Day 139 (Santee, CA)

Only 76 miles to go today (this is a great way to travel!). We cut through the countryside for first 20 miles and then its I-15 to San Diego. It’s much hotter than is usual (this has happened to us repeatedly since entering CA in late June) but a few degrees cooler as we pull into Santee Lakes Regional Park. And it is a lovely park – it will be great for bike riding.

Karma thinks we are headed to an off-leash dog park and begins to ‘talk’ like crazy. In spite of being harnessed, she manages to get her front end down into the foot well and somehow takes 3 tennis balls out of the ‘let’s-play-ball’ bag. Poor dog, there is no ‘off-leash’ area here and, so far, we’ve been unable to locate one in a 15 mile radius. Guess we’ll have to venture farther afield.

We do only the absolute essentials of setting camp until it gets a bit cooler. The ceiling vent fans are running rather than the AC. We return from completing the set-up later on and find the fans are off. Closer inspection reveals that we have no 12 volt power at all! By the time we researched the problem a bit, it was too dark out to check whether it’s a battery problem. We did back the truck in close and re-connect to see if that changed anything - it didn’t. But we picked up a fuse puller and tester in town as well. It being a week-end, we don’t want to get ‘professional help’ if we can solve it ourselves.

Day 138 (Hemet, CA)

Today we had another short day – 180 miles to Hemet CA and it was definitely not boring. We headed ESE out of Bakersfield through Tehachapi Pass (elev. 4064’), then south for a while (flat) then SE – all this was an effort to avoid I-5 and the dreaded Grapevine area. Our route took us to the east of L.A. before going further south – just as we got into the San Bernardino Mountains, we drove some dramatic landscape with incredible rock formations. I’m always amazed at how mountainous southern CA is. Gypsy (our GPS) “misguided” us as we passed through San Bernardino (she doesn’t realize we’re towing a 31’ long, 14,000 lb. RV) but a quick check of the map had us on an alternate route that worked our really well.

Because these were short driving days, we didn’t prep for them food-wise. The ‘orange grove’ was a bit remote and, since we don’t unhitch for overnight stays, we had to scrape dinner together – poor us! Fearing the same might be true in Hemet, we watched for one of those rare occasions when you can find a restaurant that’s easy on/easy off the highway and RV accessible. Not having found one as we got close to our destination, we grabbed on opportunity to pull to the side of the street and take turns running into fast food places to buy both lunch and dinner. We arrived at our RV Park to find it in walking distance of several eateries. I think, in future, we should ask about such things when making a reservation. But we did walk to one of them for breakfast in the morning.

This RV Park was largely a retirement village with lots of park models. It was beautifully landscaped with lots of amenities and, naturally a bit expensive.

Day 137 (Coarsegold, CA)

We left Park of the Sierras this morning for a short day of driving to reach Bakersfield (only 150 miles). 30 or so miles down CA 41 to Fresno where we picked up CA 99 South. I must say it was a fairly boring drive from that point – we left gorgeous rolling hills (in Coarsegold) to drive through flat, bleak, odiferous (cow mostly) areas, with lots of very dusty winds thrown in for the last 60 or so miles.

Fortunately our RV Park was a bit of an oasis – built in an orange grove! Every space had 2 or 3 orange trees loaded with fruit. It rained quite a bit during the night-only our second real rain since Whitehorse YK in June. In the a.m., there was no indication that it had rained – completely soaked into that dry, dry soil.

Day 132 (Coarsegold, CA)

(Coarsegold, CA): While it has definitely cooled off in the past couple of days, the prediction is to be back around the 80’s in a couple of days. If I have to wear shoes (instead of flip flops) it will be too cold for me. Jeans, and maybe a light jacket, in the morning (to walk the dog) is as cool as I would like it.

The park we are in is a membership / co-op built into the foothills of Yosemite. It’s nice but too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter (they get snow –ugh). The spaces are well designed and have a lot of high dessert vegetation and critters (snakes and tarantulas – both big on OUR list). There is even a dog park of sorts – dry, dusty acreage on a hill. Karma loves it – being free with a ball – what more could she want.

But the “small town” atmosphere of everyone knowing everyone would drive me nuts. I like the anonymity of the big city. Seeing new places and meeting new people that’s good; what’s bad is getting shoddy service but not knowing it for miles (or hundreds of miles). I got my bike’s flat tires repaired just before we left Quincy. Then 2 days later when I took it down off the rack, they were flat again.

Now that we are on our own agenda – granddaughter is back in Alaska after her month at OTIS (in LA) this summer. We spent 6 weeks bonding with the 3, almost 4, year old grandson in Quincy CA. Now we need to figure out our routines.

Day 110 (Coarsegold, CA)

(Coarsegold, CA): Now, we are in the foothills of the Yosemite for a month in a co-op SKP (Escapes) park (about 40 miles NE of Fresno CA). They have done a great job of fitting the sites into the natural landscape.

Drove up (8,000 feet) to Yosemite National Park and back down (2,000 feet) in one day. The trip up via Routes 41, 49, 140 was picturesque but scary in that it was again straight down on the side of the road. Lots and lots of rock going up and wonderful large trees in their Fall colors (red, yellow, orange) coming down. Some rocks were as big or bigger than houses.

Day 109 (Delhi, CA)

(Delhi, CA): not pronounced like Delhi India but like Del Hi. Nice camp ground but we were only there over night. Then to a truck stop car wash to get the grime off.

Day 105 (Auburn, CA)

(Auburn, CA): RV driving school - really got a lot out of it. We learn better if we have some time to practice/try things out. So after our 4,000 miles the instructor was able to focus on the major problem - backing up (straight and into RV park spaces). It was well worth it. He gave us directed practice and showed us the tricks to backing up (straight and into sites). We haven’t had any chances to try the tricks since class but we have gained valuable confidence in maneuvering the rig.

Besides we needed to have a “bumper” welded on to the back frame so we could mount our new bike rack. He sent us to his welder and we were able to get it done ASAP.