Camping

At the end of this three week road trip a word about camping. I do not really consider travelling in the Volkswagen Westfalia ‘camping’. For an activity to be worthy of the word ‘camping’ one must at least sleep on the ground. A comfy mattress is allowed but it must be in contact with the ground.

Over the past twenty years or so, I’ve noticed quite a change. Most campgrounds these days (especially the private, commercial ones) cater almost exclusively to the RV (recreational vehicle) crowd. There are water, sewer and electric hook-ups for these monstrous rigs. I stopped at one county campground near Sacramento, CA where they had NO bathroom or shower facilities. The only vehicles welcome or, for that matter, able to be accommodated were totally self-contained vehicles that would simply plug into or hook up to the sewer, water and electricity.

Pity the poor person arriving looking for a place to set up a tent. Most private campgrounds will not even consider giving you a space. Sometimes I feel that they look at my Westy and wonder whether they should allow me in. But I just brazen right through it. And, besides, at this time of year they want the business. I’ve even beaten them down in price a few times over the past three weeks by saying “is that the best price you can give me?”

And some of the campers can really make you wonder. There are the noisy drunken ones … a real rarity on this trip. And there are the ones with noisy kids. Well, what can you do. It was spring break this week, I believe. At least the kids get put to bed by nine o’clock or so.

This trip’s award for most memorable camper goes to the fellow just a few sites away who last night had an innovative way to start a campfire. I was reading my book when I heard this loud whoosh and roar. I jumped up wondering what was happening. The fellow had a propane tank hooked to one of those flame thrower nozzles that you sometimes see roofers using to seal roofing materials. This guy was using this to light his campfire. The best part (and the irony was surely lost on him) was that it wasn’t really doing a very good job. He seemed to need to restart his flame thrower and give it several goes and even so the results were unimpressive.

I was, of course, embarrassed for him. In my youth, as a budding pyromaniac I became quite skilled at setting fires. I wanted to go over to this campsite and show this guy what could be done with a bit of skrunched up newspaper and a little kindling. Sheesh!

I have no photos from this sad event so here’s another seascape.

Home again, home again …

Well, not quite. Tonight we’re overnighting somewhere along the Hood Canal in Washington State. And, of course, because it’s Washington State and the Olympic Peninsula, it’s been raining.The first rain since we left Victoria three weeks ago.

Yesterday we had a final day of sunshine on the Oregon coast. It was a beautiful, windless day with big swells rolling in from Japan all along the coast. We had a leisurely drive up the coast to Newport and camped at South Beach State Park. It’s a huge park on the south side of the jetty protecting the entrance to the harbour at Newport. The harbour is crossed by one of the many beautiful bridges on coast highway.

South Beach State Park has a number of paved pathways that are bike friendly so I opened up the collapsing bicycle and assembled Eliot’s trailer and we had a lovely time exploring the pathway that runs through the dunes down to the jetty.

We came across two fellows who were suiting up to go SUPing (Standup Paddleboarding). They got quite a kick out of Eliot in his chariot. One fellow is a doctor and asked about Eliot’s elder problems. He noticed and had a good look at Eliot’s cataracts and said that if I have lots of money that there’s surgery that can be done.

Here they are just about to head down to the beach. The tall fellow is the doctor and the other fellow is an ‘artist’ although I never did find out what sort of ‘artist’. A nice way to end your workday. Not sure who the fellow in the middle is. He showed up with his beer and seemed to be filling them in on some local surf gossip. The tall guy’s the doctor.

Earlier in the day we stopped for coffee in Bandon, Oregon. I saw this American flag painting in the café washroom. There was also a sign in the coffee shop that said: “Unruly or noisy children will be taken to the cranberry bog and put to work”. Way better than the espresso and puppy scenario.

 

Tomorrow the Coho Ferry at 2:00pm and back home in our cozy house by suppertime.

Southern Oregon

OK, so we began heading north on Sunday and here we are on Wednesday evening finally in Oregon. Back at Cape Blanco State Park just north of Port Orford.

We stayed on the road much longer on Sunday than planned and ended up overnighting at Lost Hills, CA … right beside Interstate Hwy 5. (Lost Hills is a good name for the town as the landscape was as flat as Saskatchewan.)

It wasn’t nearly as noisy as I’d expected and the manager was all apologetic that the pool wasn’t open and only charged me $20. It had been a long hot drive across southern California on Hwy 58 and then up Hwy 99 past Bakersfield and then across to I-5. 

Part of the route west was along Hwy 58 which passes Edwards Air Force Base and the town of Mojave where there’s a huge collection of aircraft sitting in the desert. From the highway it was really only possible to glimpse the BIG planes. But there were a lot of them waiting to find a new airline to call home.

Then just past the airplane parking lot was the biggest wind farm I’ve ever seen. Windmills of all sizes and most of them spinning.

On Monday morning we travelled up I-5 and across Hwy 20 to Ukiah and overnighted at the Redwood Empire Fair Grounds. This was a really boring drive through endless orchards of nut and orange trees. At one point there was a definite smell of something NOT botanical. About fifteen minutes later we drove by a huge feed lot. It seemed to go on for miles and was astonishing in its vastness. The cattle had lots of room to move about and there were even shelters where they could get out of the hot California sun. Still, the sight made me seriously reconsider vegetarianism.

Monday’s travel got us to Trinidad, CA. We stayed at the Big Lagoon County Park not wanting to risk overnighting at Patrick’s Point State Park where I feared there might still be an APB out on us from two weeks ago. This was the view from our campsite.

There’s a long sandbar that separates the lagoon from the open Pacific. I’ve enjoyed the wild surf on the beach on previous stays here but this time it was quite tame. No fear. During the night I awoke to the sounds of huge waves booming as they crashed onto the beach. In my doziness my first thought was TSUNAMI! and began planning our escape. (Could I drive the van with the top up???) Then I realized that if there was a tsunami the ground probably would have shaken so likely we were safe. Still being only a few feet above sea level in a tsunami zone can spook one in the middle of the night.

As we travelled up the coast and into Oregon (finally) the huge surf and wind followed us and there were lots of places to stop along the way.

Still in California

Lighthouse on a little island (well, an island at high tide) in Crescent City, CA. Crescent City was badly damaged by a tsunami after the big Alaskan earthquake in the 1960s(?).

And finally into Oregon and another night at Cape Blanco State Park. The weather has been sunny and warmish and I think we will linger a bit on the Oregon coast as long as there is no rain. Today further up the coast to Newport, OR.

Heading North

Spent yesterday afternoon wandering through Joshua Tree National Park. It is full of stunning landscapes. And lots of climbers. It was difficult to find a rock that didn’t have someone climbing on it.

And the closer it got to sunset, the warmer the colours became. I suppose the sunrise colours are just as beautiful but that would mean getting up before, well, sunrise.

After all the hills and valleys you go over and through while driving through the park, it’s surprising to come to this prairie-like vista.

It’s time to start heading north. Today we’ll pack up and head over towards I-5 and stay overnight at a very fine U.S. Forest Service campground that we stayed at two years ago outside of Piru, CA. That’s just over a three hour drive so no rush to pack up and no long drive to anticipate. We should likely be home by the weekend or sooner depending on the weather.

Funny noises . . .

The drive down to the Joshua Tree area was lovely as there were lots of flowers blooming in the desert. Large swaths of yellow and lots of light green on the desert floor.

I saw on the map that we would be passing quite close to the Trona Pinnacles so decided to have a look. The pinnacles are on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land so it wasn’t like going to a national park. The five mile road into the pinnacles was a dirt track with lots and lots of bumps. The pinnacles are calcium carbonate deposits that formed when this whole area was under water 10 to 100 thousand years ago.

Coming off the highway and down this dirt road were little signs with arrows and the GQ magazine logo on them. I hoped that maybe they were doing a photo shoot for their men’s  swimsuit issue (not that there’s actually such a thing). But although something was going on I didn’t see anyone with a camera except me. And everyone seemed to be dressed in motorcycle gear.

On the way back down the sandy, bumpy road I stopped to take the first picture above. I got talking to a couple who asked me to take their photo together. Turned out they were from Italy and on their honeymoon trip. They’d already been to New York and San Francisco and were planning on going to Hawaii after touring southern California.

Later on Tuesday Eliot and I arrived at a kind of camping retreat area called Starland. Doug, the resident host, welcomed me and showed me around the property. It’s a rather eclectic place with camping areas for tents or mobile campers and also bunkhouses. And there’s public lands on three sides of the property so there’s a definite out in the wilderness feel even though there are other properties nearby. All very western and low key. However, it seems that I am the only person in all of North America who had decided to visit this particular week in March. Starland’s mission statement says (in part):

Starland Community provides a carefree, scenic, and spiritual place to relax, learn about the high desert, and to meet new friends.

So naturally I’m a bit disappointed that I have the place to myself and will not have the opportunity to meet ‘new friends’. Even Doug, the host, has taken off today (Friday) for some business in Phoenix so I have the entire place to myself. I guess he must have decided that I look trust worthy. So no standing in line for the showers, or the washing machine, or cooking facilities and lots of room in the refrigerator for my stuff.

Here are a few photos from the property:

Since the bumpy and potholed roads in Humboldt County in Northenrn California, the van has had a strange sound coming from the right front wheel well. A kind of hollow clunk every the van goes over a bump – large or small. I’m not fond of strange noises coming from parts of the van that are essential to keeping it from going over a cliff of which there are many in California and along the Oregon coast.

So yesterday I tracked down a shop that deals with Volkswagen vehicles. It was a little independent place with two mechanics who instantly joked that vans like mine usually arrived at their shop being pulled by a tow truck and they were impressed to see mine arrive under its own power. However, I don’t think VW people down here are as familiar with these old vehicles as those in Victoria. Their conclusion after a half hour of investigation was that the lower ball joint on the right side was making the noise and should be replaced. And so today I spent half  of the day wandering around the town of Yucca Valley waiting for the two lower ball joints on the front end to be replaced. It’s now done and wasn’t terribly expensive. I’m hoping the van will now get us back to Canada.

Groceries and Attitude

Eliot and I were the only campers on Friday night at the US Forest Service campground. Still, the camp attendant was around several times in the early morning. (I heard her little golf cart go by.) Finally it seemed she couldn’t stand it any longer and knocked on the side of the van at 8:15 a.m. I shouted at her that I was still in bed so she went away but not before informing me that I could drop of my $24.00 fee at her campsite at the campground entrance. As if you could easily sneak away when you’re the only vehicle in the campground.

It seemed like a good idea to get some provisions before heading for Lone Pine so we stopped at the local Vons which is a grocery chain down this way. I picked up the usual – apples, oranges, bananas, beer, ice – and headed for the checkout. I realized that I didn’t have a shopper’s card for Vons and asked the woman behind me if she would mind if I used hers. She was quite happy to do that. There was a huge line up which I guess is to be expected when you’re shopping at noon on a Saturday.

The older gentleman who was working checkout was not the fastest I’ve come across. At first I thought he was a ‘trainee’ but he seemed to know all the customers and as I eavesdropped he was having an animated conversation with his current customer about dog food (although he did allow that he was really a ‘cat’ person).

When it was my turn, I handed him the shopper’s card that I had borrowed from the lady behind me. He took it and immediately put it aside saying:

“I’ll do that later. I have a system.”

When he scanned the bag of carrots I was buying, he asked me if I had the coupon for them.

“Coupon?”, I replied.

He looked at me over the top of his glasses and gave a big sigh and dug out a copy of the flyer to find the scanner code for the discount. I explained that I was from ‘away’ and that my grocery shopping at home was always much better organized. He seemed less than impressed and merely rolled his eyes.

I was finding this all quite hilarious as was the woman whose card I had borrowed and the clerk himself, I do believe. I escaped with my dignity but just barely.

Then it was off east on Hwy 178 and up over Walker Pass to Hwy 395 and north to Lone Pine.

Descending from Walker Pass

Lone Pine is a small town east of the Sierra Nevada mountains in southern California. Just west of the town is an area called the Alabama Hills. Starting in the 1920s, the Alabama Hills became Hollywood’s go-to place for filming movie westerns.

And we’re spending three nights camped at the Tuttle Creek campground courtesy of the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) for $5.00/night. It is a spectacular location with beautiful views in all directions. It’s been pleasantly warm during the day and freezing cold at night. Typical for the high desert at this time of year.

Since Eliot decided we should be up at sunrise on Saturday morning I got up and took a few photos. This is actually the moon setting behind the Sierra Nevada mountains as the sun was rising.

 

Meeting ‘Don’

It was not a particularly restful night in West Sacramento. The freeway traffic continued all night and at times the ground seemed to shake because of some train passing somewhere nearby.

Still, we had very friendly neighbours next door to Site 37. Tom and Hermien from Seattle. Our paths were crossing as they were heading north as we continued south. They were travelling in a Quebec built travel trailer that they imported to the U.S. through Chilliwack (duty free since it was built in Canada).

In the morning a fellow named Don S. (or Z.) drove up and stopped to examine our camping ‘equipment’. He asked Tom and me (mostly Tom as he had a clever solar electric system) lots of questions. In retrospect, Tom and I were not even sure that he was camping since it turned out he lives in West Sacramento (or Westsac as the locals say). More likely, it seemed, he had just wandered in to look around.

Don was wearing one of the loudest plaid shirts I have ever seen and a pair of baby blue sweatpants. On his feet he was wearing flip-flops but with socks so that the socks scrunched up around the thong. He talked a mile a minute in a kind of new-age stream of consciousness. Both Tom and I had to pay close attention to keep up. At one point Don made reference to ‘three DUIs’. It was only ten seconds later that this registered with me and  I exclaimed: “Three DUIs??!!” At which point Dan was able to back track and tell us all the details including the $6,000 he’d paid his lawyer. I was a little suspicious that someone with THREE DUIs pending would still have their license but decided I’d been nosey enough. I did notice that his newish SUV did have more than a little scraped paint and minor dents on it.

Don mentioned something about developing an ‘app’ but it became clear that there was money in his family. He talked about managing his father’s money. I assumed that his father must be deceased or mad if he let Don invest more than $10 on his behalf.

The whole experience was hilarious although it was only after it was over that we could really laugh out loud about it. Tom and I agreed that such encounters are the ones you’ll remember and laugh about for years to come. And poor Hermien. She’d missed the whole thing as she’d gone off to have a shower.

Before Hermien and Tom left they took this picture of Eliot and me by the van.

The rest of the day was spent in the van heading down Hwy 99 to Bakersfield. A long and boring drive and it was dark by the time we got to the campground at Lake Isabella where the camping fee in two years has gone from less than $20 to $24 dollars. No hot water. No showers. Not too bad if you’re a couple or a group but getting pricey for solo travellers. There were lots of motels offering rooms for under $40 coming down Hwy 99. Of course, I’d worry that those rooms might come with a side of bedbugs.

Today we’re off to Lone Pine to camp in the shadow of Mount Whitney.

Interfacing with the authorities

We’ve all had those road trips where we’ve had way to much coffee in the morning and despite a bathroom break before hopping behind the wheel, nature calls in a big way shortly after hitting the road.

The dog and I had spent Wednesday night at a commercial campground and finally hit the road around 9 a.m. I’d had two rather large cups of java that morning. Not twenty minutes down the road, I needed to ‘go’. There was a rest stop coming up but I just didn’t think I could make it.

I saw a wide shoulder up ahead on the road and decided to stop and relieve myself in the shrubbery in the field by the road. I was discreet about this but upon emerging from the shrubbery I saw a police vehicle pulling a u-turn to pull up behind my van. I wasn’t exactly sure what trouble I might have gotten into by peeing roadside. It is the U.S. and people are probably serving long prison sentences for less.

As I approached my van, two sheriffs from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office got out of their vehicle. One fellow was short and built like a fireplug and the other fellow was blond and taller and turned out to be in training. (They later asked if they could run my driver’s licence just so he could have the practice.)

In any event, as it turned out they seemed completely unconcerned that I’d been peeing in the woods. (A fact which I quickly confessed to so as to explain my emerging from the shrubbery.) They explained that they always stop when they see unattended vehicles at the side of the road. Apparently, the fireplug explained, they’ve found dead bodies in cars at the side of the road. So they were just glad that there was nothing to be concerned about.

We then ended up standing at the side of the road in the warm California morning sun talking about my travel plans. As noted the younger officer had gone off to check to see if I had any outstanding warrants (or whatever). He took such a long time coming back that I began to get somewhat uneasy about my state park stay a couple of nights ago. Would they have video cameras in campgrounds to catch those who might leave in the early morning without paying their fees? (Not that that was what I’d done!) Fortunately when he returned I appeared to be in the clear.

More topics of conversation got covered including enforcing drug laws and the life of a county sheriff.

At the other end of the day, we have made it as far as Sacramento where we’re staying at a KOA which, as far as I can tell, appears to be surrounded on three sides by freeways. I told the woman as the ‘desk’ that I can’t imagine how people found the place before GPS. I even took a couple of wrong turns with my GPS.

I’m hoping that I will be able to convince myself that the traffic sounds tonight are actually the sounds of surf washing up on a nearby beach.

The Lost Coast

 

From Cape Blanco (see previous post) we headed further down the Oregon coast towards the California border. We stopped in Gold River, Oregon to do a little laundry as there had been an “Eliot” incident first thing in the morning involving urine and a fleece blanket.

The laundromat had a change machine that you fed paper bills into and it gave you quarters for the washing machines and dryers. I’ve always been fascinated to come across these machines and wonder why I’ve never seen them in Canada. And I wonder how the machine knows you are giving it a real bill and not something you’ve whipped up with your Epson printer.

In any event, while the fleece blanket and a pair of jeans washed and rinsed, I walked along the main street and discovered a very fine bookstore that also had a good selection of used CDs and I found and purchased a disc of piano music by Joaquin Rodrigo for $4.00 US.

Shortly after leaving Brookings, Oregon we passed into California. We spent the night at Patrick’s Point State Park. The overnight rates in California’s state parks are quite outrageous. The rates jumped some time ago when California was having big financial difficulties and it was either raise the rates or close the parks. But, really, $35 a night for a plot of ground and access to water. No electricity, no hot shower in the morning. No wonder the park was almost empty. You will have to ask me in person whether or not I paid this fee since there was no attendant when we arrived nor in the morning when we left.

South of Eureka and Arcata, California there is a large section of coast that’s difficult to access. Hwy 101 swings quite far inland to avoid the cliffs and mountains that discouraged road making. This stretch of coast is called “The Lost Coast”. There are a few roads that venture into the northern part of this wilderness to a couple of hamlets called Petrolia and Honeydew. The northern end of these few roads begins in the town of Ferndale.

Ferndale is a charming little town with lots of gussied up Victorian style houses and buildings.

I should have known we were leaving civilization behind when I saw that the road out of Ferndale to the Lost Coast was called Wildcat Road. Although Ferndale lies in a flat river valley, Wildcat Road immediately began to climb. What I thought would be a nice 40 mile backroads tour took forever as the road was in terrible repair. The only places I’ve seen worse potholes are on the road to my sister’s place in Nova Scotia and maybe the section of Grant Street in front of my house in Victoria. They’re a friendly bunch who drive these hellish roads though. Not one failed to wave as we passed. Sometimes it was a hand wave and sometimes just a finger raised from the steering wheel. You’d have to know those roads awfully well to risk removing a whole hand even for a quick wave.

But the coast when we finally bumped and jolted our way there was quite beautiful.

 

The road from Honeydew back to Hwy 101 led us into a beautiful redwood forest on a narrow road that was sometimes just a single lane between two of these giant trees. The road was still full of potholes.

We spent Wednesday night at a private campground just north of Leggett. It cost less than $35.00 and included electricity (which I was happy to have for our little heater) and hot showers in the morning. It was one of those RV parks where there appear to be people living there long term. These places can sometimes feel a bit creepy but this one did not make me uneasy. The couple who run the place were very friendly and the fellow was wearing a t-shirt that said something about Jesus and redwood trees but I didn’t like to stare or comment in case he might launch into some sort of sermon on the evils of the forestry industry.

On the road again – finally

 

On the last day of February, we (being me and Eliot the ageing Norwich Terrier) finally hit the road. Two years ago in March of 2013, we’d made a trip south to the deserts of southern California and I’ve been wanting to return ever since.

But for some reason I’d been feeling a bit ambivalent. It didn’t help that the weather in Victoria was so lovely in February and that the weather in southern California was chilly and sometimes rainy. But the long term forecasts for March were promising more sun and warmer temperatures so I packed the van and we’re on the road again.

We took the afternoon ferry which leaves at 4 pm. We were the last vehicle off the Coho when it arrived in Port Angeles, Washington and I was asked only one question by the guy from border control. I assumed that dinner was waiting for him at home.

By 7 pm we’d found a campsite at a state park south of Port Townsend. It was very cold overnight and I wondered whether I’d made a mistake not taking the warmer sleeping bag. There was frost on the grass the next morning.

We made good time down Hwy 101 and arrived at Nehalem State Park near Manzanita, Oregon with time to sit around and have a beer which I’d purchased along the way.

After some refreshment Eliot and I wandered down to the beach which was not very inviting because of a strong wind and a threat of rain.

 

 

 

 

 

This morning (Monday) we headed further down the coast. I always like to stop at Pacific City for coffee even though it’s off Hwy 101 and a bit of a detour. It is a spectacular setting and the coffee at ‘Stimulation’ is very good. So I got coffee and Eliot and I wandered the beach watching the surf and the surfers for a bit.

Then back to Hwy 101 and points further south.

We stopped briefly at Depoe Bay. It’s a tiny town and its main street on Hwy 101 is mostly tourist type shops. And if you’re gluten sensitive there’s even this.

On the other side of the street is this view. I can’t imagine there’s anywhere else in Oregon where you can get this close to the crashing surf without leaving the sidewalk.

We’ve stopped tonight at Cape Blanco State Park. It’s six miles down a country road just north of Port Orford, Oregon. The weather has been iffy all day and the sky still looks a bit ominous. But there’s electricity at our campsite for our little electric heater and I look forward to a hot shower in the morning having not had one since leaving Victoria.

Cape Blanco Lighthouse. Oldest standing lighthouse on the Oregon coast built in 1870.

Looking south from Cape Blanco

Just about sunset. Must be time for a beer.

Near the washroom at Cape Blanco State Park I came across this convenience from an earlier time in our civilization. The parks department did not seem to be treating it as some long ago relic worthy of preservation for future generations. There was no interpretive sign explaining its long ago use to younger visitors to the park. I did not check to see if it is still working but, if so, it would come in handy as Cape Blanco has no cell phone service nor is wi-fi provided for visitors.