Lower Truckee, Donner Pass, Spanish Creek Campground, a wide spot in the road, and a Fairgrounds with full hookups

Northern California
May 22 - 30

As we left the Reno Lake Tahoe there was a decision to make…  The main highway north was 395, better road, shorter path or highway 89, the more scenic, longer and more uncertain for a motorhome path.  So of course we took highway 89.

As Washoe Lake State Park's dump station was closed due to high water we elected to go to a nearby campground and use their $5 dump station before venturing into the unknown looking for a suitable camping spot near Truckee, CA.  The dump station was on a serious downward incline.  This turned out to be a useless experience as we were only able to get rid of half a tanks worth before it stopped working.  We filled our water and were on our way.  Ended up stopping at an RV park along the way $10 to finish the job.

Empty Campground with reserved on all sites.

We had seen Little Lower Truckee Campground on our Allstays app.  It was a reservation Forest Service campground in the Lower Truckee River.  But as a reservation camp it could be full and we were only a few days from Memorial weekend.  We arrived and it was empty but had reserved signs on all the sites starting in a few days.  Reading the notice board it looked like we could stay one night, but if someone went online and reserved our spot for the next day we would have to move.  We left the Motorhome there and went in search of a Forest Service road where we could safely camp for a few days without worries of having to move early.  Low and behold we came across a Forest Service employee working in the area.  He told us we could safely stay two days at Lower Truckee but most likely not have to leave until the weekend.  This was a scenic byway and there would be no Forest Service road camping allowed.  So we setup at Lower Little Truckee within sight and sound of the river.  We never had any neighbors while we were there and the only one who stopped by was the ranger working on upgrading the potable water system.



While there we visited Donner Memorial State Park.  Learned the full story of the Donner party who

Bike ride near the Lake in Donner Memorial NP.

Donner Statue

were trapped by winter crossing the mountains and lost most of their party to cold and starvation.  I'll leave you to look up the story online, but let me just say the shortcuts are not always the best choices.  It was a great park for biking and we rode the trails near the lake and around the park.

Lower Little Truckee hammock resting.

Spanish Creek Campground.  Near the river.  

From Lower Little Truckee Campground we headed up highway 89 to Spanish Creek Campground near Quincy, CA.  Another spot next to a river.  Here we could stay until Friday of Memorial weekend.  It too was all booked up for the weekend but we could stay three days.  Long enough for us to enjoy the sights and look up near Lake Almanor for our Memorial weekend landing spot.  There were kayakers on the river that made us miss ours.  We really had no way to take them along on this RV adventure, but when you see a great place to play…   We took a daytrip up to lake Almanor and found an "interesting" place to stay.  From there we could easily get to Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Wide spot in the road camping

The place we moved to next was a Forest service road off Highway 36 near Westwood, CA.  I called it "interesting" as it was really a pull off right next to the road.  Most camping spots like this are more off the road with fire rings.  You could tell folks had used the spot for camping in the past as there was some  trash and I picked up the remnant of a broken toy around the area.  We were a little concerned that this might be a local party spot and the weekend was upon us.   The whole weekend we saw only one truck and a motorcycle pass our spot.  Unnerving at first to leave your motorhome for a daytrip in an exposed place in the middle of nowhere, but all went well.

Parking and napping space.

Stinky bubbling mudpot.

Lassen Volcanic National Park was nice but most of it was closed for snow removal.  Memorial weekend and this National Park was still moving snow around.   The Visitors Center had lots of information on different types of volcanos and videos the even featured Mt. Saint Helens eruption in 1980.  Nice to see places from home.  Despite the road being closed we could walk up to the sulphur works (stinky) and hike up the road to see the beauty of this snow covered park.

They're not finished open the road through the park.

View from the snow cleared ro

We also drove to Susanville and took a great bike

Railroad tunnel.
Honking in tunnels is a thing.  Right?

Bike and hike trail on old Railroadbed.

ride down an old railroad grade.  It ran beside a river (I'm sensing a theme here) and went through two old tunnels.  We rang our bike bells in the tunnel in lou of honking a horn.  (Everyone honks in tunnels, right?)








To finish off our northern California meander, we headed up highway 139 to Tulelake, CA.  Ok…  This may seem like a Robert Frost poem as we could have gone 395 or even I-5, but it was a beautiful drive and the sights along the way were not to be missed.

On the way to Tulelake we drove through clouds of insects.
Windshield cleaning in my future. 

In Tulelake we stayed at the fairgrounds.  Inexpensive and it did have power, water and sewer at every site.  There were half a dozen other Rvers there with us.  Most seemed to have an inordinate number of dogs.   We later found out there was a herding dog competition going on there.  Most were border collies and it was fun to see them frolicking.  The mornings also answered the eternal question: "Who let the dogs out?". From here we Visited Captain Jack's Stronghold, in Lava Beds National Monument.  Oddly enough, Johnny Depp had nothing to do with this place.  Captain Jack was the nickname of a Modoc Indian chief who fed up with the amazingly bad conditions on the reservation, returned to the tribal lands and was hunted by the US Army.  Nice hike and I have no idea how anyone could have survived in the desolate place.  There are also some nice caves in the National Monument area.  We wandered through of two of the caves.

Cave dwellers with weak flashlights.

Captain Jack's Stronghold. 

We also visited the Museum at the Fairgrounds that concerned the Japanese internment camp at Tulelake during WWII.  The camp was closed in 1946 and most of the barracks were moved to become houses for the new town of Tulelake.  One of the rangers at the museum actually lived in a former barrack.  So there was nothing to see at the real site except a plaque by the road and some of the administration buildings.  But the museum had lots of pictures and exhibits from that era.

An interesting observation on the area…   There are no gas stations in Tulelake.  We looked on Gas Buddy and found the closest gas was across the border in Oregon.  Grocery stores they had, but gas, not so much.  We took a trip to Oregon for gas and passed one of our Fairground neighbors by the side of the road with a blown tire.  We stopped and assisted.  Ellen kept watch for passing cars as the flat was on the road side of the trailer.  They headed on their way and we got our gas feeling good about Rvers helping fellow Rvers.

Next stop, Thousand trails campground south of Bend, OR.