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Oct 14

Day 3: Arriving to Yosemite National Park

Our campground check-in time was 12-noon and we were only about 40 minutes away so we took our time getting moving today.  That said, we were anxious to make our way into the park, so before too long we were hitched and once again rolling.

Yosemite park entrance

I’ve seen and read a lot about this place, but nothing compared to actually seeing the park up-close.  It really is majestic.  The scale of the park is nothing I’ve ever seen before; it really is beautiful.

Arriving a bit too early to check into our site, Kelly and I killed some time exploring the area known as Yosemite Village.  Essentially, this is ground zero – the place where gift shops, restaurants, grocery stores, and campgrounds all collide.  A place that is both convenient and horrific at the same time.  Some of the Rangers tell me that the park is quite empty this time of year, particularly on weekdays.

River running through our campground

How far down is the drop …

One of many sheer rock faces in the valley

Interestingly enough, the campgrounds are all quite full.  The real crowds are those visiting the park for day visits.  I’m quite surprised at the amount of parking throughout the broader Village.  Incredibly, during summer months, what looks like ample parking today is often woefully inadequate.

Anyway, our day was mainly about getting settled, reading up on day hikes and reminding ourselves how lucky we are to be  in this majestic setting.

Tomorrow Kelly’s brother Chris arrives with his dog Katie.  Neither of us has seen Chris in a while and we are really looking forward to spending some time with him this week.

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: Los Banos, CA (part two)

Like many California State Parks, the San Luis Reservoir is decent enough, but way overpriced in my view – $38 bucks for no hook-ups is a bit on the steep side I think.  By the way, the Golden state will hit you up for an additional $1 to shower for five minutes.  That said, the campsites are huge, offer plenty of elbow room between neighboring sites, and are level.  Nice.

This time of year the park was mostly empty; so all in all, we had some nice downtime to relax.

Per usual, we did get out for some park exploring … or at least tried to.  Many of the most “marketed” trails were closed for the season; not sure what that’s all about.  Not to be deterred, we walked the park roads in an attempt to make the most of things.  In the end this was ok since the park was basically empty.

Also we did manage to see some wildlife during our stay.

Like these elk:

Elk grazing the fields

And lots of these bugs:

Desert Stink Beetle

And by far the biggest spider I’ve ever seen outside of a museum or zoo:

California Tarantula

Another big downer about this park is that many of the more heavily marketing trails are closed for the year, but not marked as such.  We found this out the hard way – after driving 15 minutes to the trail parking lot, walking another ten minutes to the trailhead, then finding access to the trail itself sufficiently cut off by a gate.

Rolling hills under clouds

The lone highway through the park

Despite some otherwise pretty scenery, I give this park a big thumbs down.

Not sure I can recommend this park

Once we settled in for the evening, I started a nice fire ($6 for a small bundle of wood) and Kelly made a fantastic pizza.  We had fresh-baked cookies for dessert (ok, they were Tollhouse).

Enjoying warm cookies and milk.

Afterwards, we settled in to begin watching season-1 of Showtime’s TV drama Homeland.  Wow, what a good show.

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.

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