Last time, I’d stayed at Myrtle Creek a few days, before continuing my southward journey. And we’ll pick up where I left off. Because I was trying to avoid that big storm rolling in, I planned a short day of driving and picked a RV park to stop at just a couple hundred miles south of Myrtle Creek.
It was overcast when I left Myrtle Creek, with scattered showers threatening along the way. But being in the mountains can have it’s advantages and one of them is that storms are sometimes busted up by them. In this area, surrounded by mountains, I didn’t have to contend with much wind. At least not until I dropped down into the valley of northern California later in the day.
It had rained quite a bit before I got up, and it had been heavy enough that it had clouded the backup video camera lens which is why I took this picture of the backup camera view. The blurriness is water sitting on the protected lens. You can also see a bit of rain on the windshield there as well. Not heavy rain at this time of the morning so easy to drive in as I left Myrtle Creek. Only took about 15 minutes to hook up the car in the light rain this morning. Double checked everything, triple checked everything.
Oh, spoke too soon. Heavy rain a few miles down the road. Traveling on a major 4 lane highway has it’s advantages though, I could drive as safely as I wanted without impeding traffic. Remember, towing the car is still new to me. I stopped just a few miles later to fuel up at 7-Feathers Casino truck stop. I’ll have to get use to using truck stops while towing because I need the extra maneuvering room with the car back there. Before I bought the car, with just a 35 foot Class A, I often used smaller fuel stations, got pretty good at figuring out if I’d fit, and the best way to get into them. Sometimes I’d have to back up to get back out, you can’t do that with a toad.
And traveling through the Medford to Ashland valley the rain and winds had slacked off so it looked like it was going to turn into a pleasant travel day.
And getting close to Ashland. That dark blue band is just the windshield tinting.
And here’s Mt. Ashland. There’s a ski lodge and ski trails on the backside.
One of the reservoirs in this area that supply northern Cali. Note how low the water level is.
And a few miles down the road, here’s Lake Shasta, again, water levels are way down.
It’s only a 4 hour trip to the Wonderland RV Park so I arrived in the area early afternoon. After a couple hours in the northern Cali valley battling a 20 MPH continuous headwind. I was happy that the RV performed well in that wind. Easy to keep on the road. I could tell I was driving in the wind, but it wasn’t difficult, didn’t have to muscle the steering wheel and the RV wasn’t pushed around much.
When I exited the freeway heading to the RV park, came to a ‘T’ in the road, I didn’t notice the tiny blue RV park sign pointing to the left, and believing I was following the GPS directions, I went right. At the end of that street, a large empty church parking lot. Did not see any RV park signs along the road. So I’m thinking I have to drive around back of the church to find the RV park. Still not realizing I’d gone the wrong way. When I got back behind, I discover my mistake. And I have to disconnect the car, drive it around to the large front parking lot, then back the RV up (you’re not suppose to back up with a car attached) so I could turn around and drive around front, then hook back up. So that’s what I did. It was early with pleasant weather at the time, but I still got impatient and screwed up. I forgot to put the car in Neutral. I left it in Park. Got into the RV, to drive on, and as luck would have it, I had to turn left to get back on the road, and the church parking lot was gravel. So as I drive off, looked into the mirror and see the car’s front wheels are scraping gravel and aren’t turning like they must. Glance at the video monitor, and it’s not as clear that’s what’s happening. Quickly stop and run back and put the car in neutral. Saw a 12 foot track in the gravel where I’d dragged the car, its wheels locked. This is a good thing. I got that mistake out of the way early in my towing history so I’m less likely to forget again, and I did it in the best of circumstances…in daylight, on loose gravel, so the drive wheels of the car were able to skid. Preventing any damage. Whew. I frequent 2-3 RV forums and there have been many stories by those who have driven off with their cars in park, destroying their engines, transmissions, or both. My brother did that to his car. Cost him $5,000 for a new engine and service on the tranni.
So after that slight mishap, I traveled back to the freeway exit road, and again, missed that small sign, turned back towards the freeway ramps. That’s when I saw the RVs in the forest of oaks off to my right. Doh! Well, OK, I’ll get back on the freeway, find a turn around and come back. OR, I’ll just cross the freeway over to the other side and go to one of the two RV parks I knew are there and use their roundabout to turn back. So that’s what I did. Got a chance to inspect the RV park over there and wow, is it in bad shape. Way overpriced and with phoney ass pictures on their web site too. I’d checked them out online the day before. Made my turnaround and headed back to the freeway overpass, with a general idea now of where the RV park I was heading for actually is.
Anyway, after crossing the freeway again, got back to the ‘T’ in the road and this time by, saw the RV park sign. A couple hundred feet later, I’d arrived, and was soon checked in and hooked up. While it was still dry around here. Remember I’m trying to avoid this storm, and so far, I’ve had great luck. And by that, I mean that so far, I’d only needed to wear a rain jacket once, and that was in light rain.
This is a PPA park so my cost was $15 per night. I asked about the WiFi while checking in and this is one of those parks where RV’ers pay a service invited in by the RV park to provide WiFi. And like all of them, it’s too expensive. But the manager understood my complaint about the high price and gave me a one night free coupon. That was great, but the weather predictions meant I needed to stay 2 nights to avoid driving through the worst of it, which was that night and the next day. As it turned out, I did have to use the WiFi the next day, costs $4 per day ($40/month), but it’s fast enough for streaming. So I watched a movie. And an archived NFL game using Gamepass. 
Notice all the oak trees in this park? The manager helped me guide my RV into that tight spot so I could get my slides out without hitting that tree. Pretty tight. Might consider this park for a long term stay some day. At least that’s what I was thinking before I discovered how expensive the WiFi is, and what they wanted monthly for it. I’m too use to getting free WiFi. Many times these days in my travels, I find that free WiFi is fast too. Not Europe or SE Asia fast, but fast.
Standing in front of my RV spot, there’s a good drainage slope down to a creek. It’s there in this pictures background from right to left. And from what the weatherman was predicting for this area…up to 5″ of rain overnight accompanied by high winds, I grew increasingly concerned about that creek rising and cutting off my access to the I-5 freeway in a couple days. Or a fallen tree blocking our exit for hours. But I was already set up. I decided I’d just ride it out if necessary.
Took a trek around the RV park, and there’s this classic RV, pulling a classic trailer.
As I walked over to get a view of that classic RV, maybe with a chance to talk to the owner, a group of other RV’ers invited me to join them at their campfire. So I did. Had a nice chit-chat up till dark.
That night, the rain came down in buckets. Very dark outside, sheets of nearly horizontal rain. Howling wind rocking the RV. Got woke up a couple times during the night when a few billion more buckets of rain fell on the RV park all at once it seemed.
Next day, it had dried up & soaked into the ground nicely. I had expected huge puddles everywhere over on this side of the park where I stood to take this next picture, maybe even with the creek above flood stage, but nope. No puddles, no swamp in that one low spot, no overflowing creek banks. The ground just soaked it up after years of drought.
The creek did look slightly deeper than it did yesterday afternoon, but nowhere near flood stage like I expected. When you drive into this park, there’s only one road, across a bridge over this creek. And as you’d expect, the bridge is only 3-4 feet above the water. But today it didn’t look like there’d be any problem with leaving the next morning.
And during my walkabout, I discovered that my tailpipe tip had gone missing. Not too surprising as the tailpipe it attached to is all rusty and crumbling to pieces. This pic shows where it’s suppose to be. Now, just a rusty pipe.
My initial thought was that it had been knocked off when I left the 7-Feathers Truck Stop because I thought at the time that their driveway was a bit steep and when using it I’d paid careful attention to my tow car as I slowly navigated onto the roadway. The rear of the RV must have dipped a bit low and knocked it off.
But I’ll never know where it dropped off, so I drove around in my car and retraced my driving pattern of the previous day, in case it had fallen off nearby. Traveled the wrong road I’d been on the day before, watching either side. Over and around the church parking lots, then drove back across the freeway. Watched for it on either side of the road bed.
The Fawndale Oaks RV Park is where I’d gone the day before to turn around, and they have this old steam engine so while looking for the tailpipe tip, I stopped and paid it a visit. Massive thing. Would have been pretty weird working on this back in the day. Watched for the tip on the road edges carefully.
The park itself is pretty crummy and has seen better days. Lots of permanent resident RVs and mobile homes well past their prime. There were a couple RVs with tarps thrown over the tops to keep out rain.
Well, didn’t find my tailpipe tip anywhere around so need to buy a new one.
Spent another night enjoying the raging storm effects.
Next morning, walked over to the bridge and checked to make sure it hadn’t washed away after another night of heavy rain…it hadn’t. And then it was time to leave.
Lots of clouds, but the wind had quieted some. See? The road is dry.
And an hour or so later, I’m finally leaving the southern edge of the storm. Bits of blue sky!
The Sacramento River seems quite full today.
Oops…spoke too soon, another band of clouds.
South of Sacramento, at Stockton, I left the I-5 South and crossed over to CA-99 South. It makes little difference which route I take. I just sometimes use the 99 for the different scenery.
And late that day, stopped just south of Bakersfield at what turned out to be a way too expensive RV park. $42 per night. Yikes. Plain ol’ gravel pads, nothing great about it. The showers and restrooms are clean. The pool is nice. The roadways are paved. Huge park. They must be raking in millions per month here. Anyway, I was tired and hungry and never got around to getting a picture of my parking spot. Doesn’t matter, I don’t recommend the place anyway. The RV services were fine and all, no better than a hundred other parks I’ve stayed at for less money. But they have Brighthouse WiFi system and as always, it sucks. Dropped out numerous times. Not usable for anything other than email and simple facebook, couldn’t even watch low res embedded videos. I imagine the huge amount they pay to those crooks is what makes their nightly rate so high.
And this post has gotten much longer than I expected so I’ll give it a break here, and continue on next time.
Thanks for reading!
I too was aggravated by places like Flying J: Pure chaos, and the slow flow pumps out front could be hard to spot or maneuver in; Limits on credit card dollar amounts that required pump restarts; And they keep changing RV procedures.
HAH! I hear ya, Joel, but what I did was to finally realize that I AM RETIRED. And that helped me calm down and just go with the flow. So what if it took me an hour to get fueled up at FJ, didn’t have to hurry for any reason. I did finally figure out that FJ no longer had the best prices anyway, and that they hadn’t since ’08 or so when the crash hit. They were sold to someone, and that someone bumped all the prices up 15% or so. Everywhere around the US, so I stopped stopping at them.
So not long after experiencing a lot of negatives, I signed up with Pioneer Fuel out of Olympia, WA. They allow motorhomes on board so they can use the normally commercial Pacific Pride cardlock franchise locations, and they are far more common than those other places, even found in small, out of the way towns. These days they’ve recruited other facilities beyond Pacific Pride, including Sinclair I think. Across the country I’ve noted lots of Sinclairs with uncrowded and large, easily maneuvered lots.
Oh, yeah, I remember you mentioned that before. I checked them at that time but don’t recall why I didn’t sign up. Probably because I was heading for Mexico and couldn’t use them anywhere down there. I’ll check into it again. Thanks for the lead…again.
Pacific Pride sites don’t post the per gallon price, but over 10 years that hasn’t been a problem for me… they auto-charge my checking account the following month, and it’s always been fair, competitive prices. Even when seemingly a smidge high, the ease of access, ease of locating, and lack of stress is far worth it. When I’m on the road approaching a half tank, I often encounter a convenient P.Pride site, they are so common, esp. in the northwest. Otherwise I check their website in camp for planning the next day’s travel stop location/address. They even contract with a common provider in Canada, which I’ve often used.
Some Beaver friends use other cardlock vendors, but I like the proliferation of P. Pride sites. On rare occasion I’ve encountered a listed site that’s old and harder to access than 95% of them (like in Mitchell, OR, or Laramie, WY), or that has a tricky driveway dip or something, and one that was listed but had closed for business not long before, but overall it’s a lot better than Flying J/Pilot or Love’s chaos.
I’m not sure why your Mexican adventures would prevent you from subscribing with Pioneer Fuel. I recall no joining fees, and no penalties for extended periods of non-use; we’ve gone more than 3 years between uses. If you go to Pioneer Fuel’s or Pacific Pride’s websites and check their site locators, you’ll notice a slew of outlets along your common travel routes. The West Coast states are thoroughly covered, so it’s darned hard to be very far from a facility. There are at least 3 in Rosamond and several in nearby Lancaster, for example. Not so many as you drift east into the Southwest, Nevada, Utah, but enough that they’re still useful. Download their app and you can plan the next day’s fuel stop when necessary, or pull over and find an outlet on your smartphone when your gauge drifts below half while on the highway.
Because, I got that info just a couple weeks before I went into Mexico. There’s no PP stations there so I wouldn’t need it and I was too busy to bother with it. I put it off and then promptly forgot about it because I bought a newer RV and my time was occupied with that instead. And also, MEXICO! Sun, sand, and surf. Waving palm trees, etc.. And now in just 4 days, I’ll be heading back into Baja. And I’ll be there for several months so I’ll put off signing up with PP until I get back. BTW, there’s this thing about getting mail inside Mexico…you don’t. It rarely arrives. So there’s another reason I’ll be putting off signing up…I’d rather wait until I’m back and will be more likely to get the card in the mail.
This fall I dropped by my usual Pacific Pride in Ontario and discovered they’d sent out new electronic cards that I didn’t get due to a glitch. My old card wouldn’t work, so I was forced to cross the street to Love’s. I went around back to the truck lanes where I had a devil of a time, having to go in and out of the store several times to get the pump turned on and then pay. Meanwhile truckers behind me getting miffed cuz to avoid foam-back on high speed pumps I have to fill slowly. Truck lanes more often have spilled fuel on the tarmac too… not so often at PPride, and you don’t want to track diesel gunk into your coach. So I have to tiptoe at Loves and Flying J/Pilot, or wear disposable booties. PintheA. I had a new card forwarded asap.
Yeah, the truckers section of Love’s is a bitch. I look for independent stations to fill these days now that I’m towing. I’m not a big fan of Love’s and Flying J is usually the most expensive around too.
And there’s no hiking back and forth to the office nor a confounded pump shutoff at a credit card limit, forcing you to start over in order to top off. There’s rarely another rig in the smaller town franchises off the beaten truck path, so the place is often all yours. Pull up to either a slow speed single pump, or high speed with satellite depending on your druthers. Just stick your card in the sign-in pedestal, usually one per facility on one of the pump islands, enter your passcode and pump number and odometer reading and take your time filling straight to the top.
You can’t fill your car there, at least not in Oregon, and as I recall your membership may only apply to diesel anyway. It’s usually far more convenient to top off the toad while out exploring in it. Once or twice at the Fred Meyer in Twin Falls I’ve filled the coach with diesel, pulled ahead, and filled the towed car from an adjoining gas pump. I tied up a lane for quite some time to do it, but smart people didn’t get behind such a long configuration anyway, so no big deal.
Good advice. What I’ll do is when I’m parked at a RV park and the toad is unhooked, is get a fill up for the toad just before I move on so I don’t have to worry about filling both vehicles. I just did that yesterday in fact. My toad is now getting 33 MPG, since I did the Intake Manifold Gasket replacement a few weeks ago, so I won’t have to worry too much about when I get fuel for it.