We were out of Kaweah Park Resort by about nine-something this morning because we knew we had a long drive ahead of us. We headed west back down CA-198 until we got to the Visalia area where we turned northwest on CA-99. Old CA-99 is a limited access highway but the slow lane has been hammered by continuous use by commercial and farm vehicles for about 60 years so the paving is terrible. In California, the speed limit for 3 or more axles is 55 and without being able to go faster, we are doomed to live in the lumpy lane. The only other option to get to our destination was to wander east into the farmlands and foothills of the Sierras on CA-49 which has a bad reputation among those in RV’s.
We passed a guy in a dooly Dodge pulling a large fifth wheel on 99 but he turned off and took 49. We were big chickens and stayed on the lumpy 99 until we got to Modesto where we headed east on CA-108/120. Our way was about 50 miles longer heading for Thousand Trails Yosemite Lakes east of Buck’s Meadow but, other than a a moderately terrifying ascent up New Priest Grade, the road was pretty good. New Priest Grade, with 8 corkscrew miles of 10% grades, has replaced Old Priest Grade which becons lunatics with a bit less than 5 miles of 17% grade. The state forbids loads greater than 7500 pounds on the old grade.
At the top of the guardrail-free gut-churning ascent the road changes from straight up to steep ascents and declines as it passes through Big Oak Flat, Groveland and Buck’s Meadow on the way to Yosemite Lakes TT. The campground is about 7 miles from the Highway 120 entry to Yosemite NP which we will visit tomorrow. Just as we were pulling away from the registration office, we noted the guy with the Dodge dooly and big trailer we spotted on 99 was just pulling into the campground. He indicated that the shorter route on CA-49 was not only slower but frighteningly loaded with sharp turns, narrow roads and declines that had his brakes smoking. I’m glad we were chicken.
To get a glimpse of Priest Grade, click here

This morning we got up, had a bit of coffee but no breakfast, jumped into the truck and drove up the hill into Sequoia National Park. The road from Three Rivers (elevation 800′) to Moro Rock (elevation 7000’+) is quite twisty and narrow, but the scenery is stunning. California got some rain and snow this year so all the waterfalls, riverbeds and creek beds are swollen with water. We came through this way back in autumn of 2014 and all the watercourses were dry and the hills were brown.
Now the hills in the park are emerald green instead of gray and brown like in ’14. The dogwoods are in glorious bloom. The redwoods look lush although they are always impressive due to their gigantic proportions. Many trees over 20′ diameter and over 300′ in height line the highway as you pass through the park.
The Kaweah River, which was only a series of brackish puddles the last time we were here, is raging up in the park and is also very impressive as it passes right outside our living room window in our campground in the village of Three Rivers. The rain this last year have made all the difference.
We followed the road through the park taking every side road we could until we Wuksachi Lodge where we turned around and headed back down the same screwy road toward Three Rivers. Beyond Wuksachi the Sequoia Road only runs a bit further before entering King’s Canyon National Park. Due to our extremely low speed driving today, we just didn’t have sufficient time to continue into the adjacent park and still make it down the squirrely highway before dark. We found a shady pullout along the road and stopped for some grub that Peggy had been bright enough to bring along. If I would have been responsible for lunch, we probably would have arrived back home hungry.
The drive and scenery along the road from Three Rivers up through Sequoia is magnificent and ranks right up there with Colorado’s Hwy 12, Yosemite, the Shenandoah Valley, Custer State Park and the Black Hills for pure unadulterated majesty. Although off the beaten path, this is certainly a trip to include in your bucket list.
We got a few snapshots along today’s route and you can see them if you click here

We gathered up our stuff, packed it away and departed from Soledad Canyon TT leaving the weird little quail behind. We started on CA-2, transitioned to CA-14 northbound, turned west on CA-58 into the alleged fun capitol of the world of Bakersfield where we turned north on Ca-65 up to Ca-198 eastbound to Three Rivers, a tiny town at the door of Sequoia National Park.
The drive today mostly passed through massive fruit tree orchards north of Bakersfield. It is no surprise that California feeds a big portion of the world. Maybe they should secede to shield their citizens from the burdens of federal government meddling and the strange, convoluted policies of the Trump administration regarding deportation of the low-hanging fruit of immigrants, Russian spy national security advisers, firing of government employees because they had the audacity to argue constitutional law and reason with the Cheeto Jesus, bombing of abandoned airfields in far-off lands, killing of service personnel for no political gain, massive bomb strikes on vacant land in Afghanistan, health care that will only benefit the affluent (who are already insured) while depriving those who need it and outright bullshit flowing in abundance from the New York realtor’s Putin cockholster (thanks, Colbert!) of a mouth. It seems 48% of the population can, indeed, be wrong. How is it possible that a country as great as the U.S. Can have a genuine bozo in power? The news frightens me every day this narcissistic megalomaniac remains in power.

Acton is a tiny little place but we hit the restaurant jackpot here twice. Yesterday we got a great breakfast at Crazy Otto’s and today we found The Cabana, a terrific Mexican restaurant. Who would have thought there would be two really great places to eat in one tiny part of the world?
We feasted on chicken enchiladas, beef tamales, carnitas enchiladas (which I have never had before but will order every time I can in the future), tasty refried beans, rice and very light and crispy fresh tortilla chips. We chased the food down with a couple of Negra Modelos and departed about $50 poorer, including tip.
From The Cabana, we took a short exploratory drive to Vasquez Rocks, an L.A. County natural area. It is also the place where dozens of westerns have been filmed. As soon as we entered the park, I could see massive granite formations that have been plainly visible in the backgrounds of the Virginian, Gunsmoke and movies, too. I also seemed to recognize the background from a Star Trek episode in which Captain Kirk was forced to do battle with a cheesy rubber monster called a Gorn. It would have been easy to get a scenic background here while actually filming cornball action in the foreground. Vasquez Rocks is just off CA-14 as drivers from L.A. approach Palmdale.
We stopped by a grocery, loaded fuel and dropped by the post office before our departure from the Acton area tomorrow. Barring mishaps, we should be near Kings Canyon / Sequoia NP at the end of tomorrow’s drive.
Vasquez Rocks photos are available if you click here

This morning we elected to forego cooking for ourselves and to turn the breakfast chores over to paid locals instead. After my morning fortified coffee ritual, we were on the road by about 10:00. We cruised the four miles back into downtown Acton, if any, and found our way into a place called Crazy Otto’s. In accordance with my nationwide quest to find the best chicken fried steak, I ordered some and it was great. I give Otto’s CFS a third place on my imaginary list of the great diners serving this tasty but probably unhealthy dish. Dean’s in Clackamas, OR and Jake’s in Bend, OR, currently hold first and second places, respectively. The eggs and hash browns were also excellent. Peggy got a tremendous mound of food called a Hobo’s Breakfast consisting of eggs, onions, mushrooms, potatoes and green peppers scrambled together. A large amount of the mound’s acreage went home in a box. With one drink, we were out the door for $30.
Later, Peg indicated she was not feeling tip-top so we drove back to the Barbarian Invader and postponed our explorations of the local area until later. She shortly felt better but by that time she was flummoxed because I sat down to watch some NASCAR racing. We loafed and were dull the rest of the afternoon. In the evening the skies became cloudy and we had a few tiny wispy rains that were just enough for dust control. No leaks detected in our cozy home.

By 10:00 AM this morning we were happily on our way out of Thousand Trails Wilderness Lakes and the stifling high temperatures there, headed north on I-215. Traffic was very good through Riverside County and onto I-15 except for the folks headed south because there was a big, lane-blocking wreck that backed traffic up for not less than 10 miles when we flew by going the other way.
Partway up Cajon Pass we turned northwest on CA-138, skirting the north side of the San Gabriel Mountains. 138 passes over a 5000′ hump before starting a long, gradual descent into the desert towns of Lancaster and Palmdale. It is a single lane each way road and there was some construction in progress so passage was a bit slow. Fortunately, the mountains on both sides of the road are very pretty. There was even a bit of snow on the north faces of the mountains on the left side of our route.
In the unincorporated community of Acton, we turned off the main highway and found our way to the Soledad Canyon Thousand Trails Campground. Soledad Canyon seems to be right at the line separating climate zones; below us is desert scrub; we are camped in a grove of hardwoods, junipers and pinon pines and we can see pine forests above us on the mountains to the south. Vasquez Rocks, an L.A. County Park, is not far from our RV spot.
There are a family of very rotund quail, some scrub jays, big croaky ravens and a variety of small songbirds that visit us in the afternoon, maybe because we liberally bait ’em. The quail have plumage that is very detailed, right up to the little teardrop-shaped dingledork things sticking out the tops of their puny heads. The young quail have a substandard dingledork that just looks like a black post emanating from their tiny brains. Feeding disputes among the youngsters consist of pushing matches that result in two losers and a small amount of dust. The mature quail are twitchy by nature so their staccato, erratic feeding efforts result in wild, random dingledork gyrations that are almost impossible to follow without high-speed photo equipment. Pretty, but strange, birds.
It is a bit cooler here than where we were in Menifee this morning. Low 80s and a nice variable breeze from the west compelled us to set up our Barbarian Invader, open all the windows and climb inside for some power napping. Boy, do I like this retirement stuff. We’ll possibly get in some exploring of the Greater Acton Area tomorrow.
Some of the tubby quail can be seen in today’s pix by clicking here

Due to crummy scheduling on my part, we are still in Menifee. It is over 100 degrees here. We tried to keep the trailer as airtight as possible and to stay inside where it is air conditioned. We apparently were a bit late on our departure from the southland because since we left San Diego, it has only gotten hotter and the purpose of going north was to avoid the stifling hot temperatures by heading into the northern half of the U.S.
We jumped on the internet and started scoping out our next destinations. We managed to make some campground reservations for the next week or two and to map out our route up the western side of the Sierra Nevada Range toward Mount Shasta and Cascade Siskiyou National Monument on the Oregon border. We cannot dawdle – it is just too damn hot to stay in California.

In yesterday’s entry, I vowed to find something interesting to do in the Menifee, CA, locale where we are set up in the Wilderness Lakes Thousand Trails facility. Today, I was wholly unsuccessful at finding anything interesting to do within 50 miles so we resorted to taking care of mundane chores.
We drove into Temecula and bought some stuff for our trailer maintenance. Afterwards, we attempted to go on a hot date which for old retirees like us consists of a nice ride through a local automatic car wash. We found one near the RV store and pulled in for a $9 cleaning. After waiting in line to enter the tunnel of fun, we pulled up on the entry apron and a local teenager inspected our car for something. The teenager disappeared through a door soon to be replaced by a very short guy in a snappy uniform. He told us we could not go through the car wash because there were items in the truck bed and I guess that is a no-no. By the time we were finished speaking, a long line of cars had gathered behind us along the serpentine, single-lane entry drive. Backing up was not an option. We had paid with a credit card so the snappy dresser went into his closet and credited us our cyber money before letting me know that among the myriad of entryway signs directing traffic according to member status, credit card use, cash only, width and height restrictions are signs warning idiots like me that in this car wash, only empty truck beds can be washed.
Shorty and the teenager then shut down the entire car wash mechanism and wandered into the dim tunnel of fun. There, they pulled away brush assemblies from the track and motioned us through the still-dripping tunnel. Our car wash date did not turn out to be as magical as we had anticipated.
Next stop was the post office so Peg could send some packages while I malingered in the parking lot. Malingering was another poor idea because not long after I turned off the truck engine, I was obliged to open the windows because it was getting quite warm. Once the windows were down, I noted it was even worse. It is 100 degrees here without a cloud in the sky. Peggy soon emerged from the P.O. and we scampered back toward our campground to get out of the miserable weather.
Along about dusk, we watched as another trailer camper attempted to move into a nearby space. Like most RV parks, the spaces are not aligned at right angles to the roads. The space he was attempting to access was also a pull-thru which means the space can be accessed by merely pulling in while traveling forward from a nearby adjacent road. Our neighbor had elected to use non-typical means to claim the site. His fifth wheel trailer was very large – maybe 40 feet.
He started by coming from the wrong direction for backing up; the trailer needed to turn more than 90 degrees. If he had continued down the road maybe 50 feet and performed two left turns, he could have driven directly in (and out later) without much engine revving from him and wild gesticulating from his spouse. In Las Vegas, they call this “trying to make your point the hard way.” After about 20 minutes and maybe a half dozen forward and back moves coupled with more clattering Dodge diesel noises, the couple had landed their trailer almost bisecting their campsite diagonally and leaving scant locations to park their tow vehicle. We enjoyed watching folks make the same mistakes we made in the past. We don’t feel as stupid anymore.

Sorry, folks. We have been off the ‘net for a while but now we are back on the road again. We have spent the last month near our house in San Diego to see some of our friends and, most importantly, to attend our son, Sam’s, wedding. We were unable to find time to see some of our friends but maybe next time. We also took our beloved Charlotte in for some repairs and maintenance, got the moving parts of our Barbarian Invader serviced (bearings, brakes, appliance services) and spent the last few days stocking up on supplies for a long trip.
Sam and Kathleen were married on April 22nd in a small but stunning ceremony in San Diego’s Heritage Park, a gorgeous venue. Our daughter, Dana, was the officiant and the choir. There was such a small crowd I was surprised we were invited. Sam and Kate are not real skookum on crowds.
We checked out of San Diego’s Thousand Trails Pio Pico Preserve this morning headed north. We drove north on I-15 up to Temecula where we stopped at a Les Schwab tire store to have a wonky trailer tire’s inflation issue resolved by those who installed the tire originally and they were very nice and efficient. The tire guys identified the problem very quickly, fixed it and sent us on our way. We continued north to Menifee where we pulled into the TT Wilderness Lakes facility. We have been here before. We originally scheduled 3 days here because we thought we would be taking the trailer to the shop tomorrow. Getting the tire fixed today has a downside, however. We will now be staying here for the 3 days without any interesting activities because Menifee is not the sort of place where folks go to enjoy abundant natural or man-made wonders. As a matter of fact, it is devoid of almost everything that makes other places more enjoyable. There are no lakes. There are houses. Numerous roads and vast adjacent tracts of land are dirt. There are cattle and chicken egg farm facilities nearby that are diligently supporting the hatching and raising of agressive flies.There are some big earthen dams housing emergency water supplies for Los Angeles. There is a nearby deactivated Air Force base. It’s pretty dull. It is also hotter than hell. It was 95 when we arrived today so we set up the trailer, turned on the air conditioning and climbed inside for some power naps and TV viewing until the temperature dropped below miserable. Maybe we will find something interesting to do tomorrow.