24. Apr, 2016

MONDAY 14-04-08 

Today we were up at 06:45 and on the road by 08:00. This made a huge difference to our progress. Our journey took us many miles on US395, our old friend from yesterday, and then Interstate 80. We normally think of Interstates as really wide fast super-highways – not I80. I’ve driven on better roads in the Third World. The road surface as we crossed the Sierra Nevada Range was dreadful, especially in the nearside lane, which I did try to keep out of whenever possible, much to the annoyance of other motorists who were forced to overtake on our inside on the roughest surface of all which is where they wanted me to travel. It was full of potholes, huge strips of missing tarmac, patchwork tarmac repairs and deep grooves. It would have been very easy to lose control at any speed in that lane. Even driving Canadian Tri-Star ambulances for a number of years couldn’t prepare me for these handing difficulties. At this altitude I guess the bad road surface was due to the winter weather.

The landscape after we passed Sacramento, the state capital of California, changed dramatically. It became very flat, fertile land, just like The Fens back home, and it went on for mile after mile. 

We arrived here in San Francisco at about 13:30. When I say San Francisco I mean Marin County just across the water. To get in to the city we need to take a 40 minute bus ride or a ferry. We’re not at all impressed with the campground, I wanted to cancel the booking and leave but the receptionist said the KOA campground which was my second choice was about 30 miles out of the city. Anyhow we’re here a day early and rather than extend the stay by a day we’re going to move on and use the extra day somewhere else. It’s really quite windy here and as a consequence we are not leaving the slide-out unit deployed as the wind can damage the small awning which rolls out above it, so it looks as if we’re going to get rocked to sleep tonight as we sway in the breeze. 

We do now have the luxury of Cable TV having purchased the necessary cabling. I’m not too sure why we’re bothering really given the standard of American television, it is absolutely abysmal, just third rate sitcoms with canned laughter. It has to be canned because a real live audience just wouldn’t laugh at it. News channels aren’t much better; no story is too mundane, trivial, or boring to be reported. A ‘World News’ bulletin we watched consisted of an item about American troops in Iraq, then a gorilla being artificially inseminated at a zoo somewhere outside of America, and then to home news. It is easy to understand why America is such a very insular thinking nation. Their press and TV doesn't give them the opportunity to have an understanding of what is going on beyond their borders. The main use we have for television is to get the weather forecasts so that we know what to wear and what, if any, precautions to take to protect ourselves and the RV. 

LOCATION TONIGHT:  Marin RV Park, 2140 Redwood Hwy, Greenbrae, CA. www.marinrvpark.com   www.VisitMarin.org (GPS: N31.941261 W122.514310)

24. Apr, 2016

24. Apr, 2016

24. Apr, 2016

SUNDAY 13-04-08 

I popped over the road for a shower at the swimming pool this morning and took a closer look at the complex. Basically it’s on either side of US190. On one side are the campground pitches, gas station and General Store, and on the other side the motel rooms, guest rooms with Wi-Fi connection, bar, restaurant, office and swimming pool – all this in the middle of nowhere. It’s absolutely wonderful and we wished we could have stayed another day, but we needed to move on to get us to the edge of Yosemite Park. 

The climb out of Death Valley was really quite an experience. Leaving west on US190 then US136 on the way to Lone Pine we climbed 5,000ft in to the Sylvania Mountains in 30 minutes – before dropping 4,000ft, then climbing up another 4,000ft. It was a real corkscrew of a road, very narrow in places with sharp turns, many with pronounced cambers, and so it really did feel as if we were on a roller coaster. The route down was very steep and the brakes got pretty hot and smelly, but there seemed to be no option other than to keep the speed under control with the brake pedal. I’d tried using the gearbox to slow us down but that sent the engine revs through the roof. After the worst was finally over The Chef said that today had given her two memorable experiences. Firstly Death Valley, one of the loveliest places she’d ever visited, and secondly the most frightening road trip of her life. I could tell she had been tense as all I could see out of the corner of my eye was her hand firmly gripping the armrest on her seat. As she’s not keen on heights I think she did really well. I estimate the poor RV has today climbed the equivalent of Mount Everest, and much of it very steeply. This gets reflected in the fuel economy, but she didn’t miss a beat, and the temperature gauge didn’t move towards ‘hot’ which surprised me. I now have a better understanding of why Americans have vehicles with such large, powerful engines. 

We made our way to Lone Pine then turned left on to US395, as it turned out we were to stay on this road for a number of miles. The plan was to stop overnight at Lee Vining on the shores of Mono Lake ready to drive through Yosemite National Park and camp at Groveland on the other side. Unfortunately US120 through Yosemite Park was closed. On the maps it says ‘Closed in winter’, but they close it for 6 months of the year. They don’t open it until May. It’s a bit like being back at school when the central heating radiators went on at a given date and turned off on another, irrespective of the weather, that’s how it felt about US120. True there was snow on the mountains and in places it came down close to the roads, but it was in the process of melting. There’s no doubt that the road would be quite passable and safe, it just wasn’t May 1st yet. The Chef popped in to the local Tourist information Office at Lee Vining (elevation 7,000ft) on the southwest shore of Mono Lake, where she was given an alternative route to take, but that was at the top end of the park and on a more minor road, and we’d about had enough of hairy mountain motoring for today. 

Despite the problems The Chef and I agreed that California has given us non-stop spectacular scenery since the moment we entered Death Valley yesterday. 

Disappointed, we decided to wild camp somewhere further up the road and then head straight for San Francisco in the morning, gaining another day on the schedule. We passed through Bridgeport, a really pretty place with clapboard houses, attracting tourists who visit the nearby Travertine Hot Springs, before stumbling across a Wal-Mart Supercentre at Carson Valley, just outside Carson City, Nevada. We took the opportunity to do some shopping and use their car park for the night. 

After our evening meal of hot spit-roasted chicken and salad from Wal-Mart and not the barbecue we had originally planned, I decided to use a tooth pick as I can’t get on with floss. Before we came on this trip I spent a fortune with my private dentist attaining ‘Oral good health’ in the hope of avoiding American dentists, therefore I was more than a little disappointed when I managed to lever off  a lump of tooth. I must now track down a white coated millionaire in the hope they can give me a temporary repair. Luckily it’s all insured, but it’s still inconvenient. 

LOCATION TONIGHT: Wal-Mart car park, Carson Valley, Nevada (GPS: N39.188921 W119757590)

24. Apr, 2016