campgrounds – Page 8 – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

Overnight camp south of I-80 Angel Creek

We are now at the Rock Springs, Wyoming KOA

With a short day of driving, we arrived at our planned night stop in Wells, Nevada rather early in the afternoon. The temperatures were still hot, and the parking lot at the Flying J, while big and fairly empty, left much to be desired in the way of ambience. Instead, we fired up the CampWhere app and discovered a couple of forest service campgrounds just 8 miles or so south of town.

It helps to see the area on google maps, and see if the road into the east side of the Ruby Mountains looked passable. It also helped that one of the campgrounds had a size limit for motorhomes of 45 feet. Surely with a limit that high, the road must be OK. The higher elevation campground at Angel Lake has a 30 foot limit and we discussed the possibility of trying that one out.

Driving the Angel Lake road was completely manageable as far as the Angel Creek Campground turnoff, and still a bit undecided we thought we would check out the campground before attempting to drive higher. I said, “Let’s just be safe and unhook before we go up this steep, winding road!” Mo agreed wholeheartedly as we looked up along the ridge to see something that looked like it might be the highway.

The campground was delightful, with 18 sites, some too short for even our rig, and yet a few here and there that were plenty long for even the biggest rigs. The camp hostess was a delightful young woman living in a tent shelter with a nice big German shepherd companion. When we asked her about the Angel Creek Road she said without hesitation that we probably didn’t want to take our motorhome up there.

We settled into our site, paid the half price fee of $6. with our senior pass, and unhooked the baby car for a trip up the mountain. Within a few hundred yards we were quite happy that we didn’t have the motorhome. The road is incredibly steep and the drop-offs to the valley below are hair-raising, at least for me, and even in the baby car I found myself leaning inward to supposedly avoid going over the edge.

On our way up the mountain, a huge cloud of smoke from some far distant fires darkened the skies and with the added storminess, the final view of the small lake itself was a bit of an anticlimax. It certainly didn’t make us want to pull off the kayaks and jump in. We didn’t even pay the parking fee to let Abby go swimming, since all seemed a bit dingy and uninviting. The Angel Lake campground was a big surprise, however, with several really big rigs tucked into low shrubs and uneven sites with no actual view of the tiny lake. Sometimes these really high elevation lakes don’t invite me that much, they seem harsh and barren and inhospitable.

In contrast, our little camp at Angel Creek seemed lovely even with the stormy clouds hovering and the smoke coming and going on the winds. Dinner was a simple quesadilla and a walk around the campground afterward made for a lovely ending to the day. We were in bed at a ridiculously early hour, with the wind blowing and rain spattering the roof now and then. With no hookups, but plenty of stored power from the day of driving, we were just fine for the second night of dry camping.

I was so happy that we found another quiet, dark, beautiful place to spend the night since the rest of this trip is fairly well planned. This morning when we woke, there were was still a bit of cloudiness, but by the time we got to Utah the skies were fresh and blue and clear. We stopped at a nice little rest stop for a short walk before traveling east toward Salt Lake.

My turn to drive, and once again the Garmin Girl proved her stuff, taking us along Route 201 to Salt Lake City rather than directly along 80 to I-15. I have driven through Salt Lake many times, and usually the traffic and congestion are horrendous. This time, however, it was a breeze, and we flew right through the southern end of the city and up the Park City grade without a bit of trouble. The grade was as long and steep as I remember, but the MoHo did just fine and traffic wasn’t terribly heavy so we were only slowed down once by trucks trying to keep moving in the two left lanes.

Once we were on I-84 we called brother Dan to see how the other 2/3rd’s of our caravan were doing. They were just an hour behind us, having spent the night at the friendly Walmart in Mountain Home where Don was once stationed when he was in the Air Force.

Mo and I arrived in Rock Springs in time to stop in at the local Walmart for some RV toilet supplies before we drove back to the KOA where we had reservations for all three rigs for the night. Within an hour Dan and Roger joined us and we all were set up in a row in three easy pull through sites with full hookups. We could have easily boondocked another night, but when planning the trip, we were unsure of the weather, and with others in the group everyone decided that a hookup night would be good. The Walmart here in Rock Springs already had some folks parked, and it seems that is one of the “ask to park” stores that welcomes RV’rs.

We had no campfire, but we all sat around the rug and caught up on our travels and already the family stories of kids growing up along the Columbia River in Oregon started making the rounds. I am sure that during the next few days we will hear many more of these kinds of stories, one of the more fun parts of family reunions.

One more great surprise was in store for me. Usually when Mo and I are on the road and my daughter Deanna is trucking somewhere we are one interstate off, or going the wrong way, or on the wrong side of the country. Yesterday morning I called Deanna and told her we were on I-80. She laughed and said,”Oh we are too, but we are way north of you”. They were heading west from Ohio, and going through Rock Springs ! I told her no matter what time it was to call me and she did. At midnight, we got the call, and Mo and I snuck out in the Tracker to drive 4 miles up the road to the Flying J where I got to have a two hour cup of coffee with my daughter before she took over the driving the rest of the way west.

Hmm…coffee at 1 am? We came home and I tried to go to sleep, but of course that was silly. After awhile I thought that maybe processing photos and trying to blog a bit was better than lying there in the dark with my mind spinning! Now it is after 5am, and soon we will be continuing our trek east toward Colorado. Something tells me that I may need to doze a bit today while Mo drives, ya think??

Miles driven today: 365

Five Covered Bridges, Springfield to Cascadia

Clicking on the linked bridge names will take you to Bridgehunter.com with historical information about each bridge, location maps and photos. Hovering with your mouse over the photos will give you the name of the bridge as well. Again, the google map and link to our tour is here. My picasaweb/google photo albums have many additional photos of the bridges and our trip.

We planned our next day of bridge hunting from Eugene with the thought of a lovely morning walk along the trail before traveling east and north toward Cascadia. We also had to make a decision to give up traveling to some wonderful bridges east on the MacKenzie Highway and save those for another time. Too many bridges!

Although we had heard rumors of the Eugene Marathon, we didn’t quite understand that all those folks would be running right past our little mall campsite on the same trail. After a bit of Indecision as to how to best manage a walk amidst weary runners approaching their 18th mile we finally decided to cross the bridge, thinking we would be far ahead of the pack. Once there, however, we discovered we were at the 24th mile and the front of the pack was already coming on strong behind us.

It was another beautiful morning, with the early fog and clouds lifting to bright sunshine, but still cool enough that the marathoners had perfect running weather. The excitement was even a bit contagious, as we walked along, staying out of the way of the runners, and listening to all the cheers of encouragement. I used to love to run, but I can’t imagine doing a marathon.

We gassed up at the Eugene Costco and headed north toward the town of Mercola and two more bridges that are within a short distance of each other. Even with coordinates and written directions, the Wendling Covered Bridge wasn’t easy to find. We were also towing the Tracker and were a bit concerned about just whether or not the road would have a turnaround if the bridge wasn’t crossable. We were lucky, and there was a wide area to park and actually turn around.

Just a few miles back toward Mercola, we found the Earnest Covered Bridge right on the main road and even drove through it. I have to say that by this time, I was losing track of where we were going and what we had seen. There may have been an easier way to do this, but I never figured it out. We just wandered and ambled around, at times backtracking a bit here and there.

Earnest Covered Bridge We ambled north toward the little town of Crawfordsville, where the Crawfordsville Covered Bridge was in full view right along the main highway. No problem, just turn left here…and park here… and, well….now how to get back to the highway? After walking across the lovely bridge and enjoying the beautiful creek and flowering trees we jumped back into the MoHo and thought, well, maybe this road goes around and comes back out in Crawfordsville. We kept going, and going, and after a few miles of very steep ups and downs on a very narrow road, we came to a small turn around area. Mo just laughed and said, “think of it as an adventure”. It was easier to do that once we were actually able to turn around!

Crawfordsville Covered Bridge Finding out next bridge was a piece of cake, and the parking was easy as well. The Weddle Covered Bridge in Sweet Home is right downtown in the city park. The bridge spanned Thomas Creek for more than 50 years, but was bypassed and neglected.

“The deteriorated bridge eventually became a safety issue, and the span was scheduled to be demolished. This action sparked protests by local covered bridge enthusiasts. As the story goes, one person chained himself to a bulldozer to prevent the bridge’s demise.

The covered bridge enthusiasts engaged Senator Mae Yih, a local legislator who became a leader in saving Oregon’s covered bridges. Through her efforts, the Oregon legislature created the Oregon Covered Bridge Program which helped fund covered bridge maintenance and rehabilitation projects throughout the state. The Weddle Bridge became the first covered bridge project to receive grants under that program.”

Weddle Bridge in Sweet Home The air was warm and the sunshine gorgeous and we lingered awhile, just appreciating the lovely site. We checked out the small Dahlenburg Covered Bridge in the park as well, built by the Sweet Home High School Building Trades class of 1989, as a class/community project. The completed 20 foot bridge allowed access from the school to Sankey Park, crossing Ames Creek.

Our original plans for the day were a bit ambitious, and with the afternoon waning Mo and I decided that we would simply go to Cascadia and then perhaps drive back to an RV park that we located in Lebanon, not too many miles back west.

On the way to Cascadia, we passed the Foster Reservoir and Green Peter Reservoir on the Santiam River. Linn County has some very nice parks with lovely campgrounds. We explored the main campground and decided that it would be a nice place to stay sometime with good access to wonderful little inlets for the kayaks. However, on this beautiful Sunday afternoon we were both just too bushed to pop those kayaks into the water and instead drove on east toward Cascadia for the last bridge of the day.

The Short Covered Bridge was worth the drive, and with its open sidewalls and the beautiful Santiam River, I added it to my list of favorites. We were a bit tired of worrying about turning around so unhooked the Tracker in Sweet Home and left the MoHo there in a parking lot. Interestingly, there were few lots where we could park easily, even at the grocery store, and the few empty lots had some very large No PARKING signs with threats of vehicles being towed away if not authorized. Finally we found a wide place in the road near the Safeway parking lot where we felt safe leaving the rig for a short time at least.

Short Bridge in Cascadia Once at the bridge, we enjoyed the open sides, the river, the beautiful roof timbers and the Howe Trusses before walking to the other side. Immediately we were greeted by a chorus of howls and barks and discovered that just across the street was a wolf breeder. Signs warned of the wolves in addition to advertizing the sale of wolf pups, but the howling made me wonder what it must be like to live next door to that guy!

On the way back to pick up the MoHo, we scrapped our plan to drive to Lebanon in favor of the lovely and very nearly empty River Bend Campground, along the Santiam River between Sweet Home and Cascadia, another Linn County Park. The price for seniors was $19. with electric and water and a dump station, the pads were the most level asphalt I think we have seen and the patio was clean, no mud anywhere cement. After parking in the mall parking lot, the quiet sound of the river below us and the wind in the trees was perfect.

Next post: To the Benton County Fairgrounds at Corvallis

Pinnacles

One hundred ninety five. Miles. That is the distance that the San Andreas Fault has slipped northwestward since the Pinnacles Volcanoes were formed between 20 and 30 million years ago. What I found so incredibly fascinating about this place is that it was once just a simple stratovolcano, very similar to Mt St Helens before she blew.

It erupted and exploded and flowed and rumbled for a few million years before going silent. Then the Farallon plate that was diving below the American plate at last completely melted and finally stopped heating things up, and the Pacific Plate ran right up against the American Plate and instead of diving, it started sliding. The huge stratovolcano was literally split in two, while two thirds rode north on the Pacific Plate and the other third stayed behind on the American Plate.

Over time and many climate changes, the entire volcano was buried under eons of sediments then uplifted and eroded again to expose the multicolored hues of various versions of rhyolitic volcanic rock. The two thirds that forms the present day Pinnacles was uplifted more recently and is far more dramatic that the one third that has soft, old rounded landscapes, left behind 195 miles away somewhere in the vicinity of Lancaster.

We came to Pinnacles mainly to hike some of its many trails and stand on the top of what remains of the old volcanoes. We also came to possibly see the condors who are released here in a special breeding program attempting to bring them back from extinction. Of course, we also came for warm sunshine in March and spring wildflowers. We got most of what we came for, but this evening, after a bit of research, I am pretty sure our condor sightings were really just big, beautiful turkey vultures soaring over the High Peaks.

Waking to an absolutely gorgeous sunny morning at Coyote Lake, we drove less than five miles to Creature Comfort, a dog resort Mo found for Abby in nearby Gilroy. Mo was nervous about leaving her, worried that she might figure a way out, but once we arrived, the many tall chain link fences underlain with plywood barriers to stop the diggers eased her mind a bit. There were about 20 dogs running around all happy and of course they all had to come to the fence to greet the newcomer. Abby thought the world was ending of course, and we were reluctant to leave, but the woman caretaker said, “It is like kids in a day care, you just need to get out of here, and she will be fine”.

The trip south to Pinnacles was just a bit over 50 miles, but once past the small town of Hollister, it seemed we were wandering off into an unknown world. The green hills gave way to brown, even less rain here I guess, and there were a few huge estates and rolling acres of grapevines, surrounded by rangeland.

The Verizon signal gave out and the ATT bars disappeared and we were completely disconnected for the next two and a half days. We had decided not to make reservations, since we were coming mid week, and that worked out just fine, this time. In the future, we will probably make reservations since we learned later that this park can be completely full on weekends. You just never know. When we arrived, however, on a Wednesday afternoon, we had our choice of several of the electric only hookup sites in the main part of the RV park.

We settled in to a site with no reserved sign, and were told to come back after four to pay since there was no one capable of taking money at the visitor center. Interesting. There was a little store there as well, and I bought Fritos on the honor system, putting exact change in a brown envelope as instructed by the ranger at the desk..

The park was quiet, the sun was warm, there was lots of space between sites with many of them empty. Mo and I looked at each other and said, “Why not?”. We let Jeremy out to play, off leash. Sure enough, Jeremy was as great as I thought he would be, but it did help that there were no bushes or creeks for him to explore, just open space, and he hung around the motorhome sniffing and playing until he finally decided to go back inside on his own. It was nice to let him have that bit of freedom.

Mo and I studied the park maps, the trails, the geology folders, the small booklet that I bought (with exact change of course), and decided that our afternoon hike should be the three miles or so up to the reservoir beyond the Moses Caves. I had no desire to go through the caves, so we went around them and up some rather incredible stone stairs to the small dam built by the CCC and the reservoir. It seems we also neglected to plan for the fact that this was spring break week in this part of California.

There were lots of groups of kids in buses, and in the group tent sites, and on the trails. At the reservoir, we sat quietly with a small group of kids who were intently writing their reflections on “reflection” as they looked at the sky reflected in the water of the reservoir.Rather than retrace our steps, we took The Rim Trail which led up and back and around and down again to the parking area. Perfect 3 mile hike for a perfect afternoon. We knew we were saving the big one for the next day when we would have a full day to hike.

Returning to the campground, I went back to the visitor center to pay my fee, only to discover that our site was technically reserved and we would have to move. Seems as though whomever is responsible for putting out the reserved signs was letting down on the job. We took down the awning, tucked everything into the rig and moved across the way to a site we liked better anyway. It was lovely, with a huge live oak shading the picnic table and a perfect view of the mountain ridges to the south. We spent the evening entertained by turkey gobbles, quail calls and high clouds racing across the bright skies.

The next morning we packed up some tuna sandwiches and plenty of water to take on our planned six mile loop hike. There are several options in the park, but with only this day for hiking we thought it would be good to get to the High Peaks Trail. There are several ways to reach that trail, and we chose the Condor Trail, with an elevation of 1200 feet or so in 1.7 miles to the intersection. The morning was sunny but cool, perfect for hiking and the uphill climb seemed easy. The views were expansive and gorgeous, looking back over the park down to Bear Gulch where we started.

At the intersection with the High Peaks Trail, we walked south a bit to see the views, and then continued back north for the 2.7 miles down to the Bench Trail. During this time of week, there are no shuttles, so we stopped for lunch in the warm sunshine and rested our weary downhill legs. All four knees held up, but I was really glad for my hiking poles! It is a LOT of downhill with very few breaks. It was then another couple miles back to the parking area hiking along Bear Gulch, with more ups and downs than expected. Amazing how much more we felt those little elevation changes after several miles of hiking!

It was only mid afternoon when we returned, and we considered going back later to try a bit of the Old Pinnacles Trail. However, neither of us were really up for another six mile hike and on the map it appeared that it was almost 3 miles one way to see the Balconies Caves. Instead we decided to explore the campground a bit and discovered a huge complex of primitive campsites that could probably hold a small rig, but with no hookups, and every single one of them was reserved for the weekend, and many of those included Thursday night! We couldn’t imagine all those tent campers showing up, but we left before finding out on Friday morning.

When we reached Bear Gulch Visitor Center after our hiking loop, there was a grad student from South Carolina taking a survey of your park experience. It seems that the park is considering limiting access to large groups, perhaps limiting the number of people who can enter the trails at one time, and even requiring shuttle only entrance into the park area. We saw some illustrative posters of differing numbers of folks at different sites along the trail. I was incredibly surprised. We had the entire morning and hiked the entire trail without seeing any other hikers until the very end where we met a young couple from Costa Rica, just up from the Bench Trail. But at the parking lot there were suddenly screaming hordes of children, climbing over rocks, yelling, running up and down and generally doing what kids do on Spring Break. Maybe the High Peaks trail is too long for them and the Moses Cave Trail and the Reservoir are the goal of a spring break day. The other goal seems to be rock climbing, with several areas filled with young ones attempting their first ascents. We laughed as we overheard several children saying “not me” when asked who wanted to go first and then hearing the high voice of a young girl piping up with “I’ll go first!”

We were blessed with two days of perfectly gorgeous, coolish, sunny weather, an uncrowded campground, empty trails, wonderful hiking, lots of wildlife, and the possibility of seeing the endangered condor. We studied the maps again, read Merikay’s account of hiking the southern loop of the High Peaks trail and decided, Yes, we will come back to this park again in the springtime. We will avoid Spring Break Week, we will make a reservation in the campground, hopefully for number 91 again, and we will hike the rest of the trails that we didn’t have time to hike this time.

Yes, it is a bit out of the way, but it is a lovely place to spend a few days if you time it right. Kinda nice being off the grid entirely.

We found the sunshine on the Spring Equinox

There is a certain color of green in the California coastal range that comes after the winter rains. Sometimes when the sunlight pours over the hills, that green can be so intense it feels as though it expands your vision into something psychedelic. The timing has to be just right, and this year is a dry year so that neon green is a bit less dramatic, but still there if you look at just the right moment.

Our moment was during a late afternoon hike to the Coyote Ridge Trail in Coyote Lake County Park, high above the hills of the Santa Clara Valley. After waking to rain in Garberville, driving through rain as far south as Santa Rosa, negotiating huge lines of cars buying gas for 4.15 a gallon at Costco, and transiting the Bay Area freeways, we were happy to find our little park in the hills just a bit north of Gilroy off Highway 101.

We found this one using Streets and Trips, researched it a bit, and made the decision that it would be a good overnight stop on our way to Pinnacles. Just a few miles east of the freeway, the park could be in another world entirely. Rising from the valley, we drove a very narrow, winding road to the park entrance, and then after a couple of serious switchbacks, dropped down to the broad but small valley that is the home to Coyote Lake.

The campground is lovely at this time of year. I can imagine that the summer heat might be daunting, but right now the temperatures were a perfect 70 degrees when we arrived in late afternoon. A large herd of resident deer wanders around the lush grassy site, and even now after dark I can hear the turkeys gobbling.

I know it is mid week, but this park was completely empty when we arrived, and later this evening, one lone camper slipped in to a spot across the field from us. There are 18 sites with hookups, not cheap at $30 per night, but that includes a fee for the dump station we passed on the way in.

The strangest thing about this park is the strict rule regarding NO swimming in the lake. You can water ski, use jet skis, kayaks, motorboats, but you can’t swim. Makes no sense to me at all. Abby saw the water and got all excited so it was sad that we couldn’t take her down to the lake for a dip.

The best thing about this park are the trails. There are 28.5 miles of very nice trails, and we only managed to get out on 3 miles or so of the Coyote Ridge and Valley oak trail. All are dog friendly, with leashes required of course, but with no one else in the park, it seemed fine to let Abby run free. I did get a bit paranoid about the poison oak, but it wasn’t right on the trail in too many places, and hopefully we managed to keep Abby out of it.

We found amazing sunshine, and warm temperatures. All the driving, all the rain, all behind us. Sunshine ahead and I am sitting here after dark in capris and a tee shirt. Great way to celebrate the beautiful balance of light and dark that this Equinox day brings.

PS: As we packed up this morning, I learned some new things about the park. On summer weekends it is packed. During the week, however, there is almost always at least half of the hookup spaces available. In summer it is hot and dry and brown. The lake is kept at 55 percent of maximum because it is on the Calaveras Fault and they figure that the Anderson reservoir below Coyote Lake and above the Santa Clara Valley floodplain could hold the overflow in the event of dam breakage. There are only a couple of mountain lions about, covering 100 square miles each, not enough to keep down the deer population.

I had no bars for Verizon MiFi and no bars for the ATT cell phone and no television signals. I suppose someone with satellite would have had good open sky. I am now posting from Highway 101 as we head for Pinnacles, another place with no bars. We’ll be back in blogworld on Saturday. There isn’t a cloud in the sky and the prediction for today is in the 70’s. Yes!

East to the Desert

In spite of the fact that we could have continued traveling south along 101, we decided to take the quickest route to the desert. From our overnight at Camp Roberts we turned east at Paso Robles toward the dreaded Interstate 5. For the first time, the central coast was thick with dirty air, something I had never seen in this area, and as we continued east toward the Great Valley, the pollution got worse.

Highway 46 was busy with traffic, and a surprising number of RV’s were headed west. The landscape was dramatic in it’s lack of drama. The annual grasses of the California grassland zone were shades of tan and gray, with nothing to punctuate the hills except a few cattle here and there. With the brown tinge to the air, it made the grasslands all the more drab.

Ugly is relative, however, and when we reached the Lost Hills area just west of the I-5 onramp, we saw landscapes that were impressive in their ugliness. The alkali flats west of Bakersfield would be bad enough without man’s intervention, but the forest of oil wells made it breathtakingly ugly. I felt a bit guilty complaining about the ugliness while I rolled through it in an RV sucking gasoline. How to reconcile that disconnect? I haven’t a clue. I hate what oil does to our country, the wars fought over it, the landscapes destroyed by it, but I love my RV and the freedom to travel. Hypocritical as heck, but I probably won’t stop traveling!

Once on the five, the pavement again deteriorated while the air pollution got worse as we approached the Grapevine. I reminisced with Mo about the days back in the 50’s when my family would leave Duarte at 2 am to drive the Grapevine when it was truly a grapevine of curves and steep hills, traveling north on Highway 99 for our annual camping trip to Yosemite. Good memories! I also remember driving the “new” Grapevine in my Volkswagen bus as a brand new driver scared to death and surrounded on all sides by semis. It was the same today, semis on all sides.

We took a quick exit off the highway for signs claiming “fresh sweet oranges” and the small family farm store and petting zoo. The Murray Farm had 20 varieties of citrus, all from their own groves, and the navels were just in. The owner said that they were six weeks late this year. There was a cooler with samples for all varieties including Meyer lemons and a very strange looking fruit called Buddha’s Hand, actually citron. I had no clue that the stuff in fruit cakes came from something that was this strange. I settled for a six buck bag of incredibly sweet navel oranges and we were again on our way.

As we climbed the grade, the smog began to thin a bit, and we were spared the worst of it by turning east on Highway 138, a direct road to the desert and the town of Lancaster. I lived in Lancaster in the 60’s, for just a few months, and for the life of me I couldn’t find a single thing that looked familiar. This sleepy town that once was barely 50,000 has now exploded to a strip mall metropolis of more than 150,000 people.

We thought about boondocking somewhere, but the landscape was broken up by private “ranchette’s”, and we didn’t have a BLM map with us. I pulled up the AllStays web site and began searching for campgrounds. There are surprisingly few places to camp in this area, but we found a state park due east about 17 miles from town and decided that 18 bucks for a dry campsite would be a close second to camping for free somewhere in the desert, and probably safer.

It was a great choice. Saddleback Butte State Park campground was completely empty except for a camp host. The park had shelters for the picnic tables, fire pits, water available, and even a dump station. We chose a spot near the northern part of the park, farthest from the camp host ( whom we never saw) and settled in.

An evening walk before sunset was perfectly quiet and we found beautiful Joshua Trees bigger than any we have seen. The park is a haven for desert wildlife, including the desert tortoise, various snakes and rodents, coyotes and even mountain lions. As night fell, the silence was perfect, the skies dark with a new moon, and the stars were brilliant. I brought some soup from home that made a perfectly simple supper and we settled into to complete darkness and silence for our first night in the desert.

For the rest of the photos, including several shots of the Saddleback Butte campground, click here.