Welcome to our first blog! We are the Van Sciver Family. This blog was written during our recent trip in December 2014, and posted after we returned. In the future we plan to post as we go. We enjoy traveling in our 2008 Earthroamer.
After packing all day, and a 5.5 hour drive from Los Gatos, California, we had a quick overnight at the Fort Tejone Rest Stop. Sunday morning we headed to Vasquez Rocks in Northern LA County. This park was named for the leader of a notorious criminal gang that hid out in the rocks in the 1870’s. It’s also famous for being a site where many films and series were filmed. Most of the series “Lost in Space” was filmed here. Other movies, and shows, such as Blazing Saddles, Flint Stones, and Star Trek also used this unique place as a backgound. Today there was a commercial shoot going on for Dell Computer. There were several trucks. a dozen or so people laying out sod and fake trees, along with a little fence and a straw shelter.
I spoke for a short time with the director, a nice man from New Zealand. He said tomorrow they would be bringing in a black stallion with a princess in a flowing white gown, 10 little people, and a 6’11” strong-man. He had a printed image of how it would all look on the table next to him. He explained how he planned to digitally change the distant background to a “Lord of the Rings motif”, only keeping the close rocks in the scene. He thought we could view the commercial on television in late January.
What was really nice about the rocks being tilted and layered the way they were was the ability to hike up them. This type of geologic formation is called a hogback ridge. The different layers have different rates of erosion, giving it a unique texture. After hiking up to the top of the ledge we came down to investigate the visitor’s center. The ranger took out a beautiful barn owl named Scooter to show us.
We headed toward our next destination, Hauser Geode Beds, near Blythe CA. Turning south off of the 10 by Ironwood State Prison, we drove on using only coordinates for our destination. It continues to amaze us that the GPS maps have so many of the dinky little roads on it! It was pretty far back into the desert, about 15 miles in. We stopped when we couldn’t discern an obvious dirt road any longer, and camped for the night. The sunset was lovely! 
