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.

One more time around again

March 24 - April 1
Palm Springs Thousand Trails
Joshua Tree NP boondocking

The usual - crowded among palm trees here

It felt great to come back here - almost like coming home even though we'd not likely call this home!  But we had good memories of our time here before (mostly the people) and we know our way around the area now!

The once-in-awhile chore of cleaning solar panels!

But it's getting really hot for us (mid-80's) so there's less motivation for being outside with no shade.  The reason we came back this way was to see Ellen's provider for her hand (the little finger is not recovering well from being in the cast - the broken part feels fine but it's the only finger and part of the hand that is stiff and painful from being immobile in the cast!).  Doc says it's normal and only be concerned in a couple more months if not better.  I wish they could have told me that over the phone when I called to ask if this was normal!

Anza-Borrego State Park wildflowers

While we were in the area, we decided we'd go to Anza Boreggo Desert State Park to see the wildflowers.  We were checking in with our friends from Vancouver who were near Parker AZ and discovered they had planned a couple of days in Indio to go to Anza Boreggo as well so we postponed our Sunday trip and did it Tuesday with them instead!  Probably less crowded than a weekend and a bonus getting to do it with them!

The visitors center was great (and the film on the seasons especially).  Very helpful person at the desk who guided us to sculptures and prime wildflower viewing.

It was so much fun to see what sculpture would be around the next corner.  So cool!  One of my favorites was a simple Saguaro cactus since they are all over in the SW, it made me laugh to see one in silhouette amidst the "natural" desert!

One of many sculptures around Borrego Springs

On our way back "home", we searched for a picnic area to enjoy the lunch we brought to share.  Couldn't find anything so we just drove straight to the Salton Sea to park and overlook the water while we ate lunch.  We then took a walk to the water and oh my what an adventure.  Fish bones everywhere so it was a crunchy walk until it was not...then it was a gooey slimy walk!  It felt so good to leave what would normally be a joy - walking along the water!

Always a pleasure to see dear friends!

We said our goodbyes to our dear friends from home and decided on the spur of the moment to see Beauty and the Beast.  The original animation was one of my most favorite Disney movies and I wasn't sure how I'd like this one especially starring Emma Watson.  Could I watch it without seeing Hermoine?!  I was amazed!  It was so great!  Emma did a beautiful job singing and one of the best parts was how they were able to go more deeply into the characters and add new elements to this well known story.  Really a fun time.  Oh, and by the end of the movie, Hermoine was (mostly!) no more!

Side trip from our boondocking spot - Box Canyon Rd.

Our typical boondocking spot outside Joshua Tree NP

We wanted to connect with the Escapee Boondockers group who were near Joshua Tree NP.  We drove around and didn't recognize anyone nor was there a particularly large group gathered together nor any signs pointing the way.  We tried Facebook and email but didn't get a response.  Disappointed we didn't get to share a campfire with them BUT oh my a major windstorm hit and it was quite a ride (so no campfires anyway!).   Winds were over 30 mph with gusts around 50.  We seemed to weather it (a pun!) just fine though.  We decided to wait one more day before moving on since the winds were still pretty strong.  We drove back through Joshua Tree NP while we were there and hit another spot we had missed before.

Oh, and we changed out of our flannel sheets!  Nights are not so cold any more!

We were ready to move on and "boldly go where no one has gone before", well us anyway!

Highlights:  See friends and visiting Anza Borrego wildflowers and sculptures
Lowlights:  Missing the Boondockers group at Joshua Tree NP

Things we learned:  we can survive 50 mph gusts!  Don't particularly want to know if we can tolerate stronger winds!

Disney in the Spring

March 17 - 24, 2017

Anaheim Harbor RV Park

So we put Soledad Canyon in our rear view mirror and headed for Anaheim.  There was an RV park to find and kids to pick up at the airport.

This RV park seemed strange in that they made you take two sites for each day.  One for the motor home and one for the car.  Normally we parked the car in front or beside the motor home.  We arrived and found out why.  Most of it was a parking lot striped in 13X40 spaces.  Our motorhome and car would not fit into one spot and if it did and motorhomes with slides were on either side of us, we would have a very hard time getting into our motor home.  With the slides out it's about twelve and a half feet wide.  If equal motor homes sit on each side very little room is left to walk between them.  Hence an extra site for your car.  This was our first of three sites we moved into to be there for a week.  The second had a grass strip on our door side ($12 more), but the car was in a site across the street.  The third was the RV on either side, small path to your door variety.  The car was parked about six sites down the road.  Oh well.

We were told you could see the Disneyland fireworks from the RV park.  It was only 3/4 mile from Disneyland.  There were signs in the park, "Disney Fireworks 9-9:45".  So at 9 we wandered out to see them…   9:05…  9:10  still nothing.  Well maybe it was too cloudy for us to see more than a glow from the south.  We went back to the motor home.  About 9:30.  BOOM.  The whole motor home shook.   Rushed out and there they were.  Couldn't see the castle or hear the music, but the fireworks were very clear.

 The kids flight arrived at LAX (45 Min drive) at midnight thirty.  At 11:30 pm the traffic was light…  Cam and Kaitlin collected.  Got back a little after 2 am to get a few hours sleep before going to Disney's California Adventure Park for the 8 am opening. 

We caught Food & Wine at DCA

Luigi's Flying Tires was replaced with
this dancing cars ride. No Beach Balls
but a better ride

Kaitlin (daughter in law extraordinaire) did all the Disney planning for this trip for which I am eternally grateful.  We parked in the Disney garage ($20) and caught the tram to Downtown Disney.  Bought our tickets and entered DCA to head for Toy Story Mania  (back end of the park).  Came back to Radiator Springs Racers, and out to Soarin'.  I'm not going to make this a Disney Trip Report.  I only say this to point out that our kids are young folks and will trade walking long distances for lower wait times in line for rides.  It was all good but I can't say my old feet didn't suffer during this trip.  Took a break at mid day for naps and back we went for evening attractions and World of Color (Disney's night time fountain show).  It was great!  After the show we headed back to the tram to the parking garage and had the longest wait of our entire trip just for a ride to the parking garage.  After this we daily took the 3/4 mile walk to Disney property.  It was not that much longer than the trip from the parking garage, cost $0, and was definitely faster. 

Stopped our rush to the rides for the obligatory Castle Selfie

 In all this I have not included Sam, one of our pseudo children, who is a new Disney cast member.  He ran around with us and added an insider's narrative.  Great joy was had by all. 

Sam didn't always get to play while we were there.

 We spent five days in Disneyland/DCA and one day at Universal Studios for Harry Potter Land.  Universal was OK, but as always, Disneyland/DCA was great.  Crowded, but great.

Alice in Wonderland ride.

With tears in our eye, we realized we would
not be riding Peter Pan this day.
The Park opened 20 minutes ago

On the trip back to the airport we stopped by the beach and enjoyed the California beach experience.  The afternoon traffic might have been worse than the midnight traffic.  LA is not a great town for driving around.

Kaitlin planned two dining experiences for us.
Blue Bayou and Napa Rose. They were wonderful.

We escaped LA on Friday morning, after rush hour??, and headed east for Palm Springs…

Ordinary life

Soledad Canyon RV Resort Thousand Trails
March 3 - March 17, 2017

The view behind us was glorious!

This park is HUGE and actually has pretty nice spots in a picturesque area.  You can definitely get side by side RV park style spots but there were several to choose from where you didn't feel quite so close.

We chose a spot up on the hill overlooking the "mountains" where we got better Verizon cell service and 4G.  When our new monthly data allotment started on the 8th, we switched to unlimited on our Verizon plan.  It was hard to do because it was another $35-40 more a month but we're really tired of running out data at the end of the month and we really depend on it!  We don't seem to have wifi as much as we thought we would (boondocking in the desert kind of does that to you!).

Got to sit out several nights with the campfire.  Note RV's in
the view in front of us!  THAT's the more typical "RV Park"!

This was a rare 2 week stay which felt like ordinary life.  Laundry, TV binge watching (at times!), church, shopping, more tax research (we got 1099DIV and 1099R and 1099S for the first time - another set of learning curves!),  Amazon ordering (magic creeper , OBDII reader, batteries for the TMPS tire monitors, fumoto oil valve).  We'll have to tell you how we like these products after we try them out!  As an aside on Amazon ordering - with one of our packages, they said it was undeliverable (we sent it General Delivery Acton with the zip code) but they handed it off to the post office who delivered it to the Acton post office that same day.  With another, they said it was undeliverableand we tried to add the street address to Amazon and it said it wasn't valid.  So we called UPS.  They finally got it to us days later.  Not sure what the lesson is here but we'll be more leery about sending things to General Delivery although from everything we've read, this should not have been a problem.  We'll try to add the street and see if Amazon will take it.  I've read that there is only one post office in each city that handles General Delivery and that's how it's supposed to be addressed (General Delivery, City, Zip).

We attended Valencia UMC two Sundays in a row.  The first was at their 9:00 "Classic" service and the 2nd was their 10:30 Praise service.  It was wonderful to feel somewhat "like home" attending a United Methodist Church.  The music was wonderful with choir, handbells, and excellent praise band.  The sermons and worship services were excellent and meaningful.

Coming back on the trail at Vasquez Rocks

We did visit a few places around the area.  We especially enjoyed Vasquez Rocks - we even went twice because we went on a Monday and the interpretive center was closed so we came back later to go through that.  We also "got outta town" during this hot spell (mid 80's) and headed up to the mountains at Wrightwood to get our ideal 70 degrees.  It was a great drive, short hike (eventually had to stop because there was too much snow and couldn't see the trail!).  Otherwise we just enjoyed reading, campfires, hikes, bike rides, and walks.  Tried a few farmers markets but they were pretty small.

Most of our pics of Vasquez Rocks
were pretty lame.  It was very striking!

Highlights:  Seeing former co-workers of Ellen's, meeting new folks at the campground (something we don't do when we're boondocking since there aren't usually a lot of folks around!).

Lowlights:  Pretty upset about the scratches all along the passenger side from the attack bush at Sawtooth Canyon as we were leaving.  They are like 10 giant  finger-nail scratches the whole length of the passenger side from the bottom up to about halfway.  Polishing with two different products did make them less noticeable but did not remove them.  We also added  a new huge gnarly scratch (through the paint this time) on one of the bay doors (opened the door and it bumped into the propane tank which was set nearby).  Luckily its closer to the bottom of the door on a down slope  (not in the middle!) so not readily noticeable!

Things we're wondering:  Will we stop feeling heartsick over the scratches, will we figure out how to get rid of them or will we re-paint or will we learn to accept them?!

Things we've decided:  We think we've learned all we can at this point on these batteries and we believe that they are indeed "ruined" (lost capacity) so we've decided to purchase the Costco 6 volt batteries to continue our boondocking testing and experience before we buy more expensive batteries.   We'll do this toward the end of the month when we'll be back into boondocking country.

We eventually gave up on the trail near Wrightwood.  It was a
great temp but we couldn't find the trail with all the snow
still on the ground!

Shaded by a Monolith

February 28 - March 3, 2017
Sawtooth Campground, CA

We left our abandoned RV park in Death Valley and headed south through the hills tp Barstow California.  Ellen had found a possible boondocking spot on Allstays just south of there, but as always, you don't drive your RV someplace you're not sure you can't escape from without checking it out first.

I stayed at a Walmart in Barstow while she drove about twenty miles to Sawtooth Canyon.  She called the OK and away I went…   There were no signs on the main road telling me where to turn off, but Ellen had directed me where to turn, and that I would be going about one mile down a washboard road to find the area.  She had a spot picked out, but was worried a huge boulder would shade us too much to make our solar panels effective.  When she said "washboard" it didn't really prepare me for the bouncy experience that followed.  Dished rattled, but cupboard doors stayed closed and nothing was shaken up too badly except my nerves.

Climbed on the rock to look down on the RV

I think Sawtooth Canyon may have been a regular campground at one point in it's history.  The boondocking site all had shelters and site numbers.  And there was a camp host site.  A sign next to it proclaimed "Volunteer Camp Host Wanted".  A phone number was given. While the hiking was good, it appeared to be a rock climbing campground.  There were spikes in the tops of some of the monolithic rocks to attach climbing ropes.

We did get good sunshine to refill our batteries, but not enough to completely fill them.  The system would recover all but about ten to fifteen amp hours per day and then go into float mode, saying we were full.  So after three days we ended up about thirty five amp hours down.  We think it's a battery issue and not a charging issue, but we'll keep looking at this and soldier on.

Oh, and on the way out we avoided a ditch on one side of the road only to scratch the other side of our coach on a bush.  We will be researching Gel Coat scratch removal soon!

Twins in our new sun hats!

From the highest high to the lowest low!

February 23-26, 2017
Lakeside RV resort (and Casino) Pahrump, NV

February 26-28, 2017
Boondocking outside Death Valley NP

Hard to tell from this pic but that's a playground
right behind us!  Lakeside RV Resort, Pahrump

We were so happy to leave Las Vegas (the city) and had hoped we'd back to "camping" but not for our first stop at least!  While Lakeside RV resort is much better than where we were in terms of space and greenery and water and paths to walk, it's still an RV Park where that's all you see from all our windows!  We backed up to a playground which saw mostly teen antics and noises!!  It was quite loud at times but we were there over the weekend.

Balloon "glow" in Pahrump

We chose Pahrump and this park because they were having a hot air balloon festival over the weekend and this park was Passport America (so 50% off!) and had wifi.  I think we could have found boondocking  spots nearby but we wanted to try out a 10 out of 10 rated park with wifi to continue with taxes and other internet stuff.

On the exploring front:  We froze ourselves going to the evening hot air balloon "glow" but it was GREAT!  We had coffee and gyros and funnel cake and visited the vendor booths.  Loved the small town feel and festivities!

It was cold in our boondocking spot at 3000+ elevation
but down here in Death Valley NP - NICE!

We took a day trip from Pahrump to Death Valley NP to see if we wanted to stay in the park or elsewhere.  We scouted road conditions and campground cost/quality.  We were disappointed that we finally were going to stay in a National Park and one campground was full, the second one was basically a parking lot (not even hookups) and the third was only slightly better than the parking lot (with fire rings) but generators aren't allowed which wouldn't be a problem with our solar but it's so cold we need to run the furnace quite a lot.  Basically, we decided it wasn't worth the extra miles into the park to turn around and go back to head south later.  So we tried a boondocking site near the top of the rim before descending into the park.

We look so tiny (and alone!) down there!
Boondocking outside Death Valley NP

The boondocking spot was great - nice roads going in and apparently it was going to be an RV park so it had concrete pads and level places to park and really spread out.  There were 3-4 others there during our stay.  Very quiet and dark and great night viewing of stars since the moon wasn't out!

As usual these pics don't do the park justice!  But try we do!
We took many more pictures but since we're on limited data
plan, we'll forgo posting them here!

Death Valley NP:  I'm not sure how these parks can be so much the same (here in the desert SW) and yet be so different but always WONDERFUL!   I'm going to have to work on my words and try to come up with adjectives that can convey the feelings you have when visiting such larger-than-life places.  It's the combination of fresh air, sunshine (and not hot!), exercise and such different  landscape and geology.  We are learning so much at the visitor centers and museums along the way - it almost feels like being back at school but on a field trip!

So funny because this looks like
a typical Oregon coast pic but that's
salt way down below which we later
walked on.  View from Dante's View.

Highlights:  Night time hot air balloon "glow", Death Valley NP, Pahrump museum (Nuclear testing section especially), wine tasting and lunch!  I (Ellen) bought a yoga mat and am slowly starting that up as a daily practice and it feels great!

Lowlights:  Figuring out propane for our small BBQ.  [We later determined our BBQ regulator was clogged - back in business!]

Things we didn't do this time:  We wanted to join the star gazing Saturday night nearby but it was cloudy (and far away).  It also didn't work out to see the hot air balloons  early in the morning (except from a distance) but we were ok with that having seen them late in the day/evening on Friday night.  So many things in Death Valley NP were closed - super disappointing.   Especially wanted to see Devil's Golf Course and Salt Creek trail which had pupfish(?!).

Things we've (re)learned:  Did I say Casino's are awful mainly because of the smoke?

Things we're (still) wondering:  Now that we have full batteries (for real this time - we think!), how much capacity do they really have and will we be able to keep the volts above the 50% AND will the trimetric readings and the volts align?!   Stay tuned - we should be able to answer this in the next blog!

Free Camping

January 9-12

BLM land south of Joshua Tree
California

We have been wondering how boondocking would work out for longer than one night.  No hookups, water or power.  We have a 1000 watt inverter that provides 110 volts to our fridge, but only 12 volts for everything else.  So… no microwave, no blow dryer, and worst of all, no TV.  We watch news in the morning and evening.  We haven't figured out why.  It never changes and it's never good.  Oh well.  I ran an extension cord in from the inverter and powered the TV and Dish Network box and now the essentials work.  But will the Batteries hold out?

We spent three nights her.  It was beautiful, quiet, and very private.  We had three or four  neighbors total.  They came out and played with their kids and dogs, rode their recumbent bike, and built morning campfires.  Ellen got me out of bed early one day so we could have a morning campfire and watch the sunrise over the desert.

We took a long drive through Joshua Tree and found it.  Also saw the cactus garden, Barker Dam and  several nice campgrounds.  Not many spots for our 31' motorhome, but nice tent spots surrounded by granite boulders.  The park spans the Colorado and Mojave desserts and changes drastically as you drive.

It took about 10%  to 15% of our batteries each day to run our necessities.  We ran our generator for two hours one afternoon and twice the next day.  We see solar panels in our future.  We really liked the BLM free camping experience but need to solve our power issues for the future.  Oh, and the latch broke on the bay door where our electrical cable sits.  I had to fish the cable across the rear pass through to be able to plug in when we reached our next destination.  Called Newmar and they will pay for having it fixed.

Highlights:  Beautiful views and quiet

Lowlight:  Had to run generator and broken door latch