Posts from the ‘On the Road’ Category

Oct 13

Day 2: Los Banos to El Portal, CA

No offense to Los Banos, but the selection of retail grocery stores sucks. I do not consider Walmart to be fit for purpose. What about Target you ask? I tried that as well. I suspected that things were not looking good when the customer service person answering the phone replies “will have to ask” when asked if this Target store carried any organic or locally grown produce.

In case you’re wondering, they do not.

Given this cruel reality, we punted on groceries in Los Banos and headed over to the town of Merced and found a decent substitute. While we were in Merced, we grabbed some lunch and did a quick load of laundry, then made our way to El Portal, our designated overnight location.

El Portal seems to be one of those towns that really isn’t a town. In fact, El Portal simply appears to be nothing more than a hodgepodge of motels, bars, and restaurants – a collection of crap on HW 140 just prior to arriving to someplace that is actually far more interesting … which in this case is Yosemite National Park.

Given that we could not check into our Yosemite camping spot until Sunday, we decided to park Mabel and overnight at Indian Flat RV park.

Welcome to Indian Flat RV Park

Indian Flat RV park is pretty much a dump. The sites are incredibly tight, the electric is on the “wrong” side of the sites, and worst of all, at night this place is lit-up bright as a Christmas tree. In fairness, the guy helping us check-in (I think the owner) was nice and let us park our truck in the neighboring (unused) RV spot for the night.

Since we’d be dry camping in the park, we needed a place to fully drain our holding tanks and top-off our fresh water. So despite certain setbacks, this place does the trick.

You can see from the two pictures below how tightly everyone is packed into this place.

Mabel and another RV – too close for comfort

Our truck is actually in the neighboring RV spot

Like the rest of El Portal, I recommend you pass on through … the Yosemite entrance gate is only another eight miles up the road. Fortunately, we are merely biding our time for the night.

Oct 12

Day 1: San Martin to Los Banos (part one)

As mentioned yesterday, we decided to leave HMB in advance of our planned arrival to Yosemite largely because of maintenance work needed in the Airstream. We took possession of “Mabel” in early July and have been living full-time with her since. During this time, we’ve noticed a few issues for follow-up:

The monitor panel is not reading properly – specifically the fresh water indicator
Our bed is a platform, offering storage underneath. The bed platform itself is supported with two struts. One of these locked itself in the extended position and would not close. We removed it upon locking-up but needed a new one.
The over the stove hood fuse seems to be very finicky. There is a dedicated fuse that has failed four times in the few months of usage.

All of these items are covered under the two-year warranty, but dealing with these issues does present a bit of hassle. Oh well.

The fresh water monitor and bed struts were fixed, but of course, the repair technician was not able to blow the fuse – even with lots of purposeful effort to do so. Oh well.

Before I could truly let myself begin enjoying vacation, I did a bit work … a few small things I really wanted to get sent out before I go off the grid. Kelly and I had lunch at Chili’s, I completed my work, and quickly enough we were on our way towards our camping spot for the night – San Luis Reservoir.

Oct 11

Yosemite Preamble: Half Moon Bay to San Martin

Kelly and I are headed to Yosemite National Park. Neither of us has ever been and we are both quite excited to explore this vast park. Most of the major National Parks require reservations made far in advance and when I booked this reservation a few months ago, I secured an arrival date Oct-14.

Recently, Kelly and I decided we wanted to get out of HMB Thursday night in order to avoid the craziness that is about to consume our town – Pumpkin Festival. Anticipating heavy traffic Friday morning, we decided to avoid traffic and leave early. Accordingly, we got our act together such that we were equipped to shove off earlier this evening … about 7pm

Just wanting to get ahead of the Friday morning rush hour, we drove about 75 minutes southeast to San Martin, CA and dry camped in the Camping World parking lot.

As far as I could tell, there were three or four other RVer’s doing the same.

We’ve got some minor tweaks to address in the Airstream – nothing major, just some issues that have surfaced since taking possession in early July. Tomorrow we are headed Toscano RV – one of the larger Airstream dealers in northern California. Hopefully we’ll be in and out of there quickly and without any drama.

Sep 8

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Traveling Interstate 5

I have a love-hate relationship with interstates. On the positive, they generally make for quick and efficient traveling. However, the user experience sucks. Kelly has it about right when she says that interstates look the same in every state.

Boring.

In the world of interstates, consistency of franchise seems to be the objective. Keep it simple, make it easy, and keep people moving quickly along on their way. It really doesn’t matter if you are seeking gas stations, truck stops, fast food, or some other ‘chain’ retailer, you’ll find them all sprinkled across the interstates.

Our trip this week contained a lot of interstate miles along I-5. Anyone traveling north or south through California, Oregon, and Washington will surely be familiar with I-5.

As boring as the interstate drive was, I-5 did have practical considerations. Today, along with gas, fresh water and (Kelly’s) beef jerky, I took advantage of an RV truck wash. Both the Airstream and truck needed a bath.

The 30-minute wait queue was longer than I would have preferred, but was worth the wait. I must say that our truck and trailer combo was freshly washed and looking much better. This picture was the only one I could secure before the guy below (politely) informed me that there are no cameras allowed.

Perhaps he was grumpy that I did not accept his offer to upgrade the wash to include liquid wax and rain protectant.

Bathtime

Before long we were back on the road and once again underwhelmed with I-5. Kelly must have noticed I was getting tired (I do all the driving) and before I knew it, she found a cheap overnight option with full hook-ups at the Woodland County Fairgrounds just outside Davis, CA. This place is definitely no gem, but at just $20, the price is right. Temperatures remain in the 90’s and we appreciate the 30-Amp power and it’s ability to run our air conditioning.

As Kelly called ahead to secure a spot, she was told that prison inmates would be in the nearby campsites. It didn’t immediately occur to me that the abundance of California wildfires require extra support to help with containment efforts. Inmates to the rescue.

We arrived in time to witness a shift change. Following a long day on the job, everyone seemed to be anxious to grab some dinner, including these guys below.

I was not aware that serving jail-time qualifies one for fire-line duty. One of the firefighters told us that these inmates mainly help with backbreaking manual efforts like digging ditches and hauling gear. It’s crazy hot around here and I imagine these inmates must be hot as hell in their sweet orange jumpsuits. At least they are out of their jail cells.

Non-violent prisoners walk to the mess hall

Unlike mine, I doubt their dinner included a cold beer.

Speaking of dinner, we had barbecue at a place called Ludy’s Man Street BBQ, which was decent, but not great. It’s never a good thing when the decor of a restaurant is more interesting than the food itself. In this case, the decor being a confusing hybrid of southern country motif intermixed with way too much random kitsch. Envision the ornamentation of TGIFriday gone crazy. Yes, TGIFriday gone crazy.

The outdoor patio at Ludy’s Main Street BBQ

As for our part, Kelly and I were a bit under-dressed … no fancy cowboy boots or 20 gallon hats to don. Our flip-flop sandals didn’t quite cut it tonight. We’re such tourists.

However, I think I might have redeemed myself (only slightly) with my theme inspired cowboy boot beer mug. Never-mind that I was drinking surfer-dude Longboard Lager. If only they had a surfboard mug.