Our original plan was to go to Edwards a couple days sooner, to view the poppy bloom in Antelope Valley and check out the annual Poppy Festival in nearby Lancaster. We also had an appointment on Monday to get an oil change and lube on the motor home.
But the evening before we were to leave Travis AFB, we learned the poppies had bloomed almost a month early and there was nothing left to see. So we gave ourselves a couple "down days" at Travis, to recover from all the driving and sightseeing and catch up on laundry, bookkeeping, etc.
Edwards AFB is home to the Air Force Test Center, and is the Air Force Materiel Command center for conducting and supporting research and developmental flight test and evaluation of aerospace systems from concept to combat. It also operates the US Air Force Test Pilot School, is home to NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center, and used to be an alternate landing site for Space Shuttle missions. While there is no doubt that Edwards is a very important and interesting base, it is also located in the Mojave desert, is very hot and dusty, and there doesn't seem to be much going on during the weekend.
We rolled into the FamCamp around 5PM to learn there were no campsites available, but we had expected this and so it was no big deal. We spent two nights in the overflow area, which is a big parking lot. We caught up on some online activities (the WiFi is fairly decent in the campground's community room), and watched a couple movies.
We left Edwards this morning, but first went over to the base Express gas station and had the on-board propane tank filled. I was glad to be able to do that on base as it was cheap and convenient. Then we drove to Javi's RV Service Center in Lancaster, arriving early for our 10AM service appointment. We put Celia in her carrier and left her in the motor home, and took the dogs to a nearby city park while the work was being done. Javi's did a good job and they were quick and inexpensive, charging only $89 (I provided the oil filter).
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| Back of KOA - Desert |
This KOA is nicely laid out with spacious sites, although some offer more shade than others. We were originally assigned a site with very little shade but were able to change to a more protected (cooler) site. The campground is not very busy - just as we like it! There's just a few other campers, including a group of German tourists in several rental Class C campers. They are a very happy group - lots of laughing and walking around. We are enjoying their excitement.
Other than going to the Calico Ghost Town tomorrow (or the next day), we don't plan on doing much else. Our next stop will be at Nellis AFB's Desert Eagle FamCamp, 30 minutes from Las Vegas - we are saving our energy for the Vegas strip!
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