I assembled a photo slideshow of photos I took while on my road trip in the Pacific Northwest in May and June of this year. The video is about 5 minutes long and the musical soundtrack is the Cat Stevens song, “On the Road to Find Out.”
For the best enjoyment, click on the “Watch on YouTube” link below and choose to watch it in full frame mode.
Friday, July 30, 2021
On Sunday, July 19, I headed out to Spicer Meadows Reservoir campground for a four-night camping trip. This was the second year I was able to join my brother and his families for their annual campout at the group campground at the lake. Last year was my first year and it included a bit of tragedy – my drone decided to drop into the lake and sink to the bottom. I was able to fish it out and return it to the manufacturer for an exchange, so it had a happier ending. While planning for this trip, I wondered, “What could go wrong this year?” I left the new drone home so I removed that possibility from the equation.
The drive to the lake is about 3+ hours for me and the temperatures were already climbing as I navigated the gold country roads up toward the lake. I knew this would be a dry-camping adventure, so I wanted to be sure I would have good clear days for solar recharging of my batteries. I also knew the nearest town was 45 minutes from the campground, so I didn’t want to run any errands unless absolutely necessary. And for good measure, cell service was non-existent at the lake.
Seven different camping parties converged on the campground in the middle afternoon and we all arranged our tents, trailers, Class-C and fifth-wheel among the campsites. My brother suggested we share a trailer pad and we managed to fit both of our trailers without too much trouble. We had a good view of the lake, receding shoreline and all.
The first full day, Monday, was cloudy with a little bit of sprinkles, so solar power was not an option. I was not concerned as my battery levels were pretty fresh from Sunday’s drive and recharge session.
I brought a couple of books and magazines and reminded myself not to stress my shoulder on this trip. My bicep tendon had completely separated a couple of weeks prior and it was still painful. I knew I would not be kayaking, swimming, throwing a javelin or chopping wood on this trip. I was OK with limiting my activities to reading, light hiking, taking photos, making S’Mores and napping.
The rest of the week brought warm clear weather. I enjoyed relaxing in the campground and devoured one of the books I brought. “Mary Jane” by Jessica Anya Blau is an interesting and humorous coming-of-age story about a 14 year old girl who works as a summer nanny for a neighboring household in the 1970’s. Her guarded childhood is no match for the cultural leap she makes during this summer. I highly recommend the book.
Tuesday night brought the first bit of adventure (and danger, if you will). After the group campfire session, I got the notion to take a star-trails photo of my trailer. I scoped out the best angle to get good clear star trails and chose a spot on a trail about 25 feet toward the lake. This location gave me a good upward view of the trailer and the dark night sky above it. I set my camera for a time-exposure and figured about 30 minutes would do the job. I relaxed in my trailer and read until the half hour had passed. When I stepped outside my trailer, I noticed one of my nephews was shining his flashlight around the campground. I turned off my camera and learned that my nephew had chased a large bear away from his campsite, about 50 yards from mine.
I spent a few minutes doing the same thing, shining my flashlight around the trees and shrubs surrounding our campsites. After this bit of exercise I went to bed.
The next morning I checked my trail cam. I had set it up every night to watch my trailer. The trail cam has a motion detector that begins recording video when it senses motion in front of it. I’ve captured video of raccoons and coyotes as well as birds, lizards, moths, etc. When I reviewed the video clips from the previous evening, I noticed the number of times I entered or exited my trailer, and walked by with the flashlight. But right in the middle of those clips was one clip of a large bear walking around my trailer. When I checked the time-stamps on each clip, I determined that this bear had walked by during the 30-minute time exposure of my star-trails photo. In fact, I had exited the trailer seven minutes after the bear had walked by! The video shows the bear walking up from behind my trailer, the same trail I had placed my camera. I don’t know how the bear didn’t knock the camera and tripod over, since they were positioned in the middle of the trail, with tree stumps on either side.
You should be able to view the bear video here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KMfr2cCcQ2HDDCga5oH4ui6fNYAEIBQU/view?usp=sharing
(copy/paste the link in your browser)
The bear video was quite a hit among the campers and I felt a sense of redemption; this video victory was a great balance to last year’s drone-fail video. I felt like I had found the answer to my question, “What could go wrong this year?” Fortunately, this event did not result in anyone getting hurt or any damage to our campsites.
On Wednesday, we ventured down to the bottom of the dam to check out one of the open release pipes. It was an impressive display of water power.
On Wednesday evening, I began sorting and stacking in preparation for the next morning – our check out time was 11:00AM. Around 12:30 AM, I woke up and took a short walk to the vault toilet. I noticed a sharp pain in my back and wondered when I could have strained a muscle, after all the relaxing and lounging. I went back to bed but immediately got up because the pain was increasing. It was excruciating and I had no idea why. In addition to the back pain, my abdomen was cramping up intensely. I hobbled back up to the vault toilet again, but to no avail. “Here I sit all broken hearted…”
After about an hour of increasing pain I made the difficult decision to wake up my brother and sister-in-law and ask for help. We talked about possible causes and Dan gave me a couple of pain pills. I felt like another trip to the vault toilet was in order, but the only result was dry heaves. We determined I had upchucked the pain pills. We had no phone service, so the only option was to drive toward medical help. Dan drove my SUV and I thrashed about in the passenger seat in pain. We did not reach cell service until after an hour and determined an ER was open in Sonora.
After two hours of driving, we reached the Sonora ER and I went straight in. It looked like I was the only patient. After some diagnosis and a CT scan, the doctor identified a kidney stone as the source of my pain. I was on pain meds through an IV, so I was feeling more comfortable. And it was good to know what was wrong. By this time, it was 6:00AM and Dan and I discussed the challenge of breaking camp. We agreed that he would head back to get started and I would update him with my discharge status. It seemed clear that I would be discharged some time later in the morning. I gave Dan some instructions about closing up my trailer and he left for another two hour drive back to the campground.
I was discharged around 10:00 AM and realized I did not bring anything other than what I was wearing. I knew I would be picking up my discharge meds from a nearby RiteAid and I knew I had to take the meds with food. I just didn’t know if I could put any food in my mouth. I walked to a coffee shop and pushed a few bites of breakfast food into my mouth and hoped for the best. I walked to RiteAid, picked up the meds and took them. Soon, I received a text that my niece-in-law was on her way to pick me up. Her husband, my nephew, was going to drive my SUV and trailer back to their house.
The pain meds were working pretty well, so I was comfortable on the ride home. Once in Roseville, I drove my rig to Rocklin for storage, emptied the fridge and grabbed a few items and drove home.
I spent the rest of the weekend giving birth to Satan’s Love Child, a 3mm kidney stone. (Wanna see a picture of it?) It turned out a second smaller sibling (2mm) also made an appearance.
I can say this was the most pain I’ve felt and I have every desire to prevent a future recurrence. But this also made me realize the risks of camping and traveling alone, like I had done last month in Oregon. Granted, I was usually in good cell service at most of the road trip stops in Oregon. But this would have been a very different experience if I was alone and did not have someone to drive me and also to take care of my trailer. I would not have been able to drive myself that night, the pain was too intense.
The first lesson learned here is to make a thorough step-by-step guide for closing down the trailer. The folding design makes this a bit more complicated, and if someone is not familiar with it, they would have a difficult time putting it down correctly.
The other thing I learned, don’t begin a trip by asking, “What could go wrong?”
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Happy Trails!
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Wednesday (June 29): Yesterday morning, I said good bye to Fran and Jerry, the A-frame rally organizers along with a few other attendees and hit the road about 10:30AM. It was already heating up and the weather forecasts were announcing “excessive heat warnings” for the day.
Highway 395 is a major north/south thoroughfare on the eastern side of California. The part I drove on was a two-lane highway with occasional passing lanes. Broken yellow lines were also available for drivers who didn’t want to follow a car pulling a trailer driving the speed limit. I was driving 55 mph (towing speed limit) in a 65 mph zone. I inched my cruise control up to 60 out of empathy for the cars behind me. My bigger empathorial moments occurred whenever I would pull off to the side of the road and let everyone else fly by.
I turned onto the forest service road that leads into the Jackson Meadows area (East Meadows Campground). It was a familiar drive – this is the campground that Laura and I camped at with bikes, kayaks, and our dogs. It was an annual tradition for a number of years, often times with my brother and sister-in-law and their friends. Lots of fun memories.
In 2013, my friend Robin and I also camped here. The camping trip was supposed to include our mutual friend, Dick. Sadly, Dick passed away a month prior to our scheduled trip. Dick’s memorial service was held on the first day of the camping trip. After the conclusion of Dick’s memorial, Robin and I drove up here to Jackson Meadows. During our campout, he and I fashioned a floating memorial from driftwood and flowers, we each wrote a special message on it and set it afloat from our kayaks on the waters of the reservoir. So, some sad memories, too.
Being here today has been a surprising experience. I originally booked a reservation here to break up the long drive home from Eagle Lake. I was familiar with the campground so it seemed like a logical choice. And it was. But the surprise came with the various emotions I experienced after arriving. It was a bit like coming back to a hometown. I walked the loops of campsites and remembered some of the events of earlier visits I described above. I took a swim in the lake and thought about the numerous swimming and kayaking adventures. And the fun campfires trickled into my memory stream as well. I noticed I was feeling a bit melancholy. Not sure if it was related to the memories or the awareness of the approaching last drive. Maybe both.
As dusk approached, I walked down to the waterline and watched the sunset on my last day of this trip. In familiar fashion, it was a beautiful experience.
So, in a couple of ways, this location brings me full circle, to a place of closure: it is the last stop of my five-week roadtrip journey. It is a return to a place from a different time in my life.
And in a funny coincidence, it is a return to the campground where I was first introduced to an A-frame camper. My brother’s good friend Bob (and I claim Bob as my friend, too) arrived at one of those annual camping trips with a new A-frame trailer. As he showed us the various features and logistics of setting it up, I mentally made a note to be sure I got one of those someday. So here I am.
This morning, I walked down to the water for an early visit. The water was calm, almost mirror-like. It was early enough that I was pretty much alone at the lake. The air was still. My hearing is bad so I couldn’t hear how quiet it was. I could see one small fishing boat across the lake, trolling along peacefully.
Soon, I’ll drive down into the muggy valley, park the trailer and unpack. It will likely be 100+ degrees. And I know I’ll be sad about the end of this trip. I’m scheduled to be camping again in less than three weeks…if I can wait that long!
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Sunday (June 27): The A-frame rally has been a lot of fun. The rally is hosted by volunteers who are centralized in the Pacific NorthWest. The rallys are normally in Oregon and Washington, but this one was planned at Eagle Lake in the Lassen National Forest because of availability during Covid.
Thirteen A-frame trailers with about 24 people attended this rally. It was my first time meeting up with this group. The participants were friendly and very comfortable to hang out with. A variety of expertise levels made this a great opportunity to get help with problem-solving.
The rally was very well planned, communicated and it went well without any issues. The primary purposes of the rally are to meet and greet, show and tell, and care and maintenance. Each morning begins with a coffee assembly at the home base campsite, an activity, such as the touring of A-frames, and the evening finds us gathering for wine and conversation.
I enjoyed the A-frame tours; they were a great way to see how others have improved their trailers. I picked up some good ideas for future projects.
On one morning, several of us rode our bikes on a paved trail that connected our campground with a couple of others, as well as the marina. The marina was a great place to take a break, eat some ice cream in the shade and rest up for the hot ride back.
Most everyone left on Sunday morning; the few of us remaining drove in to Susanville and had lunch and beer tasting at the Lassen AleWorks brewery. The air-conditioned room was a great choice, as the temperatures reached the high-90s the last two days.
I enjoyed my time at the rally and enjoyed meeting the people. I plan to check out next year’s rally – I’m hoping it can be another chance to include the rally as part of larger, longer road trip. There are still plenty of places in the Pacific NorthWest that I want to explore.
Tomorrow I’ll travel about 3 hours, heading in the general direction of home. I’ll spend one night at a favorite campground at Jackson Meadows Reservoir and make my home on Tuesday.
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Friday (June 25): Yesterday was the second travel day to get to Eagle Lake. I left Tulelake about 10:00 AM after a rough night. One of the car alarms in the RV parking area kept going off, repeating until about 11:00PM. Around 12:45AM, I realized I was awake and noticed flashing red lights penetrating the little openings in my trailer curtains. I saw two ambulance/EMT trucks parked directly in front of my site. The EMTs were walking in and out of the fifth wheel trailer parked next to me. After about 30 minutes, they all left. Around 4:00AM, same deal – flashing red lights, two emergency vehicles and probably the same responders. In the better light, I noticed that all the emergency personnel were casually dressed (blue jeans, sweatshirts, ball caps) and surmised that they were all volunteer responders. This time they gurneyed an older man out to the ambulance and left. I went back to sleep with some assurance that he was being taken care of.
The drive was warm and many travelers were on the road. The drive took about 3 hours to reach Merrill Campground at Eagle Lake. The campground is well laid out, the sites are spacious with plenty of space between them. Restrooms are convenient, but the nearest shower facilities are a couple miles away at the marina.
The campground has a nice beach at the lake, but the low water level puts the beach about 150 yards from its normal reach.
I rode my bike around the campground, checking out the various loops. It was fun to see a good representation of A-Frame trailers around the campground. I would guess about 12-15 trailers. I’m looking forward to meeting up with the attendees of the rally.
The evening closed out with a thunderstorm, naturally. It was more wind than rain and lasted about an hour. I realized I was tired, after a low-sleep night and a few hours driving in the heat, I was ready for some sleep.
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Wednesday, (June 23): Another beautiful sunny morning in Prineville and my last day in Oregon. I got an earlier start than usual and got moving before 10:00 AM.
I was considering making a push and doing the whole distance to the Lassen area in one day. The idea fizzled when I learned that no camping spots were available at the location of the A-frame Rally, the Merrill Campground at Eagle Lake. I stayed committed to my original plan: to stop near the halfway point and spend the night. I had seen some camping options at the Tulelake/Butte Fairgrounds, just south of the Oregon border. I was able to acquire a full hookup spot upon arrival.
The RV Park is located on the fairgrounds property, near the back corner. The fairgrounds are small yet attractive. I can imagine this place during the annual fair, with the crowded livestock barns, food vendors and musical entertainment. I noticed a destruction derby is planned during this year’s fair in September.
The town of Tulelake is a rural town center. One edge of town hugs the main highway (139) and a bright white water tower boldly announces the town name. Many of the buildings along the main streets are boarded up, most of them appear to have been closed for many years (not just Covid-related). A couple of markets are open, as well as a burger place.
Tule Lanes appears to be a former bowling alley – oh, what I would give to be allowed to enter that building with my camera! (Assuming some of the old bowling alley equipment is still present.) Remnants of The Dude!
I didn’t take any photos of the RV park, it appears that many of the patrons are long term residents and I would feel a little too conspicuous snapping photos. Let’s just say we’ll all agree to leave each other in peace.
Tomorrow I’ll make the second leg of this travel stint and should arrive at the A-frame Rally in the early afternoon. It looks like there are some lane-closures on my route, so it might take a little longer than normal. Whatever “normal” is around here.
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EDIT: after publishing this post, I stepped outside and saw this last light of the day. This photo is taken in the RV park after all.
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Sunday (May 30) My last 24 hours at Jedediah Smith Redwoods Park were bittersweet. I knew I would miss the beauty of the campground, but the Memorial Day Weekend campers had begun to descend upon the park and it was getting very busy.
I awoke to sunny skies on Friday and decided to suck up as much solar power as possible. I spent the early afternoon chasing sunlight with my solar panels. I have a 120W suitcase-style panel that weighs 25 lbs. I also have a 100W thin flexible panel that weighs 4 lbs. I made some coupler cables so I could connect both panels to one charge controller, giving me the most amperage possible.
The forests here are magnificent, but they don’t allow for much useful solar charging time. I was able to give my battery a decent charge by continuously watching the little pockets of sunshine move through my campsite and position the solar panels accordingly. This recharge was enough to keep my refrigerator running another day, so I knew I was in good shape.
On Saturday I packed up and drove 0.7 miles to Redwood Meadows RV Park, located on HWY199 in Hiouchi. (Don’t call it “hootchie”, just sayin’) This RV park initially looked a little run down, but once I settled in to my spot I started to like it a lot more. Based on the infrastructure, it looks like an older RV park. It has large grass areas between the rows of spaces and plenty of trees. I was located in the row closest to the highway (right behind the gas station/deli), yet the road noise was subtle. I think the building helped block the sound. There are also some tent spaces as well as yurts, tiny houses and canvas cabins. The grounds are well kempt. Verizon does not know about this little hamlet and the on-site wireless network is weak and often drops connection. No problem, it’s a good time to stay off the grid and enjoy the surroundings.
Sunday was another sunny day. I drove about 3 miles over to the Stout Grove trailhead across the Smith River from Hiouchi. I had heard about Stout Grove from a couple of places and decided to check it out for photos. The trees are described as “not the largest trees” but they were impressive enough. The walking loop is about 1/2 mile with several little side trails. The nearby access, ample parking, restrooms and easy hike make this a very popular spot. Lots of families with small children were able to amble about through the tall trees and fallen logs. I spent about two hours in this area and would really love to come back on a drizzly day. I did my best to find photo opportunities that didn’t have much sunlight, instead looking for the even light of full shade. I used my tripod exclusively; I like the way the tripod slows me down and take a little longer to compose my photos.
Today will be my last day in California. Tomorrow I’ll drive about 20 miles to Brookings, Oregon and begin the coastal version of the trip. My friends Claudia and Bruce are also camping at Brookings, so it will be fun to spend time with them at a beach campground
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Here are some photos taken while visiting the Crescent City Area. Many of the redwood forest photos were taken within a couple hundred feet from the main highway. Just a short distance can feel like another world.
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Tuesday (May 25): Today marks the beginning of a five week road trip. Destinations include the Oregon and Washington coast, central Oregon and the Lassen area of Northern California. I’ll spend the last six days at a Lassen campground attending an A-frame camper get together.
With the Pilot and Aliner fully packed, I hit the road around 11:30am. Interstate 5 was predictably crowded with truckers; this is a major north/south transportation corridor. I headed north to Williams, then west to Highway 101, and continued north on 101 to Burlington Campground along the Avenue of the Giants. I planned to stay overnight there to break up the drive.
Burlington Campground is beautiful. The campsites are spread among the towering redwood trees (aka – the “Giants”). The campsites are designed for tent camping and small trailers. Several bicycle campers were staying there, as well as motorcycle campers and a few other trailers or Sprinter-type vehicles. On-site restrooms and showers are available, as well as a handy dish-washing station.
On Wednesday morning (May 26), I continued on my journey northward. Costco in Eureka was a popular (and affordable) place to buy gas and a forgotten loaf of bread. (Well, at Costco, you can’t buy just one loaf of bread)
Continuing north on HWY101, I noticed a couple of emergency road signs warning drivers of road restrictions ahead. The words “2 hour delay” got my attention. I pulled off the highway for a break and consulted the CalTrans website for more info. I learned a rock slide near Crescent City was under repair, with regular road closures (2 hours at a time) alternating with one-lane road openings for an hour. It turned out to be a one hour delay, so not a big deal. At least the road was open enough to get through. There were no desirable alternative routes.
I arrived at Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park in the later afternoon and set up in my campsite. I’ll be staying here for 3 nights. Another great campground! In the section I’m in, there are just a few spaces, and they are far apart. I’m surrounded by tall redwoods, layers of ferns and peace and quiet.
The campground has about 120 campsites, along with a few tiny cabins for rent. The Smith River borders one side of the campground. In the distance, I can hear the faint sounds of HWY 199, which connects Crescent City with Grants Pass, Oregon. Again, excellent restrooms and hot showers are available.
Thursday (May 27): Apparently, today is a good rain test of the new window installations. As I write this, a steady rain is filtering through the branches above me and pattering on the roof of my camper. As far as I can tell, the rain is staying on the outside. Fingers crossed.
A different challenge has presented itself, though. While driving the first day, I had the refrigerator set to run on 12v DC to keep it cold. It worked, but when I had arrived at the Burlington campground, the trailer battery was at about 60% charge. I determined that the refrigerator consumed much more 12v power than I expected, which didn’t leave much for charging the battery on the drive.
When I drove from Burlington to Crescent City, I turned off the refrigerator and let it “coast” while driving. This worked OK, the temperature didn’t drop too much and the battery got a fair amount of charge while driving on the road. However, is still wasn’t a full charge, and my arrival time at the Smith campground was too late to use the solar panel to provide an extra charge. Even though I would be running the refrigerator on propane, it still requires 12v to operate the control panel and ignitor.
I monitored the battery level into the evening and as it approached 60%, I shut off the refrigerator again to “coast” overnight. This worked, but I had to restart the fridge and continue to use the battery power. With the rain today, I knew I would have no chance to recharge the battery with solar. So….McGyver to the rescue.
I did a bit of re-wiring to disconnect the refrigerator from the trailer battery and connect the refrigerator to a portable rechargeable 12v power station. This removed all usage from the trailer battery. I’ll continue to monitor this method and if all my power sources are drained, I can move the cold food to an ice chest until I’m able to recharge the batteries. No biggie. The lesson learned is that the refrigerator will work fine on 12V while driving, but the first night after a long day on the road should include hookups so I can recharge the batteries.
So, with a rainy day, what is there to do? I am sitting in a rain forest, so it seems like a perfect day to get out and take some photos!
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Roadtripping with Ron 