May 26, 2010 – Time to move on to Sugar Barge Resort.

It has been fun visiting the Fresno-Coarsegold area.

In the past week, we drove down to Fresno twice.  Would you believe it, those Fresno folks drive like they live in California?  Thankfully, Costco and Penny’s are just off Hwy 41. It’s difficult being small town drivers in the BIG city traffic!  The drivers zip back and forth without giving signals.  Very confusing!  Driving home on busy Highway 41 was a relief after navigating through the city driving.

We went up the hill (Hwy 41) the next morning to Oakhurst to buy groceries at peaceful and low-keyed Raley’s Market!  We were delighted to find artichokes on sale for $1 for two.  We stocked up with 6.  They were delicious!

We drove back down to Millerton Lake State Park to check out the campground.  A full-hook-up site is $40 a night and the dry-camp sites are “only” $30.  Owie!  California State Parks are beyond our budget!

Next, we visited Bass Lake, just east of Oakhurst.  Bass Lake is a beautiful lake in a beautiful mountain area--surrounded by pine trees. The north side of the lake is highly developed with fancy cabins while the south side is managed by the National Forest Service.  The National Forest camp sites are only $25 a night.  Luckily they honor The Golden Age and Access passes, so the site fees would be $12.50 for seniors/disabled campers for a dry-camp site.  Doesn’t that sound so much better?  Plus we discovered a Coast to Coast park in the area, as well as an Elk’s Club in Oakhurst.  This area is a nice “jump off” location for visiting Yosemite National Park!

The Co-op Park Sierra has been a great place to visit.  The “sites” vary from very basic to very fancy.  The members are very friendly and make visitors feel welcome.  The laundry room is large; lots of front loading washers at an affordable cost. The large clubhouse houses hosts many activities and includes a book and a DVD library.  The park’s paved roads wind up and down and around the hillsides to all the different sites.  It isn’t easy to get out and walk; from our site, everything was downhill and inviting.  However, looking back up to where I needed to go, those hills were mountains! 

Here are a few different sites:

Basic site with few improvements.

Lots of love and work in these sites.

It has been fun, but it is time to move down into the valley and head for Sugar Barge Resort in Bethel Island, CA.  We use Sugar Barge when the Contra Costa County Fairground campground sites are unavailable because of the County Fair.

Sugar Barge is a fun place right on the Delta, so it is always a treat to stay there.  More from Sugar Barge soon!

May 20, 2010 WOW, WOW, and more WOW!

Welcome to SKP Park Sierra, an Escapees Co-Op park. The park was built by volunteers and is owned by the lot residents, who buy in for the exclusive use of a site. It’s located just west of Coarsegold, CA, in the Sierra Nevada foothills at about 1800 ft. elevation and about 30 miles east of Fresno, CA.

Escapees RV club members are welcome to visit up to 90 days at a time on sites where the lot owners are absent. The campground revenue adds to the maintenance fees paid by the owners to support this beautiful development.

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We have a lovely spot with even a wood deck overlooking the hillside. I have been watching the quail, woodpeckers and other birds enjoy the spring banquet after a long winter. I’m also watching a cat who sees quail on his menu, but I don’t think he has been very lucky receiving his his order. (I didn’t help either!)

Today we did the WOW-WOW tour—we drove east 26 miles on Hwy 41 to another of America’s gems: Yosemite National Park. The park’s southern entrance is a long way from the Yosemite Valley--over very curvy roads and up and down mountains, with little road shoulder between us at 5,000 feet and the valley way below! However, you know you are really in Yosemite when you emerge from the long tunnel and see an u-shaped valley—with the instantly recognizable Half Dome looming above it. It is a WOW moment!

And then just down the road, Bridal Veil Falls comes into view. And it is another WOW moment!

We stopped for our picnic lunch along the river before heading down into the valley. It was just one “Wow, look at that,” moment after another! I took more photos than there is room to show. Unfortunately, we had an overcast sky which diminished the beauty in the photos, so you will just have to plan your own vacation to this wonderland. Come in May to enjoy the splendor of all the waterfalls.

This is Yosemite Falls. The amount of water gushing over the rock ledges several hundred of feet straight up is unbelievable!

And to think people scale the face of Half Dome—are they crazy or what?? For those who want to hike up to the Half Dome’s shoulder and then take the cable trail to the top of Half Dome now need a permit during the busy times and only a limited number of permits are issues each day. The cable climb became too popular. Anyone can have my space in that line!! No thanks!

There is a fantastic bus system in place on the valley floor which should help with car traffic during the busy months. The new propane-powered buses are quiet and make regular loops around the valley stopping at the popular sites. We were able to drive with Larry’s handicap pass which was a blessing for us. He would have had a bit of trouble walking and waiting at the bus stops.

I have put Yosemite on our return-visit to-do list and next time I will make reservations in the Pine Valley campground as it would increase our enjoyment of this little corner of heaven!

Too soon we completed our circle of the valley and headed back to Hwy 41 to go up and down—never looking over the close edge of our side of the road—back to Coarsegold and Park Sierra. We were quiet on the ride back as it felt as if we had spent the afternoon in a cathedral; God’s work at his best!

I want to send our love and healing hugs for a rapid recovery to Mary Ellen Shue, who had surgery yesterday. She is a very special lady blessed with a wonderful positive attitude and sweetness; she reminds me to be a better person! God blesses me with friends like her.

May 18, 2010 We are in California!

I left off in Eastern Arizona where we spent the night at the Root 66 RV Park. (Isn’t that so Route 66 looking?)  I have been unable to update our blog because Northern Arizona has large portions where Verizon is not an active cell system.  It was an “extended area” and wouldn’t connect with our broadband card.  This is the first time we have had trouble using the Verizon Broadband card.

We drove straight to Kingman, AZ to stay Saturday night at the Zuni Village RV Park, an Escapees Discount Park. We saved about $4 more by using our Coast to Coast membership—so it was a bargain, as well as a very nice park.  The sites are level and clean, the laundry room is large with lots of machines, and the shower is the best I have experienced in a long time!  We will come back and stay a few more nights on the next trip over I-40.

Anyone driving I-40 through Arizona would want to allow at least a week to explore several wonderful attractions.  Some of the best sights to see are the Petrified Tree National Park, Meteor Canyon, and of course, the Grand Canyon.  Going north from Kingman, I would also add a tour to Hoover Dam and the new bridge being built to bypass the dam.

I would pass up the new Sky Walk because of the exorbitant multiple fees.  I might be willing to pay the $26.95 per senior fee, $54 for us, but, as they say on TV, “WAIT, THERE IS MORE!” Each visitor is charged a Legacy Pass fee, $39.95 for seniors plus taxes, and a $20 car fee.  Even the reduced “senior fee,” is about $87 a person.  I don’t like heights and heck, spending $174 for a hour’s entertainment is enough to freak me out—without looking down 4000 feet.

We planned our visit to Lake Havasu City to miss the busy weekend.  In the summer, the lake is a boater’s Mecca!  By arriving on Sunday, we secured a nice spot in the Passport America park, Campbell Cove RV Resort.  It has a lot of amenities and thanks to the P/A discount, very affordable.  We really needed to run the air conditioner—Sunday afternoon the thermometer in the window read 124 degrees!  And it was only 102 inside the camper, Yaahooo!

(Lake Havasu in the background)

My sister Diane and her husband Roger live in LHC part of the year—the part that isn’t 124 degrees!  (They are getting ready to leave for the summer.)

We had a wonderful visit—our jaws never stopped moving, smile!  She is very artistic and talented; I look at what she accomplishes and just sigh!  She just finished remodeling their bathroom; yes, it looks beautiful, and was working on landscaping her backyard corner—and yes, it looks beautiful!  I saw the jewelry she has made, and yes, it is beautiful too!  I am so lucky to have such a wonderful sister who inspires me to do better!  I have to work on my pottery!

I was having so much fun, I forgot to take any photos of their yard and her improvements to the house.

We got up early this morning to beat the LHC heat and headed for California.  We crossed into the Californian nation about 8 am. 

Welcome to California:  “ From Texas, eh?  Do you have any oranges or apples?” Darn, there went our fruit salad makings!  They did let us keep our poor, sad looking banana.

Traveling west, we were amazed to see how beautiful the desert looked since our last trip over CA I-40 in February.  The valleys and hills were green!

 

Isn’t that beautiful?  It was such a treasure to see.  By Barstow, CA, the landscape was back to browns and yellows.  The spring-green season is over in California!

We are spending the night in Bakersfield, CA at the Elks Lodge on our way up CA Highway 99 to the Escapees Co-op Park in Coarsegold, CA.  We will be staying at SKP Park of the Sierras a week before going on to Sugar Barge RV Park in Bethel Island, CA, on the 26th.  This will be our treat to ourselves before we head off to see our doctors and do the routine lab tests.

Stay tuned for some photos of Yosemite NP if we can get in!

Good Friends and Happy Days

We spent quite an interesting, but not restful, night in Post, TX.

The storms we had hoped to avoid by going so far west caught up with us about 10 p.m.  We saw lightening and heard thunder, rain and HAIL!  The hail stuck fear in our hearts; the camper manufacturer is out of business.  How would we replace the big vent and skylight?  Busted car and truck windows would crimp our plans to get to CA by May 27th.  I quickly threw rugs and towels over the windshields and big vent.  We sat and prayed we wouldn’t get the nickel to fifty-cent sized hail falling in the storms around us. We had a few episodes of combat boots stomping on our fiberglass roof, but no falling jeeps..

We must have done something right!  I finally fell asleep at 2 a.m. after the storm warnings were cancelled.  We got up bright and early and headed up towards Lubbock, TX and Santa Rosa, NM.

Along the way, we received some wonderful news!  Don and Sharon Del Rosario read our blog from their Albuquerque, NM location and called to see if we could link up in Santa Rosa, NM.  Isn’t that cool?

Sharon is my mentor for doing a blog.  She is also my mentor for learning how to knit!  I hope the blogging goes better than my limited knitting skills!  Holes keep sneaking into my knitting projects, so you will understand if this blog has a few holes too!

Everything worked out perfectly.  We met at the Santa Rosa Campground.  I found it in the Escapees Discount Travel Guide so we received a 15% discount instead of just a 10% Good Sam discount. 

We piled into their car, they have a BIG RV and don’t need to carry as much in their Honda CRV.  Don drove us out to Santa Rosa State Park on Santa Rosa Lake.  It was a bit disappointing to see a C.O.E. park managed by the NM State Parks.  In addition to a daily camp fee of $14, they charge $5 a day per vehicle fee.  RVers who tow cars instead of trailers get whacked by this regulation.  Many state parks charge for both the RV and the towed car which makes the fees prohibitive in some states.

One of the city highlights was the Blue Hole located in the middle of town.  Blue Hole is an artesian spring 81 feet deep with 3,000 gallons of water gushing out every minute.  The water is so clear that it is used by local scuba divers. Those floaters are for staging platforms for the divers. It isn’t big, but it was quite unique!

Yesterday, May 13th, was my 66th birthday and we celebrated it with Don and Sharon on Route 66. 

Another local treat was a church that had seen much better days as well as the little cemetery in front of the structure. 

Sharon and I were taking photos when we looked down at this place marker….and noticed the date of death was May 13---May 13, 1910—exactly 100 years to the day earlier!  It was a day full of good company and weird coincidences.

Tonight we are in a little, I mean little—just 22 sites, Escapees 50% Discount park.  Root 66 Campground, Sun Valley, AZ  (not a typo or cyber hole) is clean and neat with full hook-ups at $14.50, just what I like.

We shared the driving today.  The constant side wind takes a toll on our arms hugging the steering wheel.  Tomorrow on to Kingsburg, AZ or all the way to Lake Havasu City. 

Wind and Windmills on I-20 to Hwy 84

Today was a combination of wind, lots of wind, and windmills! There has been a big low hanging west of Texas bringing 15-25 mph winds for 3 days. It has been blowing from the south/southwest which pushed us up I-45 yesterday and blew us all over I-20 today.

We are taking the old route up to I-40 by of going west to Sweetwater and then up to Lubbock, TX and over to Clovis, NM. After all the tornado activity in OK earlier in the week, we wanted to duck around the front.

Sweetwater, TX was billing itself as the center of wind-generated electricity industry--and we saw their proof! Highway 84 took us past miles--and miles--of windmills! As far as the eye could see, little white sticks. It was a beautiful sight to see so much electricity being generated without pollution!

And, with some windmills being so close to the road, we could how huge they are, but my mind just wasn't able to grasp the actual size! In the photo below, that is a curved-roof farm building to the right of the windmill for storing farm equipment. Notice the difference in size.

The atmosphere was a bit fuzzy, so the photos have are slightly blurry, but I think you can see the size relationship. It is stunning to be so close.

Tonight we are in a Passport America park called Post View RV Park in Post, Texas. We stayed here last year. Passport America members receive a 50% discount on camping fees and tonight our site was $12.50 with full hook-ups.

Passport America (PA) parks tend to be in out of the way places and usually smaller parks who want to attract campers. We have found some real treasures and along with some minimal parks.

We usually only require electricity for the air conditioner, so we can take a minimal park if the price is right! Tonight we wanted a sewer dump because we might dry-camp tomorrow night in Santa Rosa, NM. As I said, we don't make reservations in advance so we can change our route if needed.

Tomorrow should be a bit cooler when we get up to I-40. I hope so as it was 104 in the window thermometer this afternoon. Time to get out of Texas!!!

A 5-month trip starts with the first day....

Today was "get out of town" day. We drove out of the park at 8:30 a.m. and made it to Bardwell Lake, Ennis, TX. When heading north, we try to stay at Waxahaxie Creek Park, a COE park about 165 miles from our home base. We schedule a short day to have enough time and energy to stow away all the last minute stuff.

We used to rush 400-450 miles per day, but as we aged and fuel costs increased, we cut back to about 250 to 300 miles per day. We are retired and this is for fun! We drive about 57 m.p.h. because it is a fuel-efficient speed.

The COE parks are some of the best in the country. The rates are lower than many state parks and sites are generally wider with electric and water services. The COE parks are found at many lakes and dams and tend to have pretty views, especially the waterfront sites. In the Texas heat, we need electricity for the the air conditioning

With the Golden Age card, we pay half of the posted rate. It is one reward for living long and very appreciated! Tonight, we paid $9 for a water and electric site. We are using a variety of cost-saving camping options on this trip. I don't make future reservations; it restricts our options. I call during the afternoon for reservations or to check campsite availability once we decide where to stop. The cell phone is just one of the many wonderful improvements to the "fun-timing" lifestyle since we started RVing in 1987.

Back in the old days, 1987-1993, finding a pay phone was an adventure! I often waited in line to use the one pay phone in the area. And then, when my time came, I was reminded of the long line behind me--waiting for me! Cell phones have changed our lives for the better!

In addition to keeping in touch with family and friends, we call our doctors for medical advice, our banks for balance transfers, the insurance company to charge premiums, and campgrounds. Living life in the slow lane is easy with a cell phone. We carry an AT&T and a Verizon phone to have better coverage. In the old days, the AT&T phone had better reception in more places but the teeter-totter has shifted. The Verizon phone now has better coverage. However, the AT&T phone has roll-over minutes which are handy in emergency months where a lot of minutes will be consumed.

More from the road tomorrow when we continue traveling through beautiful Texas.

Follow our travel adventures in 2010. We are driving a 2005 Chev. 3500 diesel dually and living in a 1997 Big Foot camper. Our Big Foot, while nicely fitted with all the necessities, is only 10.5 feet long and 8 foot wide. We tow a 2006 Honda CRV, loaded with all our extra toys.

Our camper is fully self-contained. We have solar panels as well as a small Honda 2000 generator so we can dry camp if we want. We carry laptop computers with a braodband card for Internet service as well as two cell phones, so we can keep in touch with friends and our doctors. We use the Escapees RV Club's mail service as well as bank online.

We are not full-timers; we are fun-timers. As long as RVing is fun, we are out there! The day we decide it isn't as much fun, we return to our home base for two or three months. We have the best of both worlds!