Overshadowed by its neighbors, upscale Palm Springs to the south and Joshua Tree National Park to the north east, Big Morongo Canyon Preserve is one of the ten largest cottonwood/willow oases in the California desert, a startling discovery surrounded by Mojave desert creosote and yucca. Nationally recognized for its migratory bird watching, this soggy riparian habitat is also home to numerous songbirds, great horned owls, raccoons, ringtail cats, coyotes, bobcats, red-tailed and Cooper’s hawks, and is frequented by bighorn sheep who come out of the barren high canyon hills to drink.Several trails of varied lengths lace through and around the boggy canyon bottom, revealing a burn recovery area from a 1992 fire, desert plants of the dry canyon sides, a boardwalk through the fresh-water marsh where plants have adapted to a life-time of living up to their knees in water, and a canyon trail skirting the marsh providing overlooks into the wetlands.From Interstate 10 north of Palm Springs, turn north on Highway 62 (or from Joshua Tree National Park, drive south on 62) to Morongo Valley. Turn east on East Drive to the signed entrance. Adequate parking and turn around for big rigs.

Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park on the Passaic River in Paterson, New Jersey is America’s newest national park. It features the second-most-powerful waterfall east of the Mississippi at the spot where Alexander Hamilton founded the country’s first planned industrial city.

According to the U.S. Geological Society, “the potential power of the Great Falls of the Passaic River so inspired Alexander Hamilton that he organized the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures. Pierre L’Enfant, the planner of Washington, D.C., designed a complex three-tired system that harnessed the falls and supplied water power to several mills. The city of Paterson became a thriving industrial center known for the manufacture of silk and locomotive parts. Today, the old industrial complete has been partially restored.”

The creation of the new national park not only honors and preserves Paterson’s past but should also brighten its future. One federal agency has ranked Paterson as the most economically distressed city in the United States.

The park covers 35 acres, 15 miles west of New York City. The adjacent area is home to the largest and best example of early manufacturing mills in the United States with 18th, 19th, and 20th-century waterpower remnants. The 77-foot-tall falls engineered raceways and mills to form a complex that is unique in the United States.

Mickey Davis and her husband Don operate The Rock Shop in Orderville, Utah., along lonely U.S. 89 east of Zion National Park.

The shop attracts visitors from all over the world. When we stopped, Mickey promptly led us to big maps near the restrooms and made us stick a little pin on our town. The map has hundreds of pins, plus there’s another map of Europe with more pins. The maps have been up only two months so you know a lot of people have stopped by.

Most visitors are tourists. They are attracted to the shop because it looks like its inside a sandstone rock as big as a house. But it’s not rock, just plaster, paper and chicken wire. It’s 30 years old and still looking handsome for a fake rock. The original owner built replicas of dinosaurs, some of which you can see in a Vernal, Utah museum.

Mickey and Don quit their corporate jobs in Las Vegas two years ago, she with Safeway, he with Camping World, to head to the sticks. It had just come to the point in their lives where they were so busy they never saw each other. Heck with that!

There are all kinds of rocks at The Rock Shop, and fossils, too. For $20 you can buy a really nice fish fossil. Or you can buy a dinosaur bone. The soft serve ice cream is good –most folks go for chocolate/vanilla swirl.

If you like rocks, you should stop by The Rock Shop. Mickey will talk your ear off, which is a good thing because she is a very interesting and nice person.

A short drive from Oatman, Ariz., and Laughlin, Nevada is the Lake Mohave resort of Katherine Landing. Visitors, including those who stay at the RV park, enjoy feeding the hungry, ugly and tame carp at the marina.

UPDATE 2020: The carp are still there but signs say that feeding them is prohibited. Too bad, it was fun.

Back East with your RV? May is a great time to drop over to Virginia and experience the Netherlands Carillon. A gift from the Netherlands to the citizens of the United States, the carillon is a set of 50 tuned bells, located on the George Washington Memorial Parkway at Route 50 in Arlington.

Most of the year the carillon rings out tunes, played by computer. However, May marks the start of the season when human carillonneurs will sit down at the keyboard to set the bells to ringing during Saturday concerts from 2:00 to 4:00 pm. And on the 25th of this month, visitors are allowed to watch carionneur perform, as well as climb up the bell tower for some spectacular views from on high.

Miss the concerts in May? They’ll continue to occur on Saturday afternoons and on national holidays through September.

Henry David Thoreau warned: “Beware of ventures requiring new clothes.” As RVers, most of us have the clothes we need at any stop. But imagine arriving at your destination and finding warm weather, and beautiful lake, and no way to explore it. Instead of buying new equipment, here’s a way you might be able to rent it–at a reduced cost.

Rich Hall spent eight years in the RV rental business, helping folks learn about the joys of the RV lifestyle without having to plunk down a large amount of cash to buy a rig. Now Rich has a new wrinkle: A web site where folks with RVs, motorcyles, boats, ATVs and other “recreational equipment” can offer to rent them out to folks who likewise don’t want to plunk down a wad of cash to buy something they may need for only a short time. The site, rentzio.com, offers a meeting place for folks wanting to rent recreational equipment to find folks who have it to rent.

Hall’s operation breaks down the US into states, and pull-down menus help would-be renters find equipment within the state, or within a given mile radius of any city. Those with equipment can provide full details of the equipment, photos, and more right on the site. Neither renter nor rental provider are charged for the servivce. We wondered how Hall could make much of a living, and he told us advertising revenues from links and banners are keeping the site going while he builds up for the future. Eventually, Hall tells us, there may be a “flat rate” fee charged to equipment owners.

Meantime, if you’re looking for an ATV to investigate the dunes near Yuma, or a ski-doo to shoot through the waters of a nearby lake, check out rentzio.com.