In this article…
When Jack London wrote his classic 1913 road novel, The Valley of the Moon, he told the story of Billy and Saxon—two people who packed up, abandoned the industrial chaos and social upheavals of the city, and headed out into the unknown. They journeyed northward through California, searching for a peaceful, wild sanctuary where they could build a self-reliant future and find a simpler life.
When “The Man” and I first hitched up our rig and pulled out of Orlando in October of 2019, we didn’t know it, but we were living out our own version of Billy and Saxon’s trek in The Valley of the Moon. We were chasing that exact same dream—leaving crowded spaces behind to find our own sanctuary. We spent our first month traversing the country, and we rolled into Parker Dam on November 1st. We were ready to settle in for a beautiful desert winter at Echo Lodge in Parker Dam, California.
By mid-March, we still hadn’t seen or done everything we wanted to, so we made plans to return the following autumn. I had arranged in February to spend the summer in the Pacific Northwest and had located a campground in Klamath, California. It was tucked right near the coast where the massive Klamath River empties into the Pacific Ocean near the Oregon border.
We thought we had our journey figured out. But the highway rarely respects one’s itinerary. We said our “see you later’s” and pulled away from the Colorado River. We were just sticking to our plan—to see as much as we could, while we could. We had no idea our route was about to turn into a front-row seat to history. Instead of a standard seasonal drive, our trek morphed into a real-life survival narrative. We watched an entire state slowly compress, lock down, and go quiet from the cab of our Dodge Ram.
Mecca Beach and the RV Truth Bomb
Our first stop was Mecca Beach Campground. It is right on the edge of the Salton Sea, and everything started out totally normal. There were rumors, of course. I had read an article a few months prior about a hospital in China with over 1,000 beds that was erected in a month. I pointed it out to “The Man” saying that was something to watch.
The desert skies were wide open, and we captured some of the absolute best, most vibrant sunset photos of our entire time on the road. But the beauty was short-lived. We grabbed a bite at a local place that, if you know, you know, has a bit of a reputation, but in reality, the illness was more likely due to the toxic dust found around the lake. That night, I was so sick! Our peaceful campsite became a midnight nightmare.
It was during those miserable, dark hours that I learned a golden rule of full-time travel that I must pass on, unvarnished, to every reader: never vomit in an RV toilet. The physics of a standard camper bowl are completely unforgiving; the shallow design creates a swirling momentum with enough force that the deposit exits the bowl and lands right on your feet. By the second night, the sickness had run its course and my stomach finally settled, but looking back, that violent, unexpected shock to my system felt like a strange, eerie foreshadowing of the world we were about to drive into.
Chasing the Shrinking Numbers in San Diego
Leaving the Salton Sea, we headed south and west along the Mexican border toward San Diego. We rolled straight into a light rain and a rapidly shifting reality. To make matters worse, our fuel gauge was dropping fast. Trying to fill up the pickup while hooked to a fifth-wheel can be an absolute nightmare, especially in standard gas stations. If you are not avoiding being sideswiped by an inattentive driver or finding room while you wait for a pump to open, the overhead shade canopies sometimes lack the clearance needed for our rig. “The Man” was constantly scouting out dedicated semi-truck lanes just to ensure we wouldn’t clip a roof.
With the rain falling and the fuel tank nearly empty, we finally coasted into our San Diego campground. We were desperate to unhitch, drop the trailer, and hunt for fuel safely. Instead, we were met with rigid bureaucracy: even though we were roughly five minutes early for check-in, they absolutely refused to let us into our site or allow us to park our rig temporarily while “The Man” went for gas. We were left idling, watching our fuel light glow, and wondering if we would strand our entire setup right there in the entrance to the campground.
When they finally let us in, the site was… a little flooded. It taught us a lesson and another golden rule: never underestimate the length of your rig, always overestimate it. Campground dimensions are rarely accurate online, and if you try to squeeze into a site by underreporting your size, you will be incredibly sorry—especially if you arrive at a full park and can’t physically fit. I always add a few extra feet to our actual length when booking to allow for variances and extra backup room.
A Communal Reality Check at Hodad’s
The next day we set out to explore San Diego and grabbed lunch at Hodad’s Ocean Beach on a recommendation from a friend. The beach vibe was normal—we could see the pier and watch surfers catching waves nearby—but inside, the atmosphere quickly became suffocating. I had really hoped we could snag one of their quirky car tables where they sliced a vintage vehicle in half so you can sit inside the front seats to eat. I am shy, and the thought of sitting at the long communal table in the middle with the other diners was very intimidating, but every single independent table was completely taken.
Our only option was to sit at their massive, long communal picnic table down the center. In that tight, “sit where you fit” environment, I put on my big girl panties and took a seat not far from some college students. We ordered and got massive burgers and fries. Those college kids down the way were joking and kidding each other about the virus, fake coughing on each other for a laugh. My paranoia spiked instantly. I live with asthma and have an illness where I lose consciousness easily. Back then, nobody knew what was happening with the virus; no one knew who was vulnerable and who was immune.
To make a stressful situation even more difficult, I didn’t have health insurance. Having just gotten over the Salton Sea experience, I was terrified of getting ill and being unable to rest properly while also needing to travel to a new location every few days. The looming fear that we could be stranded thousands of miles from home, forced into a strict quarantine, hit all at once. From that exact moment on, “The Man” and I became intensely cautious. That very night, Governor Newsom canceled mass gatherings over 250 people, with local restrictions quickly tightening to 100. Pushing north out of the city, the numbers shrank right along with our mile markers as we made our approach toward the coast.
The Surreal Majesty of Malibu
After moving past Silver Strand State Beach, driving into Malibu felt like rolling straight onto a movie set, or more accurately, a level in a Grand Theft Auto video game. Cruising past the sprawling coastal properties, it was surreal to look over and spot the iconic neighborhood where Two and a Half Men was supposed to have taken place.
The geography was stunning, but the real magic happened when we pulled into the Malibu RV Resort. Perched high on the bluffs overlooking Highway 1, the park was completely surrounded by flowers, and the air smelled absolutely awesome—a crisp mix of sweet floral notes and a salty ocean breeze. While “The Man” was hooking up the tanks, I stood at the edge of the cliff looking out over the vast Pacific. Right then, a massive whale breached the ocean surface, crashing back down into the waves. It was a breathtaking, unforgettable moment of pure natural majesty.
Yet, even as we stood there soaking in the beauty, the historic tension of the trip caught up to us. While we were parked on that beautiful bluff, the second round of lockdown orders dropped across Los Angeles County, slashing gathering limits from 50 down to a mere 10 people. The contrast was mind-bending: we were looking at one of the most beautiful sights on earth, while history was actively shutting the world down right at our bumper.
The Accidental Ascent Over Pine Mountain Summit
It was on our approach further north toward the interior that a simple navigation mix-up instantly changed the stakes. A wrong turn diverted our heavy setup squarely onto California State Route 33. While society was locking its doors in the valleys below, “The Man” was suddenly locked in a physical battle with the elements.
Route 33 punches straight through the rugged Transverse Range—a tight, winding two-lane blacktop with no shoulders, steep drop-offs, and absolutely no room for error. Pulling our Crusader up to the 5,080-foot Pine Mountain Summit demanded his total focus; unfortunately, I was shotgun, so my phone was always in his face. He was not happy.
As he managed the engine strain on the steep grades, I imagined we were amongst the Beat Generation, following the spiritual geography Neal Cassady famously conquered during his frenetic, mid-century cross-country drives. Like the free-spirited motorists chasing the horizon in the definitive Beat legends, navigating those tight mountain curves became the entire universe—an isolated theater of focus completely detached from the global emergency unfolding down at sea level.
Strangers in a Strange Land: Coalinga to Half Moon Bay
Dropping back down the grades from the mountain wilderness, our route cut through the heart of the Central Valley via Coalinga. The landscape down here felt different—vast, utilitarian, and heavy with the smell of agricultural dirt and oil fields—but the ticking clock of the pandemic followed us through every flat mile marker. The towns were tightening up, and the visual reminder of an entire state shutting down grew stronger as we worked our way back out toward the ocean.
The highway eventually brought us back to the coastline, where we pulled into a resort in Half Moon Bay to stay for a few days. The shore looked completely abandoned, but inside the park, human connections still flickered. It was here that “The Man” met a group of fellow travelers who had rented a camper to explore California. They were from Brazil.
Standing there in the coastal dampness, swapping road stories with international tourists right as the global borders were locking down, was incredibly surreal. Over the years, I have often wondered what became of them. What was it like to be trapped in a rental camper in a foreign country thousands of miles from home while the world froze? Were they even allowed to fly home? What did they do when the rental contracts expired and the gates locked? It was a stark reminder that the highway binds us all together in times of crisis, regardless of where our passports are from.
The Silent Gateway of San Francisco
When our days in Half Moon Bay were up, we made our approach toward the heart of the Bay Area, routing our rig directly onto Highway 1. We navigated toward the water and rolled into the brightly lit underpass of the tunnel cutting straight through the Presidio.
Emerging from the darkness, the landscape opened up into a view that was both neat and deeply unsettling. We kept our eyes on the road as we crossed the iconic Golden Gate Bridge as we left San Francisco. From the bridge, the skyline was visible in the distance. Out in the bay, we could see Alcatraz sitting isolated in the distance, matching the eerie silence of the city behind it.
Normally, crossing this bridge in a 13-foot-tall fifth-wheel is a high-stress battle against aggressive, bumper-to-bumper traffic. Instead, the lanes were nearly empty. We cruised across the span with nothing but wide-open blacktop ahead of us, watching a famously bustling American metropolis completely frozen in time.
Finding the Great Northwest Sanctuary
We rolled past quiet coastal vistas and saw massive, overwhelming trees as the mountains rose while we headed north and neared our destination. Almost there, we encountered the Golden Bears flanking the bridge over the Klamath River. Serving as a prominent regional landmark, those golden guardians felt like the official gatekeepers to our sanctuary.
Just a short distance west on Klamath River Road, you can still find the concrete ruins of the original 1926 G.H. Douglas Memorial Bridge. That historic crossing was completely destroyed in a catastrophic flood in December 1964, but the original concrete guardian bears miraculously survived the disaster and still stand watch at the old bridge approach. The modern successors were built specifically to honor that history, and locals still occasionally repaint them a vibrant gold to keep the tradition alive.
We pulled directly into the shelter of Kamp Klamath. We were foreigners among the Yurok Tribe, a community already sensitive to encroachment that depends fundamentally on the health of the Klamath River and its salmon runs. As the virus spread, the beach and surrounding tribal spaces were closed to visitors in order to protect the community and its elders.
As we settled into that quiet space, the final domino fell. The statewide stay-at-home order was officially locked into place. Just like Billy and Saxon at the end of The Valley of the Moon, we had set out on a routine drive to find our place in the world, but we ended it parked under the towering protection of the giant redwoods—safe in a wilderness sanctuary while the rest of the world completely froze behind us.
If only it had stayed that way. We were soon back on the road, chasing our own version of The Valley of the Moon once more. But that’s a story for another time.
