Thanksgiving Weekend: Camping in Barstow, CA

I want to start off by saying that I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!!! Ours was incredible and this year was very different from every other.

A normal Thanksgiving weekend looks like this: my fiancé and I load up our toy hauler with our buggy, dirt bikes, and our fur babies (Simba included). We meet up with my dad, brother, step-mom, and a few members of Cody’s family! It’s nice because we get to spend the holiday with members from both our families.

This Year…

Welllll let me start off by telling you that we listed our toy hauler for sale over a month ago and no bites. We are in the transition of purchasing a motorhome and weren’t expecting to have it in our possesion until December 1st so we weren’t in a rush to get the toy hauler sold really. Like I said, we had zero bites on the toy hauler, until 2 days before our Thanksgiving trip. Offffff course something like this would happen, am I right?! Our toy hauler sold and we were out of a camping vehicle. AHHHHHHH… I kind of had a small freak out. Where were we going to stay? Would we be spending Thanksgiving alone? Would this be the first Thanksgiving we broke tradition?

Thankfully, we found a place to stay. This year we wouldn’t be camping, we would be glamping; enjoying the best of both worlds, the campfire, the long days in the buggy, and then a nice warm shower and a big comfy mattress to end the day.

We stayed in house on the water in Helendale, CA. It is just 20 minutes from Barstow and

it was in the most adorable community. I’ll get into the deets about this town in another article, so stay tuned…

Until then, here is a sneak peak of what our waterfront house looked like.

Camping Activities:

Our days start early; breakfast cooked over a campfire, a little motorcycle riding, and then a long buggy ride. Destination rides are always the best! They consist of 3+ buggy’s, Trophy Trucks, and other off-road vehicles. Every day we choose a destination, load up some ice chests, jump in and go for a fun ride. Barstow is FULL of fun places to check out. Many you can get to by means of city roads… so don’t worry if you don’t have an off-road vehicle you can always meet up at the spot.

Places To Check Out:

Slash X Ranch Cafe

This is one of my top destination spots. Our campsite is usually around 10 miles from this popular bar & grill which makes it the perfect pit stop aka beer stop. Feeling a little hungry? Order up one of their burgers and chili fries… you won’t be dissappointed! There is a lot of off-road racing history here so take a walk around and check it out!

Calico Ghost Town

Okay this is a MUST SEE. I have driven past this little town for over 10 years on my commute between Las Vegas and Los Angeles and never managed to stop there. When the idea of taking an destination ride to Calico came up, I’ll admit, I wasn’t too excited. Fro the 15 fwy this place didn’t look very special, BUT boy was I glad we did end up going!!

I don’t want to give away too many details or pictures of this adorable town, but I had to share these. Just look at all these photos and tell me this isn’t the cutest town?!

At the entrance of the town, they charged $8/person. Once you are inside there are numerous stores, a beer garden, restaurants, and even a train that takes you around the facility. This is a great destination for all ages!

Camping Tips & Tricks:

Desert Hair Don’t Care

Braids are a life when it comes to camping in the desert!! If you have medium to long hair, braiding it will assist in preventing tangles and trust me, you’ll be thankful you did. I’ve had all lengths of hair and as I’m sure you already know, I’ve been camping my entire life. For more hair tips read my past article, GONE CAMPING. There you will find my desert camping hair tips, lake camping hair tips, and more! Yessss guys, every different location requires different hair maintenance.

What To Pack

Layer it up!!! So I am such a sissy when it comes to being cold. I begin to freeze at 65 degrees F lol. But for real! The desert is known to switch temperatures very quickly so checking the weather before your trip is a great way to prepare for what to expect, but this doesn’t mean that it won’t change randomly. Layering is the best way to be prepared for any weather conditions. A Pair of jeans, a tank top under a long sleeve, a jacket, gloves, and a scarf. As the day warms up, you begin to remove a layer. Though this time of the year I consistenly wear Leggings under my jeans, a t-shirt, sweatshirt, scarf, beanie, and gloves. Like I said, I get cold very easily. haha

Campfire Food

As you have already been informed, this trip had a few curveballs thrown our way so as for cooking we did thigs very differently than normal. The majority of our meals were prepared in a full size kitchen and packed into an ice chest to survive throughout the day. There were several dishes that were cooked there on site by my step-mom and they were SOOOOOO good and I must share. Check out these super simple recipes:

Southwestern Egg Rolls

Continue reading “Thanksgiving Tradition”