Letter 6

Letter 6: Lake Meade to Malibu State Park
From the Traveling Harrington’s.

Sunday, April 6, we finally made it to church. We visited with a UM fellowship called the UM church of Boulder City. They are only 10 years old and meet at the Senior Center. They have raised enough to buy land and are now working on the building fund. They were very friendly. Everyone we saw talked to us when we entered. One lady adopted us, introduced us to others, answered questions and filled us in on their conference and church growth. They have communion every Sunday.
After a trip to Albertson’s, we came back to the trailer and used as much of the trailer parks water & electricity as possible. We did the laundry, put up book racks and clocks and cleaned the floor of the trailer. Of course we also took naps and watched the food channel on TV.
Monday, we moved to the $5 camp spots with NO hookups. And we managed just fine except for power for the computer.

We took the tour of Hoover Dam on Tuesday and enjoyed it very much. We were impressed with the structure and that even though it is old it is going to be there a long time to come. Also, the fact that everything there is so clean, even the floor in the high rise garage and the tunnels. The floors were polished and shining. They are building a new road bypassing the dam and the new bridge is going to be TALLLLLL.

See other Hoover dam pictures. We walked through the Marina and thought of the Hensley’s. They would really enjoy this lake.
We learned that the yellow flowers are the brittle brush and the Creosote bush. Our camping spot is surrounded by the Athel tree which is a large Salt Cedar, cottonwoods, oleander and something no one know the name of.

Wednesday, we drove to Henderson and Walmart (just can’t live without it), then Olivia spent several hours at the library using their electricity to power the laptop. They have a very nice library in Boulder City and we thought of the ones in Waxahachie and Duncanville. Fred replaced the old trailer battery. When we left the library we noticed school children walking, and riding bikes home from school. Everything in Boulder City is so clean and well kept. We drove through the newer parts of town and saw some fantastic new homes. This would be a nice city to live in.
We have just piddled and rested since leaving Vegas. Much more peaceful!
As we left Boulder City on Thursday morning we found a big car washed and spent almost two hours washing the trailer. It was not a fun experience, but the trailer looks much better. We entered California and the real desert. We just thought we had been in it. No one would even adopt their highway along that stretch of interstate – the signs were bare of names! Trailers are grouped with trucks in California. Their speed limit is 55 mph and must use the right lane. Needless to say with that much traffic the right lane is in the worst condition. We bounced and bumped along all the way to Barstow. We really needed a good California map and watched all the way for an information center like all states have, but when we finally found one it was in an outlet mall and only brochures, etc were there. Tangier furnishes the space and personnel. The map we received was worse than the atlas. We also bought gas at a PM/AM station and could only use cash or debit and then they charged .45 for using the debit card. So much for the savings on gas. We found a place to spend the night at a County recreation park in Apple Valley. There was a very nice man across the way that lived in LA and gave us lots of advice on going into the traffic and where to stay. For those of our generation, you may remember Apple Valley was the ranch home of Roy and Dale Evans.
Friday morning we left Mojave Narrows Park on faith that we would find a spot on the weekend near LA. We had reservations for Sunday-Wednesday at Malibu Creek State Park, but were counting on getting walk-in spots for Friday and Saturday, and Thank You Lord for being with us – we got spots. The freeways were OK with 7 lanes plus HOV and lots of traffic. The hills were orange or yellow. We were very fortunate to have a place to park even without hookups. Malibu Creek Park has been used in many TV shows including Mash. It does look a lot like Korea must look.
Saturday we drove into LA and Glendale by way of Mulholland Dr. It was twisty and had lots of bicycles on it. Lots of pretty homes and beautiful flowers. We picked Daniel up and went into LA and tried to find where Fred stayed in 1965. Then we drove to the Farmer’s Market. To our surprise we found only 2 farmer vendors. Lots of café vendors and other stores. We had lunch in the food court, drove around a little more and found a Trader Joe’s. Trader Joe’s is an up-and-coming grocery chain featuring gourmet and hard to find quality items. They may be in Texas in the next few years. They are most famous for their Charles Shaw wines. These wines are popularly known as “two buck Chuck” because they are priced at $2 a bottle. Then we went back to Daniel’s apartment and visited, met one roommate then went to supper at Alcapulco’s. We enjoyed being with Daniel. LA was HOT…..with a high in the upper nineties.
Sunday we drove west on Mulholland Dr. The roadway and setting look like the one in movies where the good guy looses his breaks and is in real trouble trying to control his car as he careens down the winding road. Pretty views, lot of flowers and motorcycles and at one point we could see the campground. See Malibu Creek ST Park. On the other side of the mountain was the city Malibu, the Pacific Ocean and the Malibu UMC. It is a small church and their women were at a retreat and youth at a camp, so they only numbered about 40. The preacher attended SMU so knew where Waxahachie was. He had a beautiful voice and a great presentation as well as singing in the choir. We drove down the highway enough to see too many people at the beach. It was a beautiful HOT Sunday and they all wanted to get wet. We decided to sit it out at the camp at the warm trailer, but nice in the shade. Now Olivia is sitting outside the restroom, plugged into to electricity looking at the silhouetted skyline of the mountains as the sun has set. So peaceful. Only a few campers left on Sunday night. We look forward to seeing Daniel again Tuesday.
Someone please tell us what kind of tree, the unknown tree is. The bark on the limbs has all fallen around the trunk. Later we found this is an euculypsus tree. It is everywhere in California and had really taken over.