Details of the trip from Rosamond, to Fall River, CA. The sailing adventure we three salty sailors had off the Los Angeles coast was loads of fun, after that, there’s really not much that happened at my brother’s place, no work was done on the project car, and my brother didn’t seem to have any projects going on that needed to be worked at. So, since I had to go to Portland for my yearly VA checkup, and I wanted to give the newer RV a workout, I called my sister up in Walla Walla and tried to arrange a visit.
Well, you know how these things go, turned out she and her husband were going to be out of town around the time I wanted to visit. But still, my son lives there in Walla Walla too and it was time to give him a visit as well. So I talked Dan into traveling with me, and together we came up with a travel plan that included stopping at Lassen Volcanic National Park for a look see. Then drifting around a bit, and finally arriving in Walla Walla the day before Teri and Gary were to arrive back in town. We’d just spend the night before they arrived at a RV park.
OK, we had a plan. Dan bought his airline ticket for a trip back from Portland, which was my ultimate destination, and I talked him into taking the long train ride from LA to Lancaster (the trains last stop) rather then finding some way to get his car down to LAX in their long term parking lot. It’s a 2 hour train trip. Then I gave him the phone number of a halfway inexpensive taxi service from Lancaster to his house. After that was all arranged, we’re ready to travel in my newer, very comfy RV. We did delay our travel one day because of strong wind warnings all along our route. The prediction for the next couple days after that event were of the mild winds type. And the next day, as we passed over a freeway cloverleaf just past Mojave (the small town just 13 miles north of Rosamond) there were two semi trailers that had been blown over the day before!
We left Rosamond on April 26th, not in any particular hurry. We’re both retired but my brother is still the impatient type and freaked out when I seemed to miss the turn to I-5 and just headed straight north on CA-14. I was intending to go up through Tahachapi, Bakersfield, Fresno, etc. because I’ve been that I-5 route so many times, I just like taking a different route from time to time. And I’m retired, not in any hurry. My brother though, jeese, take a chill pill, dude. We’re not going that far out of our way. Anyway, after we’d traveled a couple hundred miles, I’ve been watching for trouble and asked what his reasoning was for wanting to head over to I-5? I thought maybe he’d seen a traffic report and knew of a current construction zone on the route I took but no…he just thought it was faster taking I-5 because you can drive 75 MPH instead of 65 like on this freeway. Really? Checking the map shows it’s actually 3 minutes faster going the way I did. Four lane highway the entire route too. And most of it signed 75 MPH. But I never drive that fast anyway so it’s a moot point.
Just outside Bakersfield you get a great view from the hills of this giant valley filled with farms.
The first day we traveled around 7 hours and stopped in Orland for the night. I pulled off the freeway heading for the RV park I usually stop at and, damn, it’s closed and out of business. I’m not all that surprised really. I’d stopped here several times over the years and knew that the owner died a few years ago, his wife took over the business but wasn’t all that keen on running it. And the last time I was there she told me she’d been diagnosed with cancer. Too bad. Surprised none of their kids wanted the park though. It wasn’t in that bad of condition when I’d stayed there. I liked it because it was right off the freeway, right in the middle of a days travel, she’d give me a repeat business discount, and it was next door to a fuel station that consistently had the best diesel price in the area. I’m also surprised they weren’t able to sell the place. Old Orchard was the places name. Just after the freeway exit there’s now a new building housing one of those fancy convenience stores and Pilot fuel stops. They were just starting to build that last time I was by here. Has a Subway or something in it too.
As we were backtracking from Old Orchard, there’s a sign on the road pointing to another RV park just 1/2 mile away, so we went there. Kind of spendy. $42/nite for 50 A but since the weather was fair, I just asked for a 30 A space at $37/nite, and that’s a high price in my expirience for an RV park in the middle of nowhere. We wouldn’t be in all that big of a hurry the next day, since the travel to Lassen National Park from Orland is under 2 hours so it was great to just relax. Arrive early, leave late, can’t beat that plan.
Next morning around 11 we head off to the Shell station for a fill up and Dan tells me I would get much better prices at the Pilot station across the road. So I glance up at the signs for both stations, and Pilot is $0.15 per gallon more expensive. Wow. It won’t stay that way for long but they’ve just opened and they’re brand new. Filled up there at the Shell. (I just checked online and now the Pilot is $0.15/gallon less expensive then the Shell – that’s more like what I’d expect from those two brands).
And off we go. I’ve included this picture of the freeway as a contrast to what we find up at Lassen. It’s shirtsleeve weather when we pulled off the freeway at Red Bluff to do some grocery shopping. After shopping, we take CA-36 up towards Lassen.
As we climb the hills, it starts to rain, then snow. I’m pretty happy about that because I’m still testing things out in this RV and using the heat, windshield wipers, headlights, and observing how she handles on slick roads over several miles is part of that. I’m happy to report everything went as expected. No surprises.
The snow got heavy, and the roads slick, but the rig, being that it’s so heavy, didn’t have any issues with slipping or sliding or anything.
We got to the entrance of the Lassen park and it looked a little dicey with all that snow, but we went ahead and chanced it. At least we could make our way up to the ranger station. Decided not to take the volcanic loop road though.
But when we got to the ranger station, Dan convinced me it was closed so we didn’t stop. Just turned around and made our way back to the highway. It’s only a couple miles back to CA-89, but by the looks of the snow pack, quite a few feet difference in elevation.
I was pretty pleased with the RV’s behavior in the light dusting of snow and the 2″ of slush on the roadway. I’m a fairly cautious driver anyway, but steering & stopping wasn’t a problem. I always anticipate plus I used the Jake Brake (a brand of exhaust brake that came as an option on this RV) to slow down without having to touch the brake pedal until the last few feet. How comfortable this RV is to drive, how quiet inside, how warm and toasty even with snow and rain. Much better than my old Bounder with it’s road noise and drafts. And 20 odd minutes later, we’re back to snow free driving.
Around 2 pm we happened to pass a tavern and cafe on CA-89. In a tiny strip mall. Nice surprise because they had excellent food and a couple nice ales on tap. Great way to kill an hour. Had a nice big salad. I can’t find the place on any maps now but it was at a wide spot in the road and I think it was in the national forest because it wasn’t far from the entrance to Lassen.
After that, we turned NE onto CA-299 from CA-89. A forest fire had roared through this area a few years before.
It’s making a comeback slow but steady.
We passed a old time looking electrical power plant on the side of the mountain we were on. The pipes passed under the road. I didn’t get any pictures. And then we stopped at Pit River falls.
Off in the distance, that’s just one of the storms that had been passing this way for days. There are two ancient volcanic vents in this picture.
A few miles later, there’s this old hotel. Dan knew about a Fall River brewery somewhere around here so we went in to see if they had any IPA beer. Yep. Nothing from Fall River Brewery, but they did have some good brews. Dan discovered that the Fall River Brewery isn’t even in Fall River. We also found out some info about that old hydroelectric power plant. Built in 1922, it’s the Pit 1 Powerhouse. It has a 10,000 foot long tunnel using water diverted from the Fall River just after the conjunction of the Pit River and Fall River and takes most of the river to operate it.
Nice place to park my RV, just across from the hotel.
Fairly nice older tavern. Modernized but in the original motif. The wooden bar and surround is all original.
In the cafe portion these beautiful old wood floors.
Large fireplace that’s still being used. Not at 4 PM when we got here, but probably later that evening.
While in the bar, we asked if there’s a RV park nearby and the only one is a few miles in the direction we’re headed, at the fairgrounds. So that’s where we go to spend the night.
And that’s where we’ll pick it up next time, at the Fairgrounds, then the trip north to Klamath Falls, and points north. See ya next time! Thanks for visiting.
Only a few hundred miles after picking up our new Beaver Monterey in Bend, OR, in ’06, we were headed east through Wyoming out of Salt Lake, trying to outrun a mid-October storm. West of Rawlins there was a massive entanglement of Fed-Ex and cattle truck and gosh-knows what else. It stopped traffic for 5 hours. In the interim, the storm caught up with us… literally blizzard conditions.
By the late afternoon there were large drifts alongside the freeway, and rather than go on to Laramie in worsening visibility and several inches of snow on the roadway, we opted to overnight at the RV park that was shown in the Good Sam Directory for Rawlins. I couldn’t find the park. It was now dark and blowing snow in a strange town, and I was getting pretty anxious – remember I had never driven a big diesel before, and this was not my dream situation. When I finally deemed we’d gone too far down the main drag in town, much to my wife’s chagrin in order to 180 back I turned right off the well-tracked street onto a downtown avenue with untrodden deep snow.
I was flabbergasted at the heavy rig’s abilities. I tracked through a good 6 inches of unblemished snow down that street and around two more corners to get back to the main street and then the way I came from, lucky to not hit dead-ends somewhere: pulling a car would mean unhitching in a blizzard so I could back the coach up – didn’t need that, so caught a bit of a break. Stopped and asked directions clear back where we first entered town off the freeway, and turned out the RV park was just up a hill behind the station where I asked.
That was a scary idea… going up an unfamiliar hill with 6-8″ of snow in blizzard conditions at night in a rig I was barely learning the ropes of. But the coach, now nicknamed Monty Rae, marched right up. Then at the top I couldn’t see didly in the dark blizzard, and went right past the turnoff to the park, only noticing a couple RV’s in there after going a hundred yards past. I swung left into someplace I thought I could turn around in, or negotiate back around the block. Nope. Dead end in a trailer park with no through passage. I had no choice. Frozen fingers on a frozen tow bar I still was learning the ropes of, with snow blowing in my eyes, but with some tools I had along I got the Explorer loose and out of the way. The wife stood outside and yelled as I backed up into adjoining trailer parking, nearly hitting a couple vehicles; I could hardly hear much less see her. Then she got in the car, put it in 4 wheel drive, gunned it, and busted through a 3 ft. drift that had meantime built up behind us on the trailer park entryway between a fence and a building. Monty Rae then handily followed behind, all the way back to the RV Park.
There was no one around, so we picked a spot. I had to use the Explorer headlights to help see what I was doing, and ended up driving the coach back and forth over the site several times to knock down the drifts so they weren’t high underneath or up against the coach where I had to get utility bays open. After hooking up, we were snug as bugs in a rug.
We were content to stay as long as it took, mildly fearful of being there all winter. But as it turned out, the storm passed the next morning, followed by a quick warm-up, and the freeway had been cleared by early afternoon. So we got away relatively unscathed and little behind schedule. And with one short but huge lesson in winter driving a big coach.
Wow, crazy and scary story, Joel. Thanks for that!
One thing I’ve done in situations where I’m forced to park in snow drifts is to leave the snow there because it’ll act as a thermal blanket for the RV, helping to keep warmth inside. As soon as I can, I’ll shovel snow up alongside the RV, creating a sort of berm around the RV to trap what little heat is under there, and discourage wind from blowing underneath. Of course the vents for gas appliances would need to be cleared of snow but luckily, I’ve never had to park were it was that deep.