Our First DITL (Day In The Life) Movie!

Here it is folks!  Sorry for my poor transitions and really bad narration, I promise to get better at both!

Can also be found on our Movie Page . . . 

Rock Creek, Little Lakes Basin, CA, USA - Oct. 24, 2011

More Pictures!


I guess the time had to come:  We must leave Rock Creek.  If it wasn't for another SAP demo, we would probably be here until the day French Camp closes--November 1st at 10:00 a.m. (so say all the warning signs.)


For our last full day we decided to hike up Little Lakes Basin again--we just can't get enough.  I put some bread on to rise, we drove up to the trail head and set out for Long Lake at a little over two miles.  


Although the hike was as wonderful as ever (I dare anyone who claims not to be a hiker to go one mile down this trail and see if it doesn't change your mind about hiking), the day was a whopping 20 degrees colder!  The wind was gusting and cutting right through my clothes but Alan and the Noses seemed just fine.


We had a quick lunch and mini fishing expedition at Long Lake, Alan catching one little Brookie that we set free.  By now, I had put on all the clothes I had in my pack:  Five layers on my top including three hats--I kid you not (there are no photos of this fashion extravaganza.)  We headed back out as the clouds gathered, making it to the car by 3:00 or so.


Fish-less, but determined not to remain that way, we stopped at what Alan calls The Fish Market (formerly reported as Alan's Lucky Fishing Hole) on the way back to camp.  Indeed, it is like a market for him, he barely puts more energy into fishing there than he would pointing through a glass case and saying, "I'll take two of the pan-sized trout, please."


Sure enough, he almost immediately caught an 11" trout and I was immediately glad that I had put some bread on to rise.  I have been lax in my fish catching and felt I wasn't pulling my Hunting & Gathering weight.   We have been so prolific in fishing (well, Alan has) that we decided a few days ago to stop fishing when we had enough for dinner, no matter who had caught what.  So the pressure was on, would I catch one before Alan caught another, thus calling an end to the day's fishing?


"I'm going to need the net!", we both exclaimed in unison, as I flung my 9" trout up to the bank just as Alan was reeling in another 11"er.  We kept them both and ate all three for dinner with fresh baked Parmesan Herb Bread.


As a follow-up and to tie up all the pieces of these lovely nine days:  On Sunday we were fishing the creek that runs through the campground, Alan had (as usual) caught two 11"ers and set about cleaning them.  He gutted them and then took them to the water's edge for a washing.  When he returned, his knife was no where to be found.  We looked in the creek (memories of the camera anyone?) and around the shore, but finally found it about 20 yards into the woods.  Taken there by You Know Who.  Does anyone doubt she took the camera now?


Off to the Westin Monache in Mammoth for two glorious nights and one (hopefully) glorious SAP demo.  Then we are high-tailing it up to Lee Vining and Yosemite before our lucky weather runs out!


-K

Mono Pass, CA, USA – Oct. 22, 2011

More Pictures!

Well we did it!  Fighting fear (Kit) and knee recovery (Alan), we hiked eight miles to over 12,000 feet at Mono Pass!

The first portion of this trail can be found on Trails.com, so for specifics on condition, etc., please check there.  As for our specifics:  It was a lovely day with a long uphill (2+ miles) to our lunch spot at Ruby Lake.  We started near 10,000 feet and Ruby brought us to 11,000 something.  I was feeling nauseous but forced myself to eat my sandwich and drink a ton of water.  Alan’s knee was doing great and, since we didn’t see any fish in the lake, (and I was afraid I’d lose my nerve), we started up the pass without much of a break.

I was fighting the memories of my altitude sickness on Kilimanjaro (and in Machu Pichu for that matter) with each step up the steep last 1.5 miles.  The trail is good, about 2’ wide but cuts into a mountainside of loose rock—one step off the trail and you could slide right on down.  River, being new to the concept of switch-backs (but always in the lead), would simply continue to walk straight when the trail switched back on itself--walking right into the loose rock.  If I had any heart-beat to spare it would have pounded even more at the sight of her trying to negotiate a u-turn on the slippery, sandy, rock slope.  But she worked her four-wheel drive, and, I am proud to report, she didn’t miss a switch back all the way down.

We stopped half-way up and I coughed a little which freaked me out as this was the first indication of my breathing trouble on Kilimanjaro.  So I said, “Let’s keep going.”  The trail was freaking me out a little too:  Too much space between your little trail and the bottom of the mountain.  I was much relieved when we turned the corner on that mountain and ended up between two more.  One on each side was very comforting.

My coughing didn’t get any worse and we made it to the summit around 3:00 p.m. – a little later than we had hoped.  We didn’t stay long as it was already cold and, with the sun sinking, becoming colder by the minute.  Quick snack, quick drink, lots of pictures, and we started back down.

It was a slow return, taking us 2.5 hours to do the four miles back as our joints were stiffening quickly and the rock steps on the lower half of the trail seemed to have grown a good foot and a half during the afternoon.  

We made it home, took a nice hot shower (oh so thankful Salt has a shower and we have a water hook-up!), ate grilled cheese sandwiches with soup (Oreos for dessert) and hit the sack soon after. 

It is now 9:00 a.m. the next day and the dogs have barely moved yet.  Alan had to ask them twice if they wanted to go out for a walk this morning.  Looks like a great day for a little creek fishing and not much else.

-K

Rock Creek, CA, USA - #2 - Oct. 16-24, 2011

More Pictures!

This might be two out of three entries for Rock Creek.  As previously reported in "Rock Creek, Tom's Place . . . ", we actually Drove Backward to reach this  recommendation from Dave & Lisa and haven’t been able to make ourselves leave yet!

We did manage to move to the full hook-up site, #86, at French Camp (NFS), although no tactics were necessary (not that we have any.)  We walked over the morning of the 19^th and met the charming tenant.  Living in Florida, she has traveled out to California every year for 20 years—sometimes twice a year.   Clearly a dog lover, she had a nice talk with River about the difficulty of being Irish.  She also gave us a recommendation for Florida:  St. Joseph’s State Park, so we’ll be adding that into our itinerary.  Turns out, she was expecting us (the camp host mentioned that we would like to move in) and she was heading out that day.

Although nirvana awaited us at #86, we were sad to leave site #25:  A delightful site in its own right--maybe my favorite so far.  It just didn't have any hook-ups and, as we can only dry camp for four nights at a time, we were in need of a cleaning out if you get my drift.  And wow, unlimited water is such a luxury!  There is nothing like a nice hot shower after a long day of hiking and fishing, even if you have to hold the shower nozzle yourself.

On the 20^th, I set some bread to rising and we set off up Little Lakes Basin hoping to find the camera (that I am sure now) River took off into the woods.  But it was nowhere to be found.  A delightful hike none-the-less, and we added some distance making it past Heart Lake to Box Lake.  We saw the most enormous fish swimming by but couldn’t get them to bite anything.   (I guess that’s how they got to be so big.)  Alan caught one little Brookie, who sadly, didn’t survive the hook removal.

After a great hike (there is a movie coming – A Day in the Life:  Rock Creek Hike, I will post it on the Movie tab next week!) we stopped on the way back down the valley at (what is now referred to as) Alan’s Lucky Fishing Hole.  He promptly pulled out two “good sized” (over 11”—six months ago we would have labeled those "whoppers") trout for our dinner.  Thankfully, my bread came out delicious even after seven hours of a second rising, so dinner was fire roasted trout and yams, fresh baked Flax Seed bread and a bottle of Malbec. 

No wonder we can’t bring ourselves to leave.

Tomorrow, Saturday the 22^nd, we are going to head up to Mono Pass and just see how high we can get.  We met a couple coming out yesterday who had just done it so they are my inspiration.  If Alan’s knee and my lungs can make it, we’ll be looking over all of Little Lakes Basin from over 12,000 feet!  You can bet there will be more pictures.

-K

Musings – On Who to Bring Along

If you chose to do this with a companion, the first requirement is that you ________ each other very much.  Do you think this blank should be filled with love?  No way:  It’s respect.  Love might get you a little something-something on a lazy afternoon, but it won’t make you, while backing up a trailer, turn the wheels to the left while your entire body is screaming, “No to the right!  To the right!” 

You need to respect your companion more than anything else as, living with them 24/7, you will hear and see them do things you just don’t understand.  If you respect them, instead of thinking, “What in the hell was that?”, you think, “There must be a good reason for that.”

Sure, we struggle with a few topics.  For example, I just can’t find a good reason for Alan’s idea of when laundry is dry enough to bring home.  Laugh if you must, but this almost caused our first Aventura fight:  We were packing up from an RV Park (running late) and he brought back the laundry, dumping one load on the bed with, “this one is dry” and another in the middle of the floor with, “this one is still wet.”  Really, what is the purpose of bringing back wet laundry?  I am still searching for the, “there must be a good reason for that.”  (He was concerned about checking out late.  I said I would pay a late fee, I am not driving down the road with a load of wet laundry on our floor!  I took the load back to the dryer.)  

Alas, another laundry load returned home yesterday, not completely dry.

As for [mostly] non-speaking companions, I vote for a four-legged one (or two.)  First of all, they make you get up out of bed every morning and go for a walk—well, truth be told, ours make Alan get up out of bed every morning and go for a walk.  Plus, they are always happy to see you, even when all you’ve done is move two feet into the bathroom and back.  

Ok, one foot into the bathroom and back.

-K

Rock Creek, Tom's Place, CA, USA - Oct. 16-?, 2011

As if we didn't have enough to thank Dave & Lisa for after that wonderful going-away meal, they also told us about Rock Creek!  


We have been here for 3 days so far (French Campground, NFS) and have no idea when we will leave.  I took some awesome pictures up at Heart Lake yesterday, and two movies (with a small Nikon, not the Bloggie) which were, undoubtedly, going to be the best yet.  However, when time came to leave, I could not find the camera.


Alan and I had heard something fall into the creek while we were fishing and thought nothing of it.  But once missing the camera, we thought, "Ugg, it must have been the camera that fell into the creek!"  So Alan lays down and bends over the edge of the creek, digging his hands through the rocks and mud to no avail.  I am frantic as I know the beauty hiding in that video card (including a film of Rosco fishing!), so I take off my boots and wade into the knee-high, freezing creek.  I dig around, disturb some egg-laying Brookies, but all I gain are 10 blue toes.  It was after 3, so we had to start heading home.  I begrudgingly walked away.


But . . . walking out on the trail, I thought, "What if River took the camera?"  This might sound odd to you folks who haven't met her (or had your electronic device eaten by her), but she loves to take small electronics and make them a chew toy.  I bet she took the camera off into the woods!


We are going to hike back up there again in a couple of days -- great fishing and I need to get more pictures.  You can bet I'll be walking through the woods where we were fishing.   Stay tuned:  The pictures will be well worth waiting for, I promise!


Now we have to run by site #86 and try to scare them off:  They have a full hook-up site in a National Forest Campground!


-K

Musings - In General

Give the people what they want!  That has always been an entertainer’s mantra (some did this better than others) but it is what is leading me to start a section of postings labeled, “Musings.”  People (maybe not you, dear reader) want to know more about what this life is like.  So here’s where we’ll place all those odd things that come to mind about life on the road 24/7 (like where are we going to buy that hoity-toity dog food?)

Today I woke up, looked out the front of Salt, saw a brown box and immediately thought, “Oh, UPS brought us something!”  That’s how at home I feel.  (Never mind that my own mother doesn’t know where I am on any given day.)  Sure, there are a few experiences that get old (yes, already) like shopping in unfamiliar grocery stores and banging your elbows as you get out of the shower, but mostly this life is incredibly enjoyable.

We came prepared with lots of intellectual goals:   Botanical painting, learning more French, learning Spanish, studying geography and botany, but haven’t had the time to do one of those items yet.  (The Musing postings will undoubtedly be filled with what we are learning!)   Alan was musing last night at where our time goes.  Well, right now it is going to hiking and fishing with occasional SAP work.  Someday (really soon, I fear), it will be cold, rainy and/or snowy where we are and those two out of three of those options will be off the table.  I think we have plenty of indoor time coming.  (In the meantime, I have removed my “French” study hour from my calendar so the appointment reminder doesn’t startle the fish.)

Finally, in answer to Bryan K's question of "why in the name of god would you leave that house in Laguna with that view?!?!", all I can say is, as delightful as that view is, it never changes.  Both travelers at heart, we embrace change and love a good challenge.  We are learning more about each other (and our limits) every day--that sounds like a good Musing topic--look for that one and others coming soon to our "postings by label" section on the left.  

-K

Mammoth Lakes, CA, USA - Oct. 10 -15, 2011

What a great six nights!  The first night was at the Mammoth RV Park for a full Salt clean out but then we quickly headed to the Westin Monache for two nights.  The service was spectacular, starting with the valets who let us park Salt right out front--keeping us from missing her too much.  (How much do you love that picture?!  More pictures available by right-mouse-clicking on the title.)  Three out of our four travelers loved their sleeping arrangements:  The dogs could not get enough of their Heavenly Dog Beds, but Alan’s face fell 10,000 feet when he walked into the room and saw a single (King) bed.    His first words were almost a whine, “Only one bed?”.

But we survived in the one bed (easily twice as large as Salt’s bed, I'm just saying), my SAP demo went well and Alan did a great job of delivering me food and beverages all day as I worked.  The dogs had a grooming day at the local groomer, sadly Rosco came out looking like a sheep.   I guess they don’t get a lot of Wire Fox Terriers out here.  I miss Tailwaggers in Laguna! 

After two nights of luxury, Alan pried me out of my Heavenly Robe and we drove to Twin Lakes Campground (NFS) selected because it was the only one left open in the area.  The campground ranks merely an “ok” in my book:  It promises a dump station and showers both of which were closed for the season and it sits a little low in the valley, so you feel like you are almost in a marsh.  However, the camp host was a delight and clearly loved her job.  We drove up to Lake Mary and loved the campground there—but it was, as promised, closed.

We took two great hikes from Lake Mary, one just under two miles (RT) to Emerald Lake, the other just over two miles to Heart Lake.  Both lovely little lakes, full of “brookies” – local word for the small brook trout – none of whom are interested in leaving the water no matter what you dangle in front of them.  I did catch one brooky in the creek that feeds Lake Mary, he became our appetizer one night.

The highlight of this area was definitely dinner with Dave & Lisa who treated us to a fantastic meal (and equally fantastic wine selection, starting with Champagne!) at the Tamarack Lodge:  A delightfully homey and comfortable place with fantastic food, service, and a wonderful view of Twin Lakes.  The company was even better--such a treat to see friends from home!

We are off to the Rock Creek area for a few nights (after Dave & Lisa's description of the Pie in the Sky cafe, we couldn't leave the area without seeking it out even though it means Going Backward) and then up to the June Lake Loop.  Our only goal right now is to make it over Monitor Pass before it closes for the winter.  I think we have only two or three weeks to do that.

-K

PS:  I can’t believe how well Alan’s knee is doing.  He claims it even feels better the days following the hikes. 

Bishop Area, Highway 168, CA, USA – Oct. 7-9, 2011

(More pictures available, RMC on the posting title and opt to open in a new window.)

It seems every other day I say, “What a perfect day”, and this trip had the best day of all:  Our 11^th Anniversary!

Trying out our European Approach (leaving Salt at the last pitch and taking Pepper out to investigate where the next pitch might be) Alan dropped me at Starbucks in Bishop and headed out Highway 168 to some of the most gorgeous scenery to date.  

A side note here, I have a consulting gig going on which is determining how long we can go without a strong internet connection.  We had stopped at the Highlands RV Park in Bishop for two nights because it claimed to have WIFI, which it did, but it was so slow as to be useless.  So I spent many hours at the local Starbucks preparing for my upcoming SAP demo while Alan played house husband, doing laundry, cooking and the aforementioned scouting trip.

Alan found us a great spot at Brittlebush Campground (NFS), a new campground not on a lot of maps yet (indeed, not on the National Forest website yet), with a nice, level, gravel pitch and a creek running behind the grounds.  It proved to be a great jumping off point for our daily excursions to higher elevations.  We would come out of the higher mountains in the early dusk (which starts very early up there with all the tall peaks) and drive down into our sun-filled spot:  Perfection!  We stayed all three nights in Brittlebush.

Each day we drove up to do some fishing.  Lake Sabrina (pronounced with a long “I” otherwise they “know you are aren’t from around here” – although I am betting there are other clues) was busy on Saturday with tons of people taking photographs and more than a few fishermen.  We drove back down the highway toward home, stopping twice to fish, each time Alan caught a good size trout, although I still held the record at 12.5”.

The road was still too snowy to attempt North Lake, so on Sunday, our Anniversary, we headed to South Lake which stars in most of the pictures in this link.  On the way, we stopped at a fishing spot that normally has a lot of pickups parked in it but that morning happened to be empty.  So we called, “carpe-fish ‘em”, hopped out and Alan promptly beat my record by landing a 13” trout!  I broke my dry-spell with an 11”’er and, since it was nearing lunch (yes, two fish before lunch!), we headed back up the road to South Lake. 

We had our anniversary picnic on the shore before heading up for a short hike.  The hike was lovely:  At over 10,000 feet our lungs were getting a serious work-out, the dogs were running wild and, best of all,  Alan’s knee held up beautifully.

On the way back, we stopped just south of the first fishing hole and Alan brought in another three fish, although one was small so we made sure he recovered before sending him back into the creek.  There were some monster fish in there, but they weren’t having anything to do with anything on my line.

In the photo array is a picture of our anniversary dinner – four fish (Alan asked what we were going to do with the “other two” and I said, “you mean we have six fish?!?”)  It was a fish fest with delicious Kuri squash cooked on the open flame.  S’mores for dessert.

We are headed to Mammoth Lakes next, one night in an RV park to get Salt cleaned up and then two nights at the Westin for my SAP demo.  Who knows where after that?  Just more Perfect Days, I imagine.

-K

PS:  I admit, I am looking forward to the Westin:  All those fresh towels!  Bathrobes! Room Service Breakfast!  It is in our budget to have one hotel night per week, which so far has not been required.  We’ve been out six weeks and these two nights will be number 2 and 3 in a hotel—the first, if you’ll recall, was the motel in Santa Barbara during Pepper’s breakdown.

Lone Pine, CA, USA – Oct. 2, 2011

OK, so Highway 395 from I-15 to Ridgecrest is no longer one of my least favorite drives:  It turns out that if you are the slow vehicle (which we almost always are now) instead of the fast vehicle (which we almost always were then), the drive is quite relaxing and enjoyable.

Lone Pine being about 150 miles from Adelanto, we decided to stop for lunch along the way.  We missed our turn off for Little Lake, so we decided to take the next interesting looking road.  (There are no exits off of Highway 395, just little roads and charming towns here and there.)  The interesting road turned out to be a Bureau of Land Management area (often great places for boon-docking but this area has a small campground) named Fossil Falls.  We pulled Salt down the bumpy dirt road to the day use area and hiked the quarter mile to the dry falls for a picnic lunch.  The scenery is amazing – check out the pictures in the link.  (By the way, Alan’s knee continues to do well, I have to often [try and] stop him from doing too much—it hasn’t even been two weeks since surgery!)

We reached Lone Pine in the early afternoon and headed out to the Lone Pine Campground (NFS.)  Had an ugly exchange with a lady in the campground who thought she was the water police (long story, not worth reiterating) and a lovely exchange with a gentleman and his grandson in which we learned that they had each pulled four trout out of the creek.  That got us moving!  We set up camp quickly and hit the creek. 

I let the dogs off leash and they were having a grand time running between Alan and me along the creek.  I probably should have grabbed a clue that something odd was going on when I looked up and saw River on the other side of the creek—crossing water is something she is hesitant to do even when the three of us do it first.  But I was frantic for the fish.

And man did I land a beauty!  It was the largest one yet—dark grey on the back with a gorgeous crimson streak down the side, at least 12” maybe more.  You know how I have trouble actually bringing the fish in, and with Rosco hot on its tail, it was a challenge.  So I am calling out for Alan, swinging the fish up out of the creek but trying to keep it away from Rosco.  The fish is so heavy, it is pulling extra line from my pole, so I take a huge pull at it and end up getting my line tangled in a tree.  The fish is now hanging from the tree—this is the first site Alan sees as he is rushing upstream to help me, a fish hanging in the tree.

Somewhere in all this, River, who has come back to my side of the creek, lets out a huge bark:  Those of you who have heard her know that “bark” isn’t a good word for it, she sounds more like something from the Hound of the Baskervilles.  But with so much happening fish-wise, I paid little attention.  Alan gets to me as the fish falls from the tree and back into the creek.  I (finally!) get the net disconnected from my fishing bag and try to net him in the water (he was a little dazed after his fall.)  Unfortunately, he recuperated before I could maneuver the net around the rocks and he swam back to his original resting spot.

Rosco is now keen on how this all works:  Little string goes into the water and sometimes a lovely fish comes back out.  So he wades into the creek and stands, literally, with one front paw on each side of the fish, staring into the water.  The fish is not concerned.   Rosco doesn’t heed my “fetch the fish!” command, so I am trying to get my fly back into the water over Rosco’s head when River barks again.  This time Rosco looks over, does a double take and leaps to the shore.  And who wouldn’t?  It turns out we were sharing our fishing hole with a bear!  I almost pee'd my pants.

Not 10 yards from me was the biggest bear I have ever seen short of a grizzly (and having spent many summers in British Columbia, I have seen a lot of bears.)  Thankfully, he had already decided not to play the terrier game and, as Rosco had begun to chase him, he had already turned and was moving away from me.  So all I really saw was a giant bear butt.  But even that butt was too close for me.

Yelling for River, Rosco and Alan, I throw down my pole and chase after them.  River came back almost immediately (good dog, or scared dog, we’ll never know) but Rosco took some time.  When we finally have both dogs leashed up, I realized I was shaking like a leaf and just had to sit down for a while. 

Alan took over my fishing hole.  After a few minutes, I saw the bear on the other side of the creek.  Alan turns in time to see him running back into the bushes.  That was enough for me.  I was out of there.  Alan tried to follow him a bit to get a better look but the bear was gone.

What a day!  I got back to Salt and poured myself a glass of wine.  I can’t even remember what we had for dinner—ah, left over birthday pot roast.  (Yes, Alan made pot roast and pineapple upside-down cake in Salt for my birthday!)

In the morning we drove up to the Whitney Portal campground (not recommended for trailers), a gorgeous place with the happiest, healthiest looking people you will ever see walking around looking like they need a hot shower.

-K

Adelanto, CA, USA - Oct. 1, 2011

Pictures available via the title (opt to open in a new window) - they are of Newport Dunes RV Park and my birthday dinner.

Oh.  My.  God.  It’s like we had never done this before.  But it is a good thing we had, otherwise after this first night, we may have run back to Laguna forfeiting the Aventura altogether.

We did so many things wrong, just like rookies.  For starters, we were having some hitch issues, so we made an appointment at Camping World outside of Anaheim, CA, for a check-up.  They kindly invited us in early and made a few adjustments for free.   Which was great and obviously not our rookie mistake.  The mistakes started when we were sitting in the Camping World parking lot at 3:00 p.m. contemplating where we should go for the night.  Camping World parking lot south of L.A. at 3:00 p m. with no idea where to go.  Hello?  Clue 1.

Our General Plan was to hit Highway 395 as soon as possible and drive north, driving up the side roads that indicate fishing until we got tired of eating fish.  If you have been reading along, you know I love California, but there are a couple of places that I just cannot stand.  One of them is the stretch of 395 between I-15 and about Ridgecrest:  It is either a two-lane, very busy highway or it has a stop light every mile or so.  So I said to Alan, “let’s not do that stretch, let’s take 14 North and meet up with 395 at Ridgecrest.”  All fine and good, but we would never make it to 395 at this hour, so we needed a second option for the night.

Our map indicated a scenic byway just north of L.A.:  Highway 2, which you can hop on at I-5 north and cut across to other roads that would lead us to Highway 14 the following day.  There are at least three campgrounds up Highway 2, so we figure in about two hours we’ll have a place to stop. 

Off we go.  Naturally, we hit all kinds of stop and go traffic on I-5 heading into L.A. that time of day.  So it is about 4:30 by the time we hit the La Canada/Flintridge area, just below the Angeles National Forest.  We needed groceries, firewood and, at some point, fresh water.  (Enter in Ye Old Water Debate:  We did not fill up our fresh water tank when leaving Newport Dunes because the water tasted horrible—figuring we could get some at the campground.)

So, groceries and firewood in hand, we head into the mountains around 4:30.  You all know how I get when it’s approaching dusk and we do not know where we are stopping.  So the road and I are both winding steeply up as dusk is approaching.  

On the way up, we keep passing a white truck which then passes us on occasion.   This happens at least twice before we turn into our first campground option, Chilao.  Although paved, the road in is rough and we pull over to contemplate whether we want to take Salt any further.  The white truck stops behind us.  I motion for him to go around but instead the man gets out of the truck and walks up to the window.  A nice guy, he says he spent a lot of time in the mountains when he was younger and he and his wife are up “seeing what the fire left behind” before driving over to a high mountain burger joint for some barbeque hamburgers out in the fresh mountain air.  My mouth watered at the mention of the hamburgers.  It was now almost 5:00, we were hungry, had no pitch and no water.  The Nice Man tells us about the loop drive through Chilao and that we’ll be fine in with Salt, so we start down the loop.  

It is beautiful in there:  Wide open meadows, camping areas and nice day use areas.  You can’t quite believe you are so close to L.A.  On the back side we spot a spigot and pull over to fill our water tank (!!!)  While we are doing this, the Nice Man in the White Truck appears again.  Tells us some more about the fire that devastated the area not long ago (the highway itself was closed for almost a year) and mentions the hamburger joint again.  More mouth watering and more rookie mistakes:  We were in a campground, at 5:00, with fresh water – why didn’t we call Sundowner Time and just stop?  I’ll tell you why:  We would have had to do the loop drive again in order to get into the overnight camping area and I hate to go backwards, so when the loop took us out to Highway 2, we thought we would try the next campground, only 8 miles away.  On a twisting mountain road, at dusk, hungry. 

Shortly after starting on Highway 2 again, we pass the twice-mentioned hamburger joint and gaze longingly at the people out on picnic tables with beer, burgers and fries.  But having no place to stay yet, we grabbed a handful of dried fruit, drank some water and continued on, waving at the Nice Man in the White Truck as we cruised past.

                                                                   

We barely make the turn into the Buckhorn campground:  An extremely sharp left turn off the highway onto a road that is small and narrow and heads down into a valley.  We don’t like the feel of the place, too crowded and too cramped.  And hey, we are already tired and hungry so why not just get back on the highway and try the next place?

Half an hour or so later, we pull down another road, this time made of dirt and pot-holed, to start the three mile drive to the third camping option.  We quickly pull over as the road does not look good enough for Salt (she does have her standards) and I hop out with a walkie-talkie, directing Alan as he backs up the 50 yards or so to the highway.   And we are off:  In the dark now, still hungry still having no place to go.  Plus our gas is getting low.  Incidentally, we had passed a number of pullout areas with gorgeous views back over the L.A. valley that would have been a nice place to stop and eat but as we just “knew” our campground was coming up, we turned them all down.

So we travel the entire length of Highway 2, dropping into the town of Wrightwood.  A charming little town with a couple of restaurants and some motels, but I don’t want to take the time to eat in a restaurant and we just refuse to second-start our Aventura with a night in a motel.  I mean, who would ever read this blog again if the first night we wimped out and stayed in a motel?

Having regained cell service, we ask our phone to “navigate to RV park” and it finds one about 30 minutes away.  Our route determined, we pull off the road onto a dusty, sticker-filled, pull-out with zero view, climb into Salt and make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner.  It is now around 7:00.

Back on the road, the navigation system has us getting on Interstate 15 South.  I flat out refuse to go south.  After all this?  To go backward?  You know how I feel about going backward (and how well that decision worked out for us.)  So I refuse to take the ramp.  There is a gas station at the interchange so we pull into there, fill up and contemplate our situation.

We again ask our phone to navigate to an RV park it finds one that is north on I-15 and off we go.  Twenty minutes later, we follow the directions to, you will never guess, a dirt, pot-holed road which is supposed to be our entrance to the RV park.  There is no RV park in sight and Alan says, “If I wanted to drive down a dirt pot-holed road to camp, I could have done that two hours ago.”  We laughed all the way back to I-15.  It is now about 8:30.

Our third asking of the phone to navigate to an RV Park puts us back on I-15 north.  But this time we get to the intersection with Highway 395 before we reach the exit for the RV park.  Since 395 is our ultimate goal for the next week, we take the 395 exit and guess where we are?  On my least favorite stretch of highway in all of California!   

Quickly we pass a truck stop full of semi’s all sleeping soundly.  I suggest we do that but Alan doesn’t want to stop there.  So we head up 395 asking our phones again for an RV Park.  The directions lead us to exit at Air Base Road where two out of the three signs are welcome:  RV Camping, Rest Area, State Penitentiary.

We check out the rest area, there are already an A-Class motorhome (the bus kind) and one semi parked, both fast asleep.  We check out the RV Park, it is $35 for the night, no hook-ups, all gravel and dirt and not very pleasant.  So we go back to the rest area.  Pull in front of the A-Class, let the dogs run around on the grass a bit, pour a strong gin, shut Salt’s door and crawl into our comfy bed.  (With homemade pineapple upside-down cake left over from my birthday.)  It is now well after 10:00 p.m.

I woke up the next morning, looked out the bedroom window, through a pine tree and into the bright blue sky and thought, “I could be anywhere in the world.”   And thus we started the Aventura, for the second time, already ahead of budget.

-K