More than one way to get there!

After a nice driving day, we spent a peaceful night in the free RV/truck parking area of the Casino in Indio CA on Sunday. It was just a stop-over on our way to the Jojoba Hills SKP park.

As I mentioned in my last post, the portion of the drive from Indio to the park looked like it was a winding mountain road.  After our mishap on Highway 1 in 2012, I tend to look at any new route on my large Rand McNally Atlas for Truckers and RVers, and if I am uncertain I also check it out on Map quest and Google Earth.

Although there is a drivable road thru the mountains west of Indio to Aguana, it is not marked as a trucker route. This is what Map quest looked like:

I was definitely suspicious of the part of the road that is circled.  I enlarged it. 

Nope! Not a road we wanted to drive in a 36' Class A, towing a car.

When I entered the destination in our Rand McNally RV Navigator, the same route was given.

Sorry lady, we are not going that way.

The alternative was a lot farther, but it went around the mountain instead of over it.

I was unsure about the circled section, but figured since it was more in the foothills it would not be as bad.  

One interesting fact was that the first route was a state highway, and the alternate was just a county road.  But then our nightmare drive was on a state highway as well! 

This is a blow up of the circled part. It had a lot of curves and hills, but there was almost no traffic. 

We got to that part just as it was my turn to drive. Craig did offer to drive it, but truth be told, I feel less stressed driving a hard route than being the passenger. I think it has something to do with feeling in control.  I really took my time, and we had no mishaps. 

There was a very easy, but really long way to get there from the west, but that would have added another 30 or 40 miles.

We are now settled into our spot at the SKP park. We will be here for 28 days, or less if Alfateers can fit us in sooner.  It is a delightful place and I will have more to share in upcoming posts.

What tools do you use to plan your routes?  
Have they ever misguided you?