01-15-2024 Traveling South Part 2

A favorite photo of the Golden Gate Bridge that I took from the deck of a cruise ship in 2012

Just a quick shout out to a few of you who said you would be fearful of crossing the Golden Gate Bridge in a motorhome.  It isn’t difficult.  The lanes are well-marked, and the lanes go where they are supposed to go.  After crossing the bridge from the north, the RV lanes are also well marked and you don’t even need to stop, just go slow enough for the license plate readers to scan your information and eventually, you will get a bill.  The lanes are not terribly narrow.  Stay on the right in a larger rig and you will be fine.  I was much more nervous driving the MoHo on the interstate east of San Antonio with lanes narrowed horribly during construction.  Crossing the bridge is truly gorgeous.  Every time we do it I exclaim how much I have forgotten the beauty of this bridge.

Above are a couple of photos I took from the passenger seat when Mo was driving back in 2011.

Once we passed Salinas, we were reminded of the legendary rough pavement of Highway 101.  Everything in the rig that normally doesn’t rattle much was making its presence known, and it was with great pleasure that we pulled into our overnight stop at Camp Roberts RV Park.

From Wiki:   Camp Roberts is a California National Guard post in central California, located on both sides of the Salinas River in Monterey and San Luis Obispo counties,^[1] now run by the California Army National Guard. It was opened in 1941 and is named after Corporal Harold W. Roberts, a World War I Medal of Honor recipient.^[1] Nearby communities include San Miguel, Heritage Ranch (Lake Nacimiento), Oak Shores (Lake Nacimiento), and Bradley, all unincorporated. The nearest incorporated city is Paso Robles. Camp Roberts is roughly 25 miles (40 kilometers) southeast of Fort Hunter Liggett.

Camp Roberts is one of the bases where Mo did her Army Reserve training when she lived in California. It was just before 5 when we arrived and the gate guard pointed us toward the camp without mentioning that we needed to check in at the billeting office in the other direction.  It wouldn’t have mattered because we found out later that the office closed at 4:30.

We had no site assigned, no email or text message confirming our arrival, and found out the next morning that the RV camp was in the process of switching the camp operation from billeting to the Military Welfare and Recreation office. Since I am not a military person, I had to research what billeting actually was, discovering it has to do with housing for military personnel. In the meantime, we only knew that we were to be in an area of the park with no hookups since all the full hookup sites were occupied by working military for the winter.

We drove around a couple of times before deciding to settle in on the flat grassy area by some picnic tables.  Opening the door to the western skies and open fields, we were thrilled by the open space and beautiful view.  With Highway 101 just east of us we were happy that the sound didn’t travel and we weren’t troubled by noise at any time.  We figured if we weren’t supposed to be there, sooner or later someone would come and tell us.

Our night passed without incident and at 8:30 the next morning the person in the biletting office answered my phone message. She let us know about the changes and took our payment of $5 for the overnight for the rig and an extra $5 for Mattie over the phone so we didn’t have to return to the billeting office.  She entered our information into the system and told us that the next time we planned to stay at the camp it shouldn’t be a problem.

We traveled south on 101 toward Paso Robles and turned east on Highway 46 toward Bakersfield. At first, the road was lovely, with rolling hills showing a touch of green.  

However, as we dropped down the slopes on the western side of the great San Joaquin Valley the lovely views deteriorated into a few miles of oil wells that covered the landscape as far as we could see.  I know people complain about windmills, which I happen to think are quite lovely, especially compared to this.  

As we continued east and then onramped I-5 toward the south, we saw a huge billboard advertising Blue Beacon Truck Wash.  We discovered this wonder on our trip east in 2022 and decided that a few miles out of our way to get the job done was worth every mile.  With just over 100 bucks for both the MoHo and the Tracker, including RainX rinse and tire treatments for all ten tires, it was worth every penny as well.

We originally planned to clean the rigs at the free car washing area at Orange Grove RV Park, but that would have been a lot of work and it was wonderful to simply sit inside the Moho and watch it get cleaned to a brilliant sparkle.

A few miles later, we settled into Orange Grove RV Park, a destination we have enjoyed for more than a decade on our way to Desert Hot Springs.  However, the cost is getting higher each year and the amenities are getting to be less of a draw.  Silly as it sounds, the free fresh donuts and coffee in the office every morning are now only offered on Friday and Saturday mornings.  The worst part is that the orange trees are mostly empty, and the few oranges Mo picked for us when she took Mattie for a walk were hard and sour.  There is no longer cable or free WiFi as there used to be.  For some reason instead of putting us on the nicer side of the park to the south, they keep cramming us into the shorter spaces and more cramped sites on the north side of the office.  When I request a site on the south side, they say those sites are saved for bigger rigs.  So much for that.  I am reasonably certain that we will not stay there again, the era has ended.

The last time we saw oranges like this on the trees at Orange Grove RV Park was in 2016

Instead, in the future, we will drive the extra 40 minutes or so from Bakersfield to Tehachapi and stay at the park we enjoyed last year on our trip south.  I discovered last year that I can buy a huge bag of truly sweet oranges for just $8 just around the corner from Orange Grove RV.  Just a short hop off of Highway 58 on our way up the pass in the future will ensure a great stash of sweet oranges during our time in the Southern California desert.

The trip over Tehachapi Pass the next morning was uneventful, with little wind and mostly sunny skies.  The desert looked as welcoming as ever, and it seemed that in no time we were driving down our familiar road toward Desert Hot Springs and a welcome two weeks of the simple life at Catalina Spa and RV Resort.

Let the fun begin.