and performance. She charmed the crowd, engaged the crowd, and provided plenty of levity if not outright laughter. Her set list was a wonderful cross-section of human emotion and experience, of simple expressions and epic narrative. There are a lot of singles in this set list, a lot of songs to play on repeat.

Totally worth the wait. 😁😁😁

The next afternoon we're at the Pacha Collective, sitting in a VW bus with Linzy on her birthday. The bus is for real, by the way. The restaurant somehow parked it in the center (ish) of their restaurant and we're sitting around a table on a bench in the back of the bus enjoying our drinks. It's been a week so we're all tired. Linzy's show at The Sunset Tavern was the night before so she's super tired but jazzed at the same time. In the meantime, we're all enjoying this birthday celebration in a bubble inside a VW bus inside a restaurant. ☺️

And then...

And then the last days of our November: Death Valley. We left Tuesday morning, November 25, and returned home the following Tuesday, December 2. Our flight that took off from Paine Field in Everett left the ground at 9 in the morning, landing at Harry Reid Airport in Las Vegas a couple hours later. We're at the RoadSurfer pick-up location about 12:30, driving off the lot by 2:00 for some time driving around town gathering food and supplies. By the time we're officially headed out of town, the sun's set and it's a little after five. By the time we roll into our spot at Stovepipe Wells campground in Death Valley, it's a quarter after 7:00, full dark.

By the next morning we were part of a more close-knit experience with family. It's also a bit of a tech experience given that we've got a high capacity solar-powered battery with us and a starlink to provide WiFi out here in the middle of nowhere.

And it's also peaceful, perhaps our most peaceful yet, as Kimmer has a truck ton of reading and writing to do in her run up to a massive written and oral test that stands in the way of kicking off the work for her dissertation.

Out here, our rig isn't a tent. It's a Sprinter van. You can stand up in it. It sports a queen size bed in back, a bathroom in the middle, and a dining / work table in the front around which we play games with Kimmer's second cousin and his best friend in what inevitably turn into boisterously loud and funny encounters.

We are not "camping" like I would've thought of it back in the day. We definitely took our home life on the road, though, with family. And it is. It is a more close-knit experience. Or perhaps a more close up experience although with the most massive sky possible above us. We can even make out an arm of our own spiral galaxy, the Milky Way.

So yeah. We look up at the sky a lot. We indulge Kimmer's fantastic road cooking every few hours.

We join a community pot luck Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving night. And then the next night, same place, same people (but for a few who already left), we enjoy The Great Leftovers Potluck.

Our time in the desert comes to an end by noon, Saturday. And because our flight home isn't until Tuesday night, we've chosen to decamp to the Desert Rose Resort in Las Vegas for the remainder of our vacation, checking in Saturday night to a lovely, comfy space with plenty of room to spread out and relax.

Which. We. Do.

So we finish out November in Las Vegas, relaxing, studying, reading, writing, and enjoying a few hours each late afternoon/evening for excursions into the resort malls for food food and photo ops.

And yeah.

I've got a full first draft of our Christmas letter on its feet.

Onward!

😁

[thedaveandkimmershow]

Our alarm goes off at 8 and here we are: our last morning in Death Valley.

And yes. It's another fully sunny morning.

We start this one, though, with all of us sitting round the wooden table near the teardrop trailer. Kimmer's enjoying her coffee. I'm partaking of my chai tea latte. ☺️

One thing I haven't mentioned before but I'll bring it up now because the departure times for everyone in our group but us depends on drying out the water condensation.

Wait. What? Water? In Death Valley???

Yup.

It starts collecting on surfaces as soon as the sun goes down at the end of the day. It collects on tables, on clothes, on awnings, on tents. It collects and keeps collecting all through the night until anything of ours that's outside all night is now thoroughly wet. Which is why everyone else is gonna wait through to the maximum checkout time, noon, to give the sun every possible opportunity to dry out everything they own like tarps, tents, and awnings that collected water.

Our plan is for Kimmer to catch maybe an hour of studying with starlink WiFi feeding her tablet and laptop... but we still have a lot to clean and organize and pack, even starting at 9AM.

During our morning of packing, I saw that mom and her two little girls with the colorful and funny helmets that made them look like unicorns. I caught the attention of the first tiny little girl who smiled at me and waved with her left hand still semi gripping the handlebar of her tiny little bike. Her sister never saw me cuz she was super focused on not falling off her bike.

At 9:30 Kimmer whips up part one of our breakfast: our fruit and yogurt bowls that we enjoy in our dining room. By 10:00 we start in on the sweet potatoes from last night that Kimmer prepared for breakfast this morning along with even more butter. 😊

As I move about the campground on different tasks afterward, I take notice of all the cooperation that's happening around me. I see all the families and friends who are coordinating their efforts to break everything down, organize and pack it all away, and just get ready to leave. They're successfully cooperating and coordinating in ways you don't normally see in real life. You just don't. Everyone's pitching in.

Everyone.

Everyone, that is, except for this one little boy, proudly wearing a deep blue velvet cape, who seems to be acting in a strictly supervisory capacity. 🤔

Back at our RoadSurfer, I do a little math for future reference. Last night, for example, we had 85% on our power battery. Disconnecting starlink from the battery before going to bed, we charged two phones overnight, a process leaving us with sixty-five percent on the battery first thing this morning. Makes that twenty percent to fully charge two cell phones.

After that, we pull the phones off and connect a laptop, a tablet, and another two phones that begin to draw 72 watts/something.

By almost 11:30, we pull all the devices with the phones each fully charged, the tablet at 91%, the laptop similarly charged, and our power battery down to 56%.

Not bad, I'm thinking.

Pretty much, we're ready to go.

All that's left is goodbyes. 👋

Now, our goodbyes always involve photos of everyone so first we gather Kimmer 'n her cousin.

Then we add the two boys for a group photo. Then we all wander across the grounds for a final series of photos with our entire group. Since I'm the one taking the pictures, my presence, of course, is implied. ☺️

Saying farewell to the boys one last time, we get into a conversation with one of the Thanksgiving in Death Valley organizers who tells us about the challenges of finding the ideal RV for his mother. So Kimmer offers a show 'n tell of the RoadSurfer we rented and with—hand to God—a final, final round of goodbyes at noon, we begin our voyage home.

That "voyage" lasts about as long as it takes us to reach the dump station at the front exit of the campground where we wait behind a couple who are struggling with the dump process for their trailer.

So we waited. And waited.

And waited.

By the time we're finally on the road home, it's twelve-thirty and we have a problem.

You see, when we checked out our RoadSurfer the previous Tuesday, we were instructed that both black and grey water is exited through the same hose from the same outlet. After dumping liquids through that hose, though, it was still obvious the black water from the toilet wasn't leaving the RV from that same hose. It was obviously staying in place. We even put an extra gallon of water to flush through the toilet and nothing. It stayed and we were just adding water to a tank that wasn't emptying.

Like, at all.

Whoops.

Another problem:

T-Mobile doesn't have service in Death Valley... so no Google Maps.

Hmmm. How hard can this be? Take a left outta Stovepipe Wells, take a right onto 95, next stop Las Vegas.

Except no.

Not that easy. In fact, eventually it was quite obvious we were not heading back the way we came. We were, in fact, on some other route taking us in the right direction. Ish.

By now, fortunately, Google Maps was back online, routing us north then east to 95, then south to North Las Vegas.

Unfortunately, doing this navigational two-step ate up time and ate up more gas so that now we have two problems: our pickup's at three o'clock not four o'clock like we thought. Also, we're gonna run out of gas not long before we reach Vegas.

Double whoops.

Fortunately, thirty miles out of Vegas we run across a gas station in a little town. They have only the one gas station, though the cost is $4.29/gallon. Pretty decent, given the $5.15/gallon at the pumps in Stovepipe Wells.

Now, while I've got the gas filling, Kimmer's got a RoadSurfer rep on the line. The rep does us a pair of solids by moving our three o'clock return to four o'clock. They then email directions to another location in Las Vegas at which we can try to dump the black water again. By the time we reach that location, try and fail with the black water, and reach the RoadSurfer location in Vegas...

It's 4:20.

More bad news.

Why?

Because the black water doesn't drain out like the grey water does. Neither does it drain through the same outlet as was explained to us. It drains into a container that can be removed from the side of the RV and emptied. Which means we've gotta go back to the site where we previously failed to dump the black water but now we succeed and, by the time we return to RoadSurfer again, it's about ten after five.

Dang.

Fortunately, the manager takes complete care of us even though this location officially closes up tight in twenty minutes.

Soon as we arrive, then, Kimmer seeks out the manager while I summon the nearest Lyft driver who arrives ten minutes later, graciously and easily loading our gear while I then finish up with the manager and Kimmer coordinates with the Lyft driver.

And so we're off the property by 5:30.

Success!!! 😊

At six o'clock we're checking into the Desert Rose Resort, a few blocks off the Vegas strip. By seven we're settled in for the night.

Long hot showers.

Kimmer makes us tacos and green beans and we watch a little bit of the film Surviving Christmas starring Ben Affleck and Christina Applegate. We catch maybe 45 minutes of it before Kimmer returns to charting and I return to working on this year's Christmas letter with both our efforts soundtracked by the classic music of Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown.

It's the full album which we leave on loop so that it plays all. night. long.

Which is the best thing ever. ☺️

Some time after midnight, we indulge more of Kimmer's amazing desserts while watching two Stranger Things season 5 behind the scenes videos on YouTube: one about the demigorgon attack on the Wheeler home... the second about the fight at the end of season 5 episode 4 that marks the reappearance of Vecna.

After that?

Yeah. We fall right to sleep.

☺️

[thedaveandkimmershow]

We got up at 830 to a fully sunny day as opposed to the slightly hazy sunny day we had Thanksgiving afternoon. The night was the coldest so far—in the thirties I'd later discover—but made irrelevant by my lambswool sweater zipped all the way up.

Plus the Dollar Tree gloves. ☺️

The sweater's better than the heating blanket we no longer use cuz just the one night of it ate 90% of our battery and we don't wanna go anywhere near that outcome again.

As for counting our sleep, doing the math from nine last night to 8:30 this morning... it's 11.5 hours of sleep we got which is unprecedented.

Kimmer also mentions that on top of all the sleep we're getting, she's also getting the most charting done here in Death Valley and the most studying done here in Death Valley.

Coming up on 9:00, I hook up the power battery to Derek's four panel solar panel, I toss some garbage, and I head off across the campground. On my way, I hear more conversation between parents and children for some reason. A lot of people have already left for the day on their journeys about the valley or they've left for the week while we still have another day and night and a morning to go.

9:30 it's chai tea for me, sitting around talking to the boys about school, girls, AP government, and OCD.

10:30 everyone but us heads out to go offroading. So we do a little RoadSurfer housekeeping through eleven until Kimmer makes us a breakfast of meat and veggies that we eat around our dinner table for a half hour then sit outside around the table until one in the sun

It's incredibly still. Watching the little birds wander about our now empty camp while Kimmer 'n I are inside the RoadSurfer.

At most, I hear a little wind. A generator in the distance. Maybe a voice or two.

Mostly, Inexperiende an overwhelming stillness. That's the feel of it.

Peaceful.

Relaxing.

☺️

At 1:15 we walk to the camp grocery store and the gift store and check out the menus at the restaurant and saloon. We peruse stickers and magnets and t-shirts. We wind up purchasing two small Death Valiley stickers and one small Stovepipe Wells magnet. And after taking a good look at the restaurant menu, we're thinking maybe we'll be back for the pumpkin pie slices.

By quarter passed two we're back at our RoadSurfer. At this point the power battery's at seventy-five percent. I also just figured out the battery can be solar charged while powering the starlink at the same time so long as the input wattage exceeds the output. In our case, it's two to one. 80ish watts to 40ish watts. HUZZAH!

Next, Kimmer whips up some mini tacos! After which it's study time.

Around four I run into Kyle while I'm doing dishes at the sink next to the bathroom. I ask how the offroading went. He says "bumpy". He does show me a photo of being in the middle of a nowhere that's already in the middle of nowhere, far far far away. Not in another galaxy, of course, but it's easy to imagine something adjacent. 🤔

His dad walks up while we're talking and reports on the performance of his son's jeep whilst offroading: it did fine for what it is. According to his son, though, the suspension gives the driver a better ride while everyone else in the jeep experiences variations of a car chase involving Indiana Jones and nazis in the desert. 😆

Both Kimmer's cousin and his son reported getting a physical workout from the experience of trying to keep their bodies from being hurled from the jeep while his son's friend later told me how he not only enjoyed the ride but got some decent sleep in as well. ☺️

At this point, the sun is done for the day charging solar panels. It's mostly behind the mountains to the west and the battery shows an input wattage in the single digits. For the last time, then, I disconnect the panels and store them, having now learned the sustainable use of that battery when it's hooked up to the sun. 🙂

Oh yeah. Back when Kimmer's cousin was filling us in on the offroading experience, he also happened to mention there's a leftover dinner tonight featuring brisket.

"Screw the turkey," says his son. "I want brisket!"

Me too, I decide.on the spot.

So six o'clock's gonna be our dinner time tonight. ☺️

One thing about today that was different is that, not long into the afternoon, I realized both the moon and the sun were sharing the sky: the son on the right, and the tiny three quarters moon (I think) on the left. It's tough to spot in photographs because it's so small in the frame... But it's high above the gift shop building on the left in the picture above. ☺️

As the suns rays begin to crawl up the face of the mountains to our east, I wander into the desert a bit to catch an unobstructed view. I don't get too far out but far enough. I can still see the camp and the campers... but at a distance. I hear voices from camp... at a distance. I keep walking until I reach a rise above the desert floor from which I take a number of photographs including a pair of 360s.

After that?

Great question.

I've taken all the photos I'm gonna take given how they can't capture what I see with my own eyes with any degree of fidelity. The photos record what's there. They don't capture the wonder of it.

So I let my hands drop and cross in front of me and spend the next ten minutes watching the remaining horizontal line of sunlight retreat up the mountain face to the east.

What's interesting is that I expect to see what I see in the edit suite when I race such footage at a thousand percent fast forward.

Only I don't.

I don't see even a horizontal line moving slowly up the mountainside. Instead what I see is an almost imperceptible dimming of the mountain top that stretches across my field of view. From left to right, the sunlit top simply dims—slowly, barely noticeable—until it's without any sunlight at all.

I look all around me for the next moment. I look at the mountain ranges surrounding this valley. Then I head off across the desert floor back to our campground.

4;30.

4:30 is when I officially call sunset on this day, Black Friday in the malls, simply another day in the desert.

Walking back, I think about the different ways I just experienced this sunset. As I actively scanned for photographs to take, I think of that as being in processing mode, a full engaging of my executive function employing my full bandwidth of visual input filtered through intellectual judgement. Receiving mode on the other hand is paying attention to all my senses without critical or strategic thought. Feeling the breeze and the coolness receding to coldness. Hearing the sounds of distant voices. Seeing everything both near and far and all around. Taking in the subtle smells of this spot on which I stand.

It's all paying attention to the experience it self and each of the ways our five senses can and do take that experience in. In many ways, in a very important way, it's the most direct route I know from the actual experience to long term memory. ☺️

A little after five kimmer starts making what'll be the veggie portion of our dinner just like the one we had after our meat and salad fueled Thanksgiving meal. Coming up on 6, Kimmer finishes cooking the bok choy and greens that are central to the salad she's making for tonight's largely leftover dinner. Her cousin's (re)bringing the sausage fueled stuffing he brought yesterday that was such a hit there was none of it left by the end of that meal. He's also bringing cooked trout for this occasion. And he's bringing pecan pie topped with chocolate.

I'm not a hundred percent sure... but I think I enjoyed the leftover meal more than the actual Thanksgiving meal.

Why?

Because brisket.

Holy smokes.

That brisket was such a hit.

As was the conversation as in we were speaking again with the zookeeper from the other day who happened to mention they'd run into someone on the grounds who owns a pure white cockatoo, prompting a great conversation with the owners. Turns out that, before working with reptiles, the zookeeper worked with parrots and cockatoos.

And loved them.

Still loves them.

Lives them so much they'd drive anywhere if offered one.

Dang. 🤔

We asked about the zookeeping thing some more. Especially about education since we know someone who's trying to figure out their path toward working with animals as a career. So we asked about the college thing and what happened was that the zookeeper had wanted to be a veterinarian but developed doubts by end of freshman year in college.

So they dropped out to regroup.

Fortunately, they knew some people and was able to realize a path that didn't require a degree. Which is how they moved forward to their current career as a zookeeper and new animal admissions.

Later after our meal we engaged conversations with others their about caring for elderly parents as well as the specific generational dynamics of Asian families.

And then at some point, around 7 I think:

Dessert time!

HUZZAH!!!!

For me it was the pumpkin pie with whipped cream. No offense to Kimmer's cousin's superior baking but pecans have never been my jam. For Thanksgiving (even leftover dinner) it's always gonna be pumpkin pie and whipped cream. Which reminds me of our friend, Susan, for whom it was always gonna be sweet potatoes pie. ☺️

Now, because nuts of all kinds are red flags for Kimmer, unless she knows the ingredients and the cross contaminations, she stays away.

Whipped cream, however, is never a problem.

So she has three dessert plates of whipped cream, served by her loving husband who sprayed that whipped cream from the can into and onto each plate.

On top of the whipped cream, Kimmer also managed to score some additional cranberry sauce (also with my help) for an apple/pear dessert she's conjuring tonight.

Now it's 7:30 and Kimmer's back in the RoadSurfer while I'm doing a walkabout camp that never disappoints.

For example, I'd seen the RV earlier. A huge rig with kids and adults along a patio area all along the side, a campfire burning on one end where the parents are. The kids at the other end are jubilantly celebrating someone's birthday very loudly and having tremendous fun. 😁😁😁

Later when I pass that way again, the kids are magically gone. Bedtime perhaps? All that's left are the adults sitting around their campfire enjoying their time together.

Peaceful.

Relaxing.

To the flickering of the flames before them.

A short walk away is a lovely green that's lit from inside, making it look like a magical green tent. Making it look like maybe a Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe thing. Making me wonder what would happen if I opened the flap to this little green tent. Would it open onto a vast alternate universe?

Or would it be a bunch of kids screaming at me to get out of their tent?

Hmmm. 🤔

Best to leave that one to imagination.

It was an adorable little tent, though. ☺️

As I move along, I can hear with little effort an abundance of conversation from inside tents as well as from the multitude of campfires.

Eventually I come across a white VW bug with it's too down around which a bunch of young adult guys are huddled, eating from a selection of fast food items arrayed across the back of the vehicle under the light of various flashlights. Later, on my way back this way, I see the trunk popped up and it looks like they used that space like luggage. They've thrown a bunch of stuff randomly in there.

And to top it off?

A coupla rolls of toilet paper.

Eight to nine-thirty, the boys show up at our side door for a round of epic Uno in which Kimmer's second cousin. was at the end of five plus-two cards and had to eat TEN cards without being able to play any.

Talk about screwed?

My life is complete. 🤣🤣🤣

By the way, a proposed rule change for everyone's consideration on the next occasion we play:

1. Whoever has the most cards in hand once an official Uno winner is declared gets second place

2. You can stack the Lose Turn card like you can stack plus-two and plus-four cards. Whoever's at the receiving end of a stack of Lose Turn cards loses that many turns during subsequent play. And yes. This one REALLY sucks. Which is what I love about it. 😁

By the time 9:30 rolled around, Kimmer seemed to have won most most of the rounds, one of which went in forever (after she won that particular round) because none of the remaining players could pull the trigger after they were down to one card. All of us, in fact,.seemed to be collecting them. Which is how I landed on the idea of most cards gets second place. 🙂

After we declared the games officially over, we hung out for forty-five minutes before kicking the boys out. Then we took an abbreviated walk around the grounds so we could have a last look at the canvas of stars in that incredible night sky. We even saw the upside down Big Dipper again. 🤔

When we got back to the RV, Kinmer whipped up her apple-pear-cranberry-cinnamon baked dessert that was just the best dessert ever. Seriously. Tasty like crazy.

Then around eleven we're thinking sure, we'll get in bed to study and to read for awhile. But once again the plan did not last very long.

And we were soon asleep.

😴

[thedaveandkimmershow]

Thanksgiving morning. Thursday the 27th. It's not my phone alarm that wakes her up, it's the laughter of her cousin outside that persuades Kimmer it's time to hop out of bed a few minutes in front of 8AM. 😁

Meanwhile, my alarm goes off at 8 and gets snoozed a couple three times until finally I arise at 830 ready to indulge a chai tea sitting around the collapsible wooden table next to the teardrop trailer over on Kimmer's cousin's side of our camp. Spot 155 to our 156. 🙂

At 9 Kimmer prepares a fruit breakfast while I eke out a percentage or two at a time from my nearly drained power bank into my phone until my phone's at 100%. And for the next three hours we all enjoy a lovely sunny morning, us writing and photo shopping inside our dining room with the RV's side door fully pulled open, they in camp chairs and sitting under the awning of the teardrop trailer.

As noon approaches, we fire up the starlink and catch a message from Linzy to call which we do by WiFi, spending the next half hour catching up, talking about, and making plans for the following Saturday after our return for our make up family Thanksgiving.

A half hour later, Kimmer and her cousin coordinate the afternoon in preparation for the big Thanksgiving potluck at three.

Coming up on 1, we call my parents to exchange Thanksgiving Day well wishes. They'd just finished their Thanksgiving meal at their place as we look forward to ours in a coupla hours.

After that, Kimmer attends to clinical communications while I reach out to different friends online to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving.

Two to three's about getting ready for the potluck. It's about Kimmer making her tropical Waldorf salad. It's about me pepping veggies for later. Getting dressed. Cleaning a little bit. Tending to charging starlink and the big power bank. Then taking those down and stashing them.

Around three, I take Kimmer's salad over to the potluck space next to our campsites. It's a square space defined by a box formation of huge RVs and one large teardrop trailer at the 'entrance". My guess is the entire space takes up between eight and twelve campsites.

I place Kimmer's tropical Waldorf on the salad end of the buffet table then go back to Kimmer who's finishing getting herself ready. We put anything outside our RV inside our RV. Button it up. Lock it up. Then we walk over to the potluck tables where her cousin's staked out our spots at a table for me, Kimmer, two of his friends, his son, and his son's best friend. Seven of us at the far end of the table.

After the blessing of the food given by one of the organizers daughters, it was time to line up for the buffet. The line formed in order of oldest attendants to youngest. Fortunately there were some super old people here so we didn't have to go first. We could go second and still be confident of nearly first dibs on most of the food. 😉

And there was a lot of it.

Now, the two of us had to pick through the buffet carefully given our previous mold exposure and the diet required to detoxify our systems after that exposure. Fortunately what we could and could not have was super obvious and we managed a lovely feast for ourselves regardless of (and abiding by) the restrictions. Turns out meats and salads are reasonably safe bets. 🙂

Once everyone was in their seats, enjoying their meals and the company of family and friends, one of the organizers came up front to welcome everyone and fill folks in on events already transpired like the golf match at The Devil's Golf Course here in Death Valley. He began, though, with information we did not know: this Thanksgiving meal in Stovepipe Wells campground in Death Valley stretches back seventy years. It was started by the parents of, I think, five kids who are in attendance at tonight's meal. Of course these "kids" are in their sixties and seventies now, carrying on the tradition established by their parents. After the meal, I asked Kimmer's cousin about that and he pointed out and named the five siblings still showing up here each year. In fact, one of them sat at the end of our table. His wife, a geologist, and his daughter, a student at WSU, talked a bit with Kimmer about her doctoral research and thesis. Later, he talked RV life and ideas with her.

Kimmer's cousin also pointed out to me the emcee who began our evening's dinner as the man who lived next door to his parents when they moved into their California home he remembers when he was a child of four. The man next door explained to them his family's tradition of gathering neighbors and friends who enjoyed camping and camper life to the Stovepipe Wells campground in Death Valley National Park to celebrate Thanksgiving. They've been coming here ever since: Kimmer's aunt and uncle until they could no longer; her cousin to this day; his son since he was two years-old.

It's a tradition originally passed on to neighbors... and then generationally from there.

By the time dinner's over, the sun's mostly tucked behind the mountains to our west. It's about quarter to five as we make our way back to and settle into our RoadSurfer for some post-Thanksgiving dinner relaxing. Firing up our starlink again, we try to get our foster daughter and her sweetie on the phone... but they're not available in that moment. Then we try to get a dear friend of ours on the phone who picks right up during a bit of house cleaning and watching The Santa Claus 2, that scene where Scott and the principal go to that lame staff Christmas party where he makes it the best staff Christmas party ever.

We compare extensive Thanksgiving Day notes and wish each other the loveliest of Thanksgiving evenings. ☺️

After that, Kimmer had it in mind that we should follow up the starch we consumed with some healthy veggies. And since I was a pro who hadn't overstuffed himself, we could have this other meal in the RoadSurfer: boiled veggies of a particular variety, some in sauce. It was all quite flavorful, all quite good. I was surprised that at no point did I feel stuffed.

A holiday miracle!

Around six thirty I moseyed over to the fresh water sinks by the restrooms to rinse off our plates, bowls, and silverware. On my way across the campground in the dark, I realized how the camp was suddenly populated by a lot more car campers this night. Some literally in their cars. Some having set up tents both large and small behind their cars. Across the entirety of the camp I could see huddlings of every kind. Huddling around campfires. Huddling around a lamp in a tent. Huddling around a table in an RV. At each camp, whether RV or tent or vehicle, animated conversations abounded. Laughter abounded. People speaking languages I understood and didn't understand at all, walking across the campground, groups of people enjoying each other's company.

That's a universal language, by the way: people who enjoy each other and the laughter that ensues. Regardless of the language you know exactly what's happening in that moment.

Heading back to the RV I had the same experience. Whereas my attention is usually captured by the stars above, tonight it's captured by kids in their little tents enjoying the night, young adults in their tents and vans and around campfires talking the night away, and adults in their huge rigs or also around campfires carrying on animated conversations that inevitably lead to laughter. Across the entirety of the campground. Here in Stovepipe Wells, Death Valey National Park.

Around 730 Kimmer takes to the stove again to get a baked fruit dessert on its feet. And for the next forty five minutes, the loveliest smells of spices she uses pervades the interior of our RoadSurfer.

Heavenly. ☺️

The baked fruit dessert, by the way, is a balsamic reduction with olive oil and cinnamon. Chopped orange peels marinated in the resulting essential oils brings out the full flavor of berries and apples.

Just saying. 😁

Unfortunately, regardless of the awesomeness of our night this far, I've been thinking it and definitely Kommer calls it:

Maybe it's time to go to bed.

Huh???

That's right.

9pm.

Bedtime.

Oh dear Lord.

Now the plan isn't to sleep. It's maybe to read or study in bed. We are, however, coming off an incredible meal with a second meal chaser. We're tired just on principle. And our bodies are relaxing.

So.

I7f I had to bet money on it, once we're dressed warmly for bed and we do slip under the layers of blankets, we're both just flat out gonna fall aslee—

😉

[thedaveandkimmershow]

Wednesday morning's alarm goes off at 8AM in time for us to extend our being in bed experience until quarter to nine at which point we discover just how much drain our heating blanket puts on our external awesome battery.

90% it turns out.

As in we had a hundred percent at bedtime and we had ten percent left when we woke up the next morning.

Whoops.

Did not see that coming.

Kimmer's cousin verified the bad news, cautioning us that you only use the battery to get the blanket heated up...

Then you turn off the blanket lest what just happened to us happens.

Ten percent.

Woof.

Fortunately, the night wasn't so cold we actually needed the heating blanket. It was just lovely to have it. You know?

Also fortunately, Kimmer's cousin has a collapsible solar panel on hand to recharge the battery. It was an endeavor that brought us back to 70% by sundown after a day's worth of sun and some adjusting of the panels as the sun moved about the sky.

So yeah.

Lesson.

Learned.

Quarter past nine I'm walking away from our rig to throw out some garbage. As I look around, as I really look for the first time I realize, I see I'm in Death Valley. I see it.

Now, we arrived here in darkness the night before and so had no sense of the valley or the desert. We had no sense of anything to either side of the road we were on with nothing but darkness ahead of us but for the bit of road we could see. Once at camp, all we could see was RVs huddled together and illuminated by generator lights and campfire. The following morning, this morning, I wound up being so focused on our power situation that I never thought to stop and take a look around.

Until I did.

Until I realized that we are, in fact, in an actual valley surrounded my mountains... and that the floor of that valley is a desert.

Back at the RV, I take my lambswool sweater off because you just don't need it here unless it's night.

Few minutes later I'm walking toward the front of the campground where there's a kiosk for vehicle entrance into the park and for a camping permit through Saturday noon. About halfway there I hear a sudden roar of children chasing each other next to their family RV with wild abandon.

Classic. 😁

930 I'm checked in at the kiosk after verifying with a park ranger that I'm not a senior citizen and thus qualified for a senior citizen discount.

Awesome!

I hate being a senior citizen even though the discounts can get quite tasty. 🤔

Back at the RV, a banana insight: next time buy more. Because the eight bananas we bought that would've lasted eight days at home are nearly gone after eating more than usual and sharing the rest.

What can I say?

Organic versions of everything taste the best.

A little after ten we get a visit from a pair of Kimmer's cousin's friends on their way walking about camp before later hiking a little ways into a canyon to the south of us. We've met one of our visitors before, catching up with them a little before introducing ourselves to the one we haven't met... and quickly discover they're a zookeeper who also handles new animal admissions to the zoo at which they work. We also discover how reptiles are their jam and that they're actually tent camping a short walk to the north of us where campfires are allowed.

At 10:30, Kimmer's second cousin walks over with his backpack to share tales of his highschool baking class with Kimmer. He stands at the side door of the RV while she sits cross way on the bench seat in our RoadSurfer dining room perusing his notebook and quizzing him on the way he and his group prepared and baked baked goodies such as crepes, challah, chibata bread, pancakes, lemon cheesecake bars (a hit!), jiggly Japanese cheesecake, Krispy Kreme donuts (cakey but good), donut holes (ended up raw on the inside), apple gallet, creme englais (a custard vanilla sauce), salted caramel sauce, and chai spice cupcakes (usually baked goods are taken home but everyone ate these right there in class!).

Around 11 I wander to the west and to the north and try to figure out photographs to capture the scope and craziness of this landscape. Something of danger but in muted tones of brown and, yes, green. I can't really capture any of that with my cell phone camera, of course. The scope of what my eyes can naturally see is too great and everything's too far away. My own eyesight, in this case, captures the character and scope of what's here. So I'll just have to count on my memories of this place.

While I'm doing that, Kimmer and her second cousin transition their conversation to topics beyond baked goods in highschool. 🙂

Half hour later I engage in a heartbreaking story with a fellow camper who lost their family dog earlier this year. The dog was suddenly stricken with a cardiac event that caused it to go to its owner's bedroom where it died. The owner woke up with the dog laying across his feet. Once he determined his dog passed away, he was distressed and didn't know what to do. Fortunately, other family members got in touch with the vet who walked them through next steps. The camper wound up assisting in the delivery of his dog to the vet's office. He told me the hardest moment was seeing his dog taken away on a kind of stretcher with a blanket over its body.

Oh man.

The grief people are walking around with. 🙁

1230 we all (except for Kimmer who's studying) drive off to go find her cousin. Actually... we know where he is. He biked two hours and twenty five miles east of us and no way in hell is he pedaling that same route back. So we drive the twenty-five, he throws his bike in back of the truck, then we head to the nearby ice cream parlour for milkshakes to celebrate a successful picking up.

Or maybe it was just to celebrate the yummies of milkshakes.

Only Kimmer's cousin and his son indulged. But get this: milkshakes.

At Death Valley.

🤯

Also, it was Kimmer's cousin's son driving the truck with his best friend kicking off the rescue drive with

"Okay. Here's the plan: don't crash."

Words of wisdom any day.

🤔

A little after two, Kimmer starts making us three ingredient tacos: soft shell wrapped around taco seasoned ground turkey meat (cooked to wonderful perfection), and her cousin's guacamole.

The tacos might've been our lunch. They might've been a snack. But they were tasty as hell. And comfy, too, as Kimmer lounged on the bench seat and I took up the front passenger seat swiveled around to face her. 😁

Afterwards, she climbed up into our top deck and, around quarter after four when the sun was no longer providing light to the solar panels charging our battery pack, I fired up the starlink with the battery pack and WiFi was officially restored to our devices.

Success!

So we took the opportunity to check in with our house sitter through a WiFi call (mostly about our cats, though). We also called Linzy... talking mostly about Stranger Things that was about to drop at 5pm.

While we were engaged in conversation, Kimmer's cousin was outside his teardrop trailer engaged in some of his own cooking, a master chef in his own right.

After finishing our conversation with Linzy, we have dinner by lantern light at our dinner table. At seven, Kimmer starts making the evening's desert on our stove top propane oven. And after finishing those delicious goodies, Kimmer was back to studying and writing.

By nine it was time for Go Fish! with the boys, a game that, for whatever reason, seemed fraught with impassioned rules disputes from beginning to end. Even in good fun we can be quite loud. 😁

10pm Kimmer 'n I go for a walk around the campground, looking up at the nighttime sky for anything we might recognize, looking for that spiral arm of our galaxy, seeking out new and interesting patterns of stars and the stars behind those patterns. Seriously, if you look up at a single spot in the sky, if you keep looking in that one spot, a lot of times you see even more stars. And more. That's what's different about stargazing from Death Valley.

At the end of the walk and all that stargazing, I look to the northern horizon and recognize the Big Dipper with the end of its handle low to the horizon projecting toward the ladle end at a 45°. At home, we usually look up slightly to the north where the handle is above the ladle as it was meant to be. 😉 But here it's like the ladle is ready to scoop stars out of the sky instead.

Ten forty five we're back in our RoadSurfer getting ready for bed.

Not long after, we're fast asleep.

☺️

[thedaveandkimmershow]

About fifteen to twenty years ago we celebrated Thanksgiving in what tirned out to be a never gonna do this again experience.

We celebrated in Death Valley.

Huh???

Yeah. Kimmer's uncle and aunt were part of a community of RVers, people who routinely take their homes on the road. And this particular community celebrated Thanksgiving in Death Valley. So at her family's invitation and encouragement we decided to pull the trigger on that experience, never expecting we would never want to do this again after joining in the festivities once.

We rented an RV in south Orange County and got off to the most terrible start ever. We ran right into the strongest cross winds we ever experienced. It was so bad that I had the steering wheel in a death grip, white knuckling it, willing the RV to stay on the road because it was basically a mobile sail, catching the cross winds right into its large, flat, hard sides. Not only that, we were fully buffeted, bounced around, every time an 18-wheeler passed us in the oncoming lane.

So yeah. Just staying in my lane seemed dangerous at times between the winds and the turbulence.

The final ascent and descent was a relentless series of switchbacks. Annoying... but not life threatening.

Our main challenge, however, still lay ahead of us. You see, the daytime temperatures are usually in the seventies. Sweet. The nighttime temps, though, run from the fifties if you're lucky... to the twenties if you're very much not.

And we were very much not.

Now, we had a generator on board but the campground rules are no generators after ten pm. So with no way to heat the interior of the RV, we're layered up with the thickest clothes we have covered in every blanket we have.

And it still wasn't great.

To be fair, though, that was nights in Death Valley. The days, on the other hand, were straight up lovely with temps in the comfortable seventies, sunshine and clear skies, and the most stunning geology I ever saw until a few years ago when we visited that string of national parks from the lower left of Utah to the middle right .

Evenings to 9 we're also lovely. Stunning really. I've never seen so many stars. Every night with those stars, that amazing sky, was an incredible experience. Every night.

Until, of course, the temperature really dropped. The experience of those sub freezing nights was so miserable that first thing our last morning we called it quits. Packed it all up and left. Heaters on full blast.

And we never looked back.

So.

What makes us think this time will be any different?

Well, first thing is that Kimmer's cousin's carrying on this Thanksgiving tradition after all these years. His 17 year-old son's been going since he was two. And it would be nice to join them for the holiday. Call it a family thing.

Tipping things the most in favor of our going one more time was Accuweather's prediction of seventies during the day and fifties at night. Which would make this our lucky year. ☺️

And finally... technology. There's just more of it that works in our favor in this environment. Even with the now 7pm not 10pm curfew on generator use, we've got one of those high capacity batteries that can provide power to USB and AC devices. Which means we can keep our phones and tablets and laptops charged... and we can plug in our electric blanket overnight.

Yup. We brought an electric blanket. 😁😁😁

Oh yeah. And we bought a starlink mini satellite dish for wifi Internet access because Kimmer's gonna need that for the doctoral studying she's still gotta do while we're here because she's got a comprehensive test, a test on everything she's learned so far, next week upon our return. Starlink also gives us WiFi calls and texting as we need to coordinate anything back home or simply wish family and friends a Happy Thanksgiving on the day.

So...

Will this work or is this experience destined to be yet another we'll never wish to repeat?

Hmmm.

We're about to find out

🤔