We had a nice time at Ocean Mesa near Santa Barbara. Charlie got to get sand between her toes, and the dogs got to take naps in the afternoon.
We stayed one afternoon/night in Bakersfield, because it was on the way. Otherwise, there would be no reason to visit that God-forsaken place. It was warm, and the dogs tried their best to keep cool.
The next portion of our trip was the one that I was really really looking forward to: six days at a campsite just outside of Yosemite National Park. I hadn’t been there in forty years.
And, I still haven’t.
We left our noisy overnight RV park in Bakersfield at around 9 a.m. yesterday, figuring that it would take us about 4-1/2 hours to get to Yosemite Lakes. I plugged in the GPS and took off.
What I didn’t count on was the local effects of that Pineapple Express super-storm that hit central California back in January. It was a whopper. It first wiped out Montecito, with mud and debris from the big forest fire that happened in the Fall.
Somehow it spared these nice homes…Oprah’s $90 million estate, and Ellen and Portia’s cheap $7 million shanty.
I think the flood missed Bill Gates’ house, as well. Most of the other millionaire rabble got reamed.
When Mr. Pineapple Express left Santa Barbara, he headed east into the Sierra Nevada foothills and put the hurt on Highway 49, among other things. Something like 3 inches of rain fell in one hour. The highway was cut in several places.
The big storm wasn’t big news in Southern California back in January, so we didn’t know about the Hwy 49 damage. Neither did our GPS. It led us right into the crapper…where we would then require a 90-mile detour through the hills and dales of Central California farm country.
There must be 8 billion almond trees in California, and I’ll bet that we drove by 90 percent of them on our roundabout tour to hook up with Highway 120 near La Grange.
What a bunch of lousy, narrow, pot-holey farm-to-market roads we had to survive for a couple of wasted hours. I was not amused, and neither were Charlie and the dogs. A pox on the “Gold Country”!
While we were bouncing from pot-hole to pot-hole and trying to avoid being sideswiped by John Deere tractors, I got a call from Bank of America fraud alert…that some unscrupulous guy was abusing my credit card. I tried for several miles to talk to the a-hole on the other end of the line, while negotiating crappy roads, but he didn’t seem to understand or care that we were TRAVELING in our RV away from Southern California, and that the credit card thief was actually me. Anyway, he caught the bunch of us at a bad time, we were all yelling and barking about the shitty detour, and he put us on permanent hold. Screw him, we said.
I felt like this guy does…
…when Special Prosecutor Mueller is on the line.
Finally, two hours behind schedule, we hit Hwy 120 and headed up the friggin’ cliff to Priest. I’m not kidding, that 5 miles is the NASTIEST highway in California; basically, hairpin turns every few hundred yards heading up a very steep grade. I was in 2nd gear throughout, and scared shitless that some big truck or RV coming down the hill was going to clip me. Anyway, we made it, but I think it shortened my life by a month or two.
Eventually, we got up to Yosemite Lakes RV Resort, not in a great frame of mind.
That’s when I noticed that this campground not only didn’t have WiFi, but there was no cell phone reception whatsoever. Needless to say, this was totally unacceptable to Charlie, who has been known to do a bit of business while “on vacation”. So, here we were, pooped, stressed out, and S.O.L., because we had planned to stay at this RV park for a whole week while enjoying Yosemite, hiking, chasing squirrels (the dogs), and running from bears. All of that was not going to happen. Damn! Double-damn!!
So, we reneged on our week stay, only staying over the one night. It was nice there, and we all slept like babies. In the morning, we headed back down the hill, getting to enjoy that horrible Priest grade in reverse, with the engine brake on and fifty cars tailing us at 20 mph.
When we got down to civilization, I realized that our next planned stop was actually south of us some fifty miles or so, while our RV trip was actually headed north toward Oregon. So, I got on the phone and re-jiggered the itinerary.
Today and tonight were are staying at River Point Landing Marina Resort along the San Joaquin River near Stockton. It’s a pretty place with a nice breeze. Our coach is facing the river. Only $50 per night. That’s practically free in California.
Stockton is up the Sacramento Delta a ways. Lots of oceangoing ships pass by this RV park loaded with agricultural products, oil, etc. The river is only a few hundred yards across right here. The tanker ships are probably as long as the river is wide. They need tugs to keep them in the channel.
After our stay here, we will be heading up to Red Bluff in Northern California, to stay at Durango RV Resort. We were going to stay there for three nights, but, with the Yosemite Lakes debacle, we have now extended our projected stay there to 8 nights. Temperatures are projected for mid-80’s, and we will be parked along the Sacramento River. I’m looking forward to it.
I hope that there are no more road detours in our future.