Monday, October 29, 2012

First Days in California

  October 28-29, 2012

We woke up in our sucky campsite rejuvenated.   Yesterday we couldn’t imagine feeling recovered from our road trip until after a couple of days of relaxing.  But the ugly campground and the high fee ($20/night for with NO hookups) motivated us to find a new spot.   We took off at around 9 to scout our next home.   First we drove back to look at the BLM campsite in daylight.   Although it was on the Kern river (a fun looking class 3-5…too bad it’s not running), the mountains and surroundings are rather bare.   Not too many trees.   There was an open parking lot area we could have squeezed into next to the 2 or 3 other rigs.   But Missy vetoed it, and as usual we follow UN Security Council rules.

We then headed 10 miles north to Kernville.  This is the Southern tip of the Sequoia National Forest.   We had a list of 3 or 4 campgrounds up the Kern River that were open and could maybe fit our rig.    As we checked them out, we started to get really worried.   For the most part, the fee campgrounds were tiny and not suited for big rigs.   Even if we did find a spot we could make do, the campgrounds were ugly.   Run down and not very well laid out.    But then…we spotted an oasis in the desert!    A free campground, right on the river with fantastic mountain views!!!    We scouted carefully to make sure the rig would fit, and then headed back to pack up and move the RV again.

On the way, we stopped at the ranger station.   I wanted to get a permit for campfires.  Luckily, there was a ranger there who was just on his way out.   I guess they aren’t usually open on Sundays, but he was stopping in so he was able to get me the permit and he made me a copy of the forest map.   Such a nice guy!

We got hooked up in record time….and then got the rig filled with water.    We’d been told by the host that there was a threaded spigot…but it was worn mostly free and covered in calcium.  So we had to use the camp hosts’ water.   It seemed to take forever to get filled.   Finally, we were on our way.    We stopped to fill up the propane tanks at True Value, and then got back to our new home at around 2.   It is wicked hot here.   When the sun is shining full on, it’s scorching.   Luckily, Missy got us parked to that we can sit out front and be totally shaded by the fitty.  Since the inside temp went over 80 degrees, we decided to take cold showers to save on propane.    Very refreshing in the heat.

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