The Short Way Across A Long Place: Klamath to Bakersfield
Klamath was as restful and enjoyable as it promised to be, and we said a sad goodbye for now to the Pacific beaches and thick redwoods. On our last day there we enjoyed a visit to Trees of Mystery, a longstanding roadside attraction just north of our site on 101. This was my second time there, I went when I was about Luke's age, but it's grown considerably in the last 20+ years and now has a gondola setup, expanded trails and exhibits, anad most impressively, a long rope bridge system that you can walk to explore the central canopy of the trees. We enjoyed our time there immensely. It was a bit funny to see basically the same trees we'd been seeing in natural areas of state parks in a theme-park context. But one very cool thing about it was the educational bits. "How old are these giants" we would wonder, seeing them in a state park grove. With all the visitors centers and programs closed, it was hard to learn about the trees in their context. The exhibits and materials at ToM did a good job of it. But most of all was the ability to get up and into them on the skybridges. That was so special we went through twice, and the vertigo and wonder was there the whole time.
The place photographs well, but the true magic takes so many more senses. The way the sunlight streams through the gaps in the trees, the way the forest envelops every way you turn, the sight of 100+ feet of redwood trunk both above and below you, it's hard to take it all in, and much more of a feast than pictures can tell. On top of that we had the place nearly to ourselves, so it provided a much quieter experience than you might otherwise get. It felt like a lovely coda to our time in the Redwoods.
From Klamath we scheduled two travel days before our next top. The valleys and coasts down 101 have mostly small towns with limited resources, but we needed to go to Target. The best chance to do that was in Eureka, about halfway between Klamath and Myers Flat, our next weeklong stay. It would be a bit too much to try to stop in Eureka for a big Target trip on the way down, so we took it a bit easier and stayed 1 night there and finished the drive to Myers Flat the next day.
Eureka is a fading gold and lumber town that's now struggling with a drug problem. The entire town is "that part of town." 1 night was plenty for us to take care of what we needed, and we continued on to Myers Flat. 101 in this area was quite peaceful to drive overall, and while it had it share of hills and passes the lanes were wide enough and the "freeway/not-freeway" pattern was easy to navigate.
Myers Flat is a postage-stamp of a town on a bend in the Eel river, with a winery, a nice RV park and a drive-through tree. (I mean, there's a little market, and a saloon too, but I guess every little town has those.) The park was very nice, well-kept, good riverside access, and great wifi. We enjoyed our first RVing campfire, and there were lots of neat groves and riverside hiking on the Avenue of the Giants which was just across the freeway. It's a pretty place, but you never forget how remote it is. Spookily quiet at night, expensive groceries, everything just a little worn.
The weather in Myers Flat was the first thing we noticed. It's... still fall! The leaves are turning, the sun is autumnal gold, and it's warmer than Klamath. We have our tiny Christmas decorations up, even a bitty tree, but it felt like October! It was like we had driven into a time warp. We're now far enough south of our usual weather that we can really feel the difference.
After the poor connectivity in Klamath it was nice to be able to work without interruption, however that particular week at work was quite stressful. I did get to work outside in the sun a fair bit though, that helped.
The park had few full-hookup sites and charged more for those, so we took a water+electric site to save money. It was a nice site, but I think we were a bit unprepared for how much of a shift it is to be watching waste tank capacity for a whole week. We, uh, use a lot of water. They did have a honey wagon service that would pump out your RV waste tanks for a fee, or you could pull around to the dump station. This is one of those times where we really feel the size of our setup. The dump station was 1 site over from ours. (That's not as unpleasant as it sounds, though.) It's not a long trip if we were to, say hitch up, pull the RV around, dump the tanks, and return to the site. However. That's an hour of time at minimum to ready the inside, pull in the slides, hitch, maneuver through the tight campground roads into the dump station, dump 100+ gallons of waste, pull back into the site, unhitch, level, open the slides, and put the interior back together. While we can store up to 200 gallons of wastewater if we use all 4 tanks perfectly equally, that of course never happens and the main gray tank always fills first. So we ended up paying for a honey wagon service on Wednesday, and hit the dump station on the way out Friday.
Friday was the start of our longest travel stretch yet. I worked in the morning, but we needed to leave as soon as I was done,so before work we actually hitched up, then put the rig in "just-one-night mode" - hitched, level enough for slides, and only the front jacks down. Then I worked while everyone else finished getting things ready for travel. Soon as I was done, we closed everything up again and piled into the truck. By this time it was raining. By the time we were done dumping the tanks, and ready to get on the highway, Kristin I were soaked and it was 1pm. We ate our packed lunch in the truck, then crept out of the park and back to 101. Goal for the day was Nelson Family Vineyards near Ukiah, our first of two Harvest Host stays this weekend.
US-101 continued to require focus to drive in this stretch. Some easy stretches, but plenty of slower sections, we even came through another grove of redwoods or two. Several once-bustling towns, and a beautiful river valley. Not much tourism comes into this region anymore it seems. I suspect the more picturesque destinations on CA-1 like Fort Bragg get the attention nowadays, and the humble redwoods continue to stand whether we watch them or not.
From about Willits south, the landscape starts to change to rolling hills and fewer trees. The highway continues its southeasterly path inland, and the air dries out a bit. More agriculture and vineyards appear.
Our destination was Nelson Family Vineyards, just outside of Ukiah at the south end off 101. This was our first Harvest Host stay of the trip. HH is a program where farms, vineyards, breweries, and other types of business with land will let you stay for 1 night of dry camping at no charge, all they ask is that you help out or buy something. With COVID raging, many hosts are entirely closed to campers, but the ones that are open just have you buy a bottle of something. In this case we got two, including a stellar Carginan. It's easy to spend as much as you might spend on a park site, but you typically have a beautiful location all to yourself, and you get wine.
At Nelson the RV site is at the back of the property, tucked next to some hills and overlooking one of the vineyards. It was a beautiful spot for the night. Two things made it a bit stressful though - rain and dark.
It had rained most of the day as we drove, and while it eased up a little when we were getting set up at the site, it kept on coming for most of the night. It's hard to sleep in here when it's raining, especially for Audrey. She made a bed in the play space next to Luke with the camping mat and sleeping bag, as her usual position in the bunkroom slide is too loud in the rain. The RV was pretty cozy all tucked into the hills, and we played Uno for a while before heading to bed.
It felt weird not having AC power, little things like the microwave lights over the stove, or not using the fireplace, felt strange. We can run the outlets and fridge off the batteries but not any larger things. So we use the propane for heat and hot water, and to run the generator if need be. Not that different.
Early the next morning, an insistent beeping from the inverter let us know that the need had arrived, as our batteries had run too low for it to work. Our fridge and outlets went dark, and even running the furnace was probably a bad idea. If you drain these batteries too much it can damage them and they never charge up fully again. No fun - you really really don't want dead batteries in this RV. It means you can't run the slides or the jacks without really tedious manual wrenching, you'd have no water pump or lights, it's real bad.
So we turned on the generator, which we have for just such an occasion. However, after running it for 10 minutes or so it sputters to a stop. Uh oh. Ok, turns out we ran out of propane in the one tank we had open. Opened the other tank up, make sure the it's flowing. Restart the generator. Starts up, runs briefly, starts to struggle, sounds bad, I turn it off. Huh. I recall that I was supposed to change the oil on that thing when it had 20 hours on it, now it has 40 and it's struggling. I don't know if it's air in the propane line or something else, but for fear of causing expensive damage to our generator, we conclude that any more running of it before an oil change is a bad idea.
It's maybe 7am at this point and the sun still isn't risen enough to get the solar panel to start charging things. It's cold and wet and gray outside, really very beautiful in its way, if you're looking at it from behind a warm window. But it's cold inside too. We make some breakfast. At some point I remember that when the truck is running and plugged into the trailer, the alternator on the truck helps keep the batteries in the trailer charged up. So I plug in the trailer connector and start Sheila. The voltage display on our solar charging monitor starts to creep up, and we can start the furnace again.
Feeling creaky, but surrounded by beauty, we pack things up and hit the road around 10. It's Saturday, and today we'll be leaving the familiar 101 and taking a series of highways across the north end of San Pablo bay, through Fairfield, Rio Vista, and Stockton to the Gnekow Family Winery. The theme for this travel day was bumpy roads. US-101 may be windy, but other than some isolated sections in the cities en route, it's generally been a smooth ride. As we made our way across the state highways and busy interstates of the central valley, the pavement quality degraded quickly. We're 28,000 lbs and while Sheila is a champ at hauling the weight, she's loaded all the way up her max rating, and you feel the rough pavement right away. Despite the bumps It was a beautiful drive, passing through the last of the wineries on 101 and all the various landscapes between there and the central valley.
One pleasant surprise was how right about when we needed to stop for lunch, we saw the Jelly Belly factory right off the freeway in Fairfield! We didn't know we'd be passing by it but given that it was right there, and Jelly Bellies are Kristin's favorite, so there was only one thing to do. I actually have been there at least once to take the factory tour, which is super fun, but is of course closed due to COVID. (We have family friends in Modesto, so I've been in the area a few times over the years to see what sights there are to see.) The gift shop is open though, and we had lots of room in the parking lot to stop for lunch.
Kristin and the kids raided the gift shop while I took a nap (another RV travel day treat), and we continued on to the orchards and vineyards east of Stockton. Gnekow winery is even more closed than Nelson was, and they have prearranged to leave our wine in the gatehouse for us to pick up. It's a little spooky camping in the parking lot of an empty winery with empty vineyards all around. We got set up and settled in for a cold night.
The next morning the rain came it about when we were hitching, and kept up for the 30 minutes it took us to puzzle our way out of the parking lot. Turns out it's possible to pull into a parking lot you can't so easily get back out of! Kristin was a trooper and scoped out their truck loading route, then walked as spotter as we pulled through it, getting soaked in the process. But we got out safely and slowly, and a little muddy.
This was to be a long drive, in which we cross 250 miles of the central valley through Modesto, Merced, and Fresno to Bakersfield, where we'll spend the next week. Having been to the area a few times in the summer, I expected a long, straight, flat drive through hot farmland. And we got that, except for the hot part - it poured rain much of the drive, only letting up for the last 50 miles. We needed lunch, so we stopped at the mall in Merced to get Chipotle. Malls typically have large parking lots, and this was no exception, but malls also typically divide those lots up with curbs and landscaping, the enemies of RVs. Something to watch for on future travel days.
Also the Merced mall is kind of a time machine, and was incredibly strange since it was done up for Christmas but also nearly empty due to COVID.
I don't remember much of the drive south of Merced, but I do remember getting into Bakersfield when the weather cleared up and the sun was setting. It was such a relief to be out of the rain, and to be expecting fair weather at a comfortable park for a week. The Orange Grove park is a pretty serious resort-style park and very built up, but nearly empty as it's the off-season and not quite Christmas. The rows of flat dusty gravel, the intensity of the sun when it's up, was a completely different feeling than how our day began, or our previous week up in the forests. Temperatures here are milder and drier than anay of our stays so far, and it's a luxury to be out in the steady sunshine between the orange trees.
This is going to be a busy stay for me, as it's our last big city for at least a month. Both our engines (truck and generator) need servicing. The hitch needs rust cleaning and regreasing, we need another propane canister (we'd like a reserve), and I've got to get parts and tools for all of it. The kids are enjoying the smooth-as-glass concrete roadways in the park, along with the drifting potential of mountain bikes on the gravel. The park is quiet, and the wifi is fast - this looks like a good stay.
