About a week and 2 days ago, I left Gresham, Oregon for points south. I got to the Flying J gas station around 10am and tried to fill up my propane tanks for the fifth time at that station. That day they decided that they couldn’t possibly fill my tanks because there is too much rust on them. W-t-f? They had done it 5 times before! Idiots.
Anyway, since the tanks were 3/4 full anyway, I got my diesel tank topped off and headed down the road. Got to Ashland (yes, where they have the world famous Shakespearean festival every year) around 7:30. There was a downpour going on and I found a waterlogged RV park just off the freeway. Turned out to be filled with hippies and the like. Since one of them had decided to park in front of the space I had rented for the night, it took almost a half hour to be parked right (with help from staff). All night rain came down in sheets pounding on the roof and woke me up at least 4 times.
Next morning I took a walk around the place and found that they also had an organic veggie garden goin’ on. There is also a natural hot spring that feeds their large pool (smells of sulfur) and many damaged ‘improvements’ that were in various stages of completion. Turned out that last year they had a flood that put all their work under several feet of water. Kind of put a halt to improvements for a while. Speaking of water, when I checked in, the counter guy didn’t mention that the water provided at the faucets wasn’t drinkable. Sure glad that the babe helping me park the rig mentioned it. I was going to fill my drinking water tank.
On my way out of Ashland, I went to the nearest gas station and was able to fill my propane tanks without a word about the rust…and it cost me $17 more then if the asshole had done it in Gresham. Butt head.
Headed on down the road (I-5) for another 12 hours until I reached Mohave and my brother’s house in Rosamond. Naturally, he has a house on a steep hill so I’m not able to keep the RV here, I have to park it about a block and a half away on a flat stretch of road. The refer stops working if you put the RV on an angle of 12 or more degrees.
Dan took Friday off and we goofed around for the day doing some yard work he needed done. Then on Saturday we took off in the RV for points north on the 395 hiway. Up into the Sierra Nevada mountains. The road goes past a ghost town (closed for the season) that would have been fun to visit, maybe next year. Further up the road we stopped at Fossil Falls, an ancient river falls, empty now, that must have been pretty cool after the last ice age. It was too dark to take pictures.
Around 8ish we started looking for RV parks and came to one that had an empty space but the office was closed and there were no ‘late arrival’ instructions or means to leave money. Also no ‘assistant manager’ that we could find and the empty space we found needed a fuse from the manager to get any electricity. So, off down the road again. Around 9, we found a RV park that seemed open, had an empty office but did have a map showing where we could park. We bashed through a snow pile, parked, hooked up to electricity, and watched the Zulu movie until bedtime. The space had electric but no water or functioning cable. The place look deserted…none of the trailers around us were occupied. Next morning, found that the public toilets were closed for the season, the office was still empty, and the late arrival payment mailbox had no envelopes. So I dropped a buck in the box and hit the road. Hey, I didn’t get water, cable, sewer or use of the toilet facilities so I figured all it was worth was a buck.
Dan’s lived in this area for years and hikes all the time for fun. Here’s one of the spots he had me stop at as we toured around the Mojave basin.
Next day we went south and headed back to Rosamond.
