We left Monterey, CA, on Saturday, May 24th. It was Memorial Day holiday weekend and we had to move on since the park was previously completely booked ahead of the holiday. We think it was a good thing after all!! Our campground was right behind the Monterey fairgrounds. The event for the holiday weekend was the California Festival. Apparently that meant a MUSIC festival! And not our kind of music either! Starting on Thursday evening, the music began and so loud it probably could have been heard in space! When music is that loud, the bass sound always seems louder so when the festival kicked off on Friday morning, that constant boom, boom, boom just grated on the nerves to the point of nausea by the end of the day. We know it was some kind of youth festival because we saw most of the young people walking to the concert dressed like hippies. On the internet, I looked up the concert and the names of the bands sounded like names from another world! Just weird or really funny names. Ah..youth. When young, we probably appeared to adults just weird when we reacted to the Beatles!
California is still hot and dry, so everything looks brown with no hint of green from the Spring. In the picture below, in the background, you can see the stark blue contrast of the San Luis Reservoir to the parched landscape. The reservoir was so far down and had been that way for so long that on one of the arms, trees were growing where there should be water. The reservoir is part of California’s water project for the aqueduct system.
We are spending a month at Coarsegold, CA, from May 24 to June 24 (hey, that’s my birthday) at the Park Sierra Escapee Park. The current name derives from the California Gold Rush of the mid-19th century, when prospectors discovered coarse nuggets of gold in a nearby creek. At one time, several dozen gold mines operated in the area. Coarsegold is about 40 miles from the south entrance to Yosemite National Park. On our way to the park, which is so close to Yosmite, we left Madera and turned onto highway 41. It was crazy! And that was almost an hour away! The traffic on the two lane road was almost bumper to bumper with people heading up to Yosemite. We went into Oakhurst Sunday morning and on the way back to the park, traffic was again one car after the other heading to Yosemite. Not us! We are waiting for a weekday when it won’t be so busy.
This is our 3rd stay at this park. The park is built on the side of the hill with roads that up wind and down and around from the entrance to the bottom. We tried to ride our bikes yesterday. Bad idea!! Going down is fine but the roads are so steep that us ole folks had to walk all the way back up! The sites are graded and level with a concrete slab and they tried to leave as many trees as possible when building the park with the all volunteer workers. This is a Co-Op park, meaning people lease a lot and when not in the park, the lot is put in a rental pool for other Escapee members to use. Many folks have fixed their lots up with nice landscaping, pavers, etc. This is one of our favorite parks because the way the sites are laid out makes each one large and very private. Some sites have views of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the distance.
A big hello from Doug! You can see, also, that the hood of the truck is raised. That is to keep critters from building nests under the hood and chewing on the wiring and other parts. Even now we can hear the squirrels using the top of the RV as an extra branch as they go from tree to tree. The park is full of squirrels, Gambil’s quail, pretty birds, etc. There is even deer and a few feral cats.
We have already been just a mile up the road to the casino for their great buffet. Doug got his free on Memorial Day because he is a veteran. We even made it to the ice cream social on Sunday afternoon and ‘breakfast in a bag’ on Monday morning. Breakfast in a bag’ is made by putting 2 eggs in a plastic bag, squish it around good, add cheese, tomatoes, bacon, or anything else you wish. Squeeze all the air possible out, then drop into boiling water until the egg is set. Very tasty!
AGAIN! The fan capacitor on the AC broke. Of course, It happened on the hottest days when we need it the most! Everything worked fine for about a week. So we have ordered TWO more. We were lucky to find an RV service place about 35 miles down the road closer to Fresno, CA. Just means more work for Doug in the heat.
It is very hot here with temperatures in the 90s. It may cool off a little next week. It is so dry that a large fire started in Hunter Valley-Meraposa County about 50 miles northwest of us. Very scary! I am watching the reports often! We hope to visit Yosemite again (our 4th time), plus Bass Lake near Yosemite, then take a day’s drive to Sequoia National Park. We are definitely going to wait for nice cooler days before we explore.
NV is dry and brown most places as well as hot. I keep saying we need to get further north so it will cool off. I'm getting tired of the heat. Thank goodness our air is working really well. Have a fantastic time. Yosemite is something else. And here's hoping for no fires.
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