Couple of Pictures

Here's a couple of shots of our campsite.   There isn't much photographic opportunity here.   Happy New Year!

View of our large yard...I'm standing on the river bank

This shot shows the nice park

This is the interior of the campground....which we pretty much have to ourselves!

This is the rear view.   We've seen kiters with seat harnesses launching off that hill in the background.

I took this shot of the hawk from my front door.

Zoomed in hawk shot



Missy, oblivious to my picture taking, enjoying a game of Words with Friends with Josh

Kern River Campground, Bakersfield, CA

December 23-29, 2012

Sunday:  Spent some time skyping with the family today.   Our brothers were visiting Dad in DL, so we got to be voyeurs on their visit.    Using the new 4G mifi, the connection was a lot better.   It was fun to connect with everyone.  

Monday:  Moving day.    We were concerned about the narrowness of future campsites not allowing us to use the garage ramp.   So, we decided to install the scootie ramp on the back of the fitty.    At first I was worried that it might cover the rigs lights (the ramp is not wired), but it looked fine.   We strapped it down as tight as can be, but there is still some front to back wiggling (from the bike’s perspective).   Hopefully it’s secure enough for travel.   Having the scootie out of the garage really gives us lots more space to work with in the rig.    We should have done this a long time ago.

We packed up and got on the road at noon.    I drove slow and steady on the 10 mile trip to our new campground: Kern River Campground.    This is run by Kern County, and it’s not too shabby.    It’s right on the Kern River, there are HUGE yards, lots of great trees (with good variety).   There is a road nearby, but it’s not that busy.   And it’s not a trucker route, so no loud semis.    The reviews for this place were somewhat negative for being busy and loud and crowded in the summer.   But now, it’s lovely and quiet, and there’s an onsite dump.   $11/night, which is awesome.   $4 per pet per night?!!!!   Not awesome.      This is a first come/first served campground.   There’s no spot to drop your fees; instead a park ranger is supposed to come around and collect money.    We got set up pretty quickly in our selected campsite.   Missy did a great job backing us up on the half moon driveway.

Tuesday:  What a great spot!   There is a terrific amount of birdlife to enjoy, both on and off the river.    On the river, we’ve seen at least 4 varieties of ducks and 2 kinds of giant herons.   One time I got to see a heron snatch a wiggling fish and gulp it down.    With most of the leaves gone, we can watch the river from our living room.   The songbirds on land are lovely.   And there’s a pair of hawks that are constantly around hunting.   This is a very well maintained park, with groomed grounds and a bike path.   Cassie is enjoying the overwhelming gopher population.    They are doing a serious number on the grounds…tons of big divots from their digging.    I’m surprised there isn’t a program to deal with the problem, although I don’t know what that would involve.   More hawks?    Anyway, Cassie is in heaven with a life-sized whack-a-mole seemingly erected just for her.

Wednesday/Thursday.   Chilly, windy, overcast days.   We have to use the furnace during the day to take the chill off.    Lots of people use this campground for overnighters.   Not a bad situation, since there is no ranger to collect fees before they take off again, it’s free for them.   The ranger did finally show up on Thursday.  We paid through Sat and said we’d re-evaluate extending our stay.   The ranger didn’t ask, and I didn’t offer, so we didn’t get charged for the dogs.   If that was a holiday gift from the ranger, thanks!

Friday:   Finally, some sun!    It was still chilly, but we greatly enjoyed the return of the big guy.    We laid out in our ginormous yard in our loungers.    It didn’t last long,  so good thing we enjoyed it while we could.    In the afternoon, Missy took a trip to Costco.

Saturday:   Another chilly day, with stronger wind gusts.   We took the dogs on a walking tour of the gopher condominiums.   Cassie was so fun to watch as she made her rounds from mound to mound.   And a few times she’d catch one doing a pop-up in the distance, so we got to watch her put on the speed.    We had ourselves a campfire before sprinkles chased us inside around 3.

Boring Backlog Blogging

December 10-22, 2012

It’s been quite a long time since I’ve blogged.   We were thrown out of our National Forest Spot by the Sheriff, and the sudden move just threw me off my blogging game.   So, now I have to try to go back and document some of what we’ve been up to.

December 10-14- Clearing Campsite

We made a decision to stay at Orange Grove RV park in Bakersfield for a week starting on Monday the 17th.    This would allow us to order a mifi and sleek and various other stuff to be delivered to the park office.   If we did some very careful planning and ordering, we probably could have arranged it so we only needed a day or two…but who needs the stress.   We made some orders while in town, and then headed back to camp.   

I think we had some campfires…and we enjoyed some epic jet flights.   It really seemed like a lot of the pilots were deliberately altering course to fly right over us…and as low as possible.   (In a later conversation with my Dad I learned this might actually be true).   It seems like so long ago, I don’t remember  what else we did those days.

On Friday, we got a visit from an extremely pissed off Sheriff.    He apparently took it as a personal affront that we didn’t vacate the premises after his last visit.   Technically, he has no authority over that land.   But, since he could easily call the Forest Ranger, we agreed to go.    For some reason, Missy told him we were unemployed.   Based on comments he made after she said that, I think he got it in his head that we were homeless and trying to live there.   Such a shame.   There is no other demand for this site, and we’d already proven responsible in leaving to dump our tanks, so why couldn’t he just let us stay 3 more days until our reservation at the RV park?    Oh well.   So we literally packed up and got out of there in 90 minutes.

December 14-21, Orange Grove RV Park

We had a scary moment with the truck as we were heading downhill on the Forest Service Road.   Somehow the car shut off and we lost brakes.    Luckily we had hardly any momentum, so the ebrake worked.    I tried describing the situation to Jeremiah, but we don’t know what exactly happened.  That’s all I have to say about that.

The drive to Bakersfield went smoothly.   The RV park is, as the name suggests, in an orange grove.    This is the time of year for picking oranges, so our timing is impeccable.   It’s a nice park, well maintained and as quiet as you can get and still be by Bakersfield.    Huge level spots, which are very popular for the overnighters in their giant luxury coaches with toads.   The oranges are surprisingly good.   I thought they might be dry, but they are very juicy and delicious.  They make a great morning AND afternoon snack.

We killed it with our shopping.   The second Bakersfield Costco location had our sunglasses!    Hooray!   We’ve been wanting to buy more of the Kirkland polarized glasses after we mistreated our last pairs.  But Costco refused to keep them in stock.    So it was a Christmas miracle to find them on this trip!   Our new Verizon mifi arrived.    We also got a signal booster and a trucker antenna.    Hopefully we’ll be able to get data in most places we go to from now on.   (We’ll still have our sprint phone, but can expect to get little to no signal on that in the mountains and forests.    So some at some places we might be in touch via email/facebook/blog via the mifi but NOT be in range for calls or text).   

We had some great difficulty deciding where to move to next.    All the places we’d been considering had bad extended forecasts.  I think I looked at every option on the central coast.   I was of the opinion that if it was going to be rainy and cold, then I’d like to have hookups.    And it was a little scary to look at campgrounds in areas where we wouldn’t know how the rain affects the road, or even if it might get snowy.   Since we didn’t find anything, we decided to extend our stay at Orange Grove through the weekend.

On Friday we drove to check out a nearby county campground.   Kern River Campground.   It’s reviewed as kind of a party place during the weekends and summer.   But now, it’s empty.   They have an all half moon pull-thru configuration.   I wasn’t sure if we’d make it.    Missy pointed out that the curbs were very low, and are nothing when compared to the rocks we’ve gone over in the past.    So if we don’t exactly fit, we won’t be trapped by unfriendly curbs.   There are no hookups, but it’s relatively cheap.   So I think that’s where we’ll go next.   We can stay there for a week or so and keep checking on the weather for the coast.

While in range, we got to do some skyping with the nephews.   Man, they are sooooo cute.    It seems like forever since we’ve seen them.  

I guess that’s all for now.  I’ll try to keep up with blogging going forward.   Happy Holidays!

Last Pictures from Sequoia National Forest

Picture of the fitty from the Rincon Trail

Cassie on the trail

Missy at Brush Creek

Drops at Brush Creek.   My pictures did not do it justice.

Funny Story on this one...Missy was doing an exploratory scoot.  She stopped and thought this was a map.  She was cold, so she was excited to see there was a diner up ahead.   Hahahahahaha!   (See, this is a river map.   The diner is a named rapid).

Neat profile shot of the fitty

View from the garage.   Sigh.  Already missing that spot.

Mas Dias Bonitas: Clearing Campground

December 2-9, 2012

2^nd:   We ended up spending a second night at the RV campground.   Rainy/windy weather made us reluctant to pack up to move, and then unpack and re-settle in the elements.    Missy went and got the cable box we’d refused when we thought we’d only be one night.    Not much good programming on Sundays, though.   I made use of the extra time in range and greatly enjoyed extra sessions of Draw Something with MMG!

3^rd:  We divided and conquered chores.   Missy did laundry and I went to the grocery store.    I called Millenicom with the intent of ordering the Verizon wifi (to be shipped to general delivery), but the employee was skeptical that we’d get coverage where we were camped.   So we nixed that.    

We got on the road around 1 pm.    Nice, sunny weather for moving.  Unfortunately, we had some troubles getting back into our spot.    Despite taking on the steep learning curve (pun intended) of driving the RV, we still always manage to be in for nasty surprises.  This time in the form of a heretofore unnoticed rock coming out of the mountain side, which forced me to go off the course I had so carefully plotted.    But, we muddled through.   I also managed to scrape the sides of the rig pretty badly going down the driveway.   Blech.

4^th: I biked with Cassie to an officially signed junction of the Rincon Trail.    Missy had done a bit of this previously, having to turn back earlier than hoped for due to hot weather and not enough water.    Luckily, I had partially cloudy skies with a nice breeze.   I still planned ahead and brought plenty of water for myself and Cassie.   This hike is tough!   Steep grades with gravelly surfaces made for a slippery hike   But the scenery was fantastic.  On one of my breaks, I was happy to see some deer bounding across a gulch.  I even got some pictures of a buck as it stopped partially up a facing hillside to stare at me.   About 10 seconds later, I heard the sound of pounding hooves…and 2 baby deer came booking down the trail.   It seemed like they didn’t see me at all.    I kinda let out a little squeak of surprise as they got within 20 feet of me.   Then they changed course and took off down the gulch.    Just after that, Cassie came trotting down the trail.   Thanks to Cassie, for scaring me up some wildlife!

5th-6^th: Lazy days, spent enjoying reading and relaxing in the sun.    Also enjoying the usual air show.   I love those jets!  Also, we had some scavenged wood campfires.

7^th: Missy wanted to take a drive to check out some of the drops on the Kern River.    There’s a cool picture of some teacup drops in our book.   However, after she wasn’t certain she’d be able to find the put-in exactly, we changed our plans.    Instead, we drove up river to Brush Creek.    This is described in the book as the quintessential California creeking run: smooth granite slides with 10-15 footers into pool drops.    What made it a good hike for us is that there is great parking access and a trail.  (Apparently most of the good CA runs require some heinous hike-ins).   It was bittersweet taking this hike.   On the one hand, it was great to see some whitewater (although low).   We could just imagine how challenging and exhilarating this run would be.    On the other hand…it made me really miss kayaking.   Some days it feels like we’ll never be paddlers again.    Sniff.

Around 4 pm, we got busted by the po-po.    A sheriff deputy knocked on the rig door.    Neither dog managed to bark at the vehicle’s approach.   Nice guard dogs.   Sheesh.    He wanted to advise us of the 14 day limit.   I said I was a little curious that they’d enforce that when clearly there is no demand.   He said that it was partially so people wouldn’t dump their tanks into the creeks just so they could stay longer.    Gross.   Anyway…from what we gathered…the actual authority on enforcing the limit is the National Forest rangers.   So if a ranger comes by, we might have to leave.    Otherwise, we’ll just keep on keepin on here at Clearing Creek.     Oh, the Sheriff warned us about not leaving our genny out.  He said genny thefts are common, and said bolt cutters could make easy work of our genny lock.   Great.   He also said this area is known for hooliganism.   He seemed surprised that we hadn’t come back to camp sometime to discover someone had shot up our camper.    Odd.   We haven’t seen anything toward like that at all.    Of course, this little exchange was enough to fuel many of my anxieties.    Grrr.   I liked it better before knowing these unsavory facts.

8th-9^th:  Lazy days.  We tried to do some discussion of future plans, but it’s hard to do with only an atlas and no internet.   I’ll have to do some research on tomorrow’s trip to the internet café.

Foiled Plans

November 27-December 1, 2012

Tuesday:  We’ve been having some discussions lately about upgrading our current technology situation.   Originally, the dealio was supposed to be that we’d make do with just using the Sprint phone/tether and supplement that with trips to libraries.    But since California is anti-library-wifi, we’ve been thrown for a loop.   So we waiver between looking into getting a cell phone booster, or getting satellite internet.    The latter is muy expensive, and slow, and has data limits.   But… you can get it anywhere.   That kind of coverage is sort of key for the kind of places we like to camp.  For some reason, today we were gung ho on getting satellite service toute suite.   Missy had read recently that DISH just launched satellite internet service, so that’s what we set out to buy.

We stopped at a local satellite installer in Lake Isabella.    The woman there was nice, but clearly had not heard of someone wanting satellite internet for an RV only (not a home).   So we went to McDonald’s to use their wifi.    Despite our best efforts, we couldn’t find any working links on DISH’s website with info on the new service.   So I gave them a call.   I got referred around to 3 different numbers before one guy finally told me that the satellite internet was for stationary use only.   Great.   Our backup plan was to look into ordering a dish from Camping World (thinking we’d have to order to pick up later, in Bakersfield).   But, there wasn’t any good info on their site either.    After some more research on the major cons for sat. internet, we decided not to pursue it anymore.    It’s a crying shame that you can’t impulse buy satellite internet in this part of the country.

After our pointless morning, we did some grocery shopping ($5.30 for a pound of butter!!!!!  Missy says I’m not allowed to bemoan the cost of food here anymore).  

Wed-Thursday-  We had a nice scavenged wood campfire for a couple of hours in the morning.    I went for a bike ride with Cassie (got that video of the jets) and got back home just as the rain showers moved in.   We had rain off and on for about 24 hours.    We had another campfire on Thursday afternoon.    We spent some time discussing getting a cell booster.    It was decided that I would go do nets the next day.  There, I would order the antenna and amplifier at Walmart.com for site-to-store delivery.   This way, we could easily try it out and return it if it didn’t work for us.    Also, I would try to order some White Cheddar Cheeto Puffs, which heretofore have been unfindable in ALL of California.

Friday- I went to do nets as planned.   When I tried to look up what amplifier other boondockers use, I discovered that it might not work with Sprint.   Frickinfrack.   I spent a lot of time researching other options, including the newly released 4g cradle…but it just didn’t seem like it would work for us.   I was thoroughly discouraged.    We need an IT department.    Sigh.  Oh, and even worse: Cheetos are not eligible for ship-to-store-delivery at Walmart.   Waaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh.   Anyone want to ship me some from  MN?

Saturday- Well, guess we’re not making it until Monday.    We’d hoped we’d get 3 full weeks before needing to tend to our tanks.   But the black tank filled up this morning.   I talked Missy into just going to a pay campground for a night.   There, we could get a stress-free pull-thru, have long showers and take on water.    What was not stress-free, as it turned out, was the drive out of the campsite.

I’d been worried about how we would get the RV out of the driveway without major scraping.   And this time, I was right to worry.    No matter how we backed up and re-straightened, we could not get on the road without burying the front of the fitty in the sand.   Oofda.   We’re no strangers to scraping, but usually it’s in the back, on the hitch, which can take it.  This is the first time we scraped the front, where the plumbing and propane lines are.    Cross your fingers for us that we didn’t do permanent damage.   Later, after further reflection, I said we probably should have taken a left out of the driveway, going up the hill to another turnaround.   I think that would have given us the inch or 2 of clearance that we needed.     Lesson learned the hard way.   Just because you can get into a spot, doesn’t mean you can get out.    This won’t stop us from going back: it’s just too perfect.    After dumping tanks and getting water, we’re heading right back to Clearing Campsite.