Our adventure for today took us to the Hetch Hetchy Valley. The Valley is within Yosemite National Park and runs basically parallel to Yosemite Valley which is over one big ridge to the south. John Muir, American naturalist, described the Hetch Hetchy Valley as being just as stunning as Yosemite Valley. Unfortunately, in the early 1930s the City of San Francisco claimed Hetch Hetchy and built the O’Shaunessey Dam blocking the Tuolumne River and creating a 2,000 acre reservoir. The valley is now under water. John Muir argued unsuccessfully to put the dam elsewhere but he, and all the rest of the world, were thwarted and a bunch of make-work WPA employees showed up and drowned the scenery forever.

The reservoir and surrounding mountains are still quite spectacular. Thousand foot waterfalls fall from the adjacent granite bluffs directly into the reservoir. When we were there, the dam operators were running the powerhouse turbines and the discharges were spewing from the face of the dam, crashing a couple hundred feet into the chasm below. There is so much spray coming from the discharges that it rains up on top of the dam, even in bright sunshine. The Tuolumne River then continues downstream into an area called the Poopenaut Valley (no kidding) which seems to be named after municipal sewer pipe spelunkers but it is still breathtakingly beautiful and very rugged terrain. Recent rains have greatly helped the trees and flowers in the area although the tree-kill from the last ten years of nasty drought is evident.

The 18 mile long road in and out is narrow, twisty and bumpy but the drive is certainly worth the slow, lumpy ride. We would have been delighted to see the Valley before it was flooded but we aren’t old enough. The granite cliffs and mountains, large mountain meadows, and intermittent forests along the drive are magnificent and the Valley ain’t bad either.

There’s photos. Click the link. https://photos.app.goo.gl/zXPBusGwvy9JC2ow5

Today we left Delhi, near Merced, and headed east into the Sierras. The first two-thirds of the drive passes through extensive agricultural lands with seemingly millions of fruit and nut trees lining the roads. However, after the almost-town of Chinese Camp on CA-120, the road starts to wander around and over hills until it abruptly arrives at the bottom of Priest Grade. There are two roads up the grade. One of the roads (Old Priest Grade) has inclines up to 17% and is restricted to vehicles with a gross weight of less than 7,500 pounds. Since our truck and trailer collectively weigh 20,000 pounds, we chose the other road (New Priest Grade) which climbs at a steady 7% or 8% for 10 miles and follows a path that is quite serpentine. It is one lane each way. I hope the brakes work properly when we go back down in a week. If they don’t, there could be some trouser soiling.

Peggy has never been real happy riding shotgun when the view out the window is sky because she doesn’t want to look into the chasm that exists about 6 inches past the fog line. Quite a bit of this terrifying road does not have guardrails so I was careful to keep our fifty-one foot long truck & trailer between the center line and the edge of certain death. Peggy chose a better method – she ate a Xanax prior to our arrival at this E-ticket ride. She never twitched once on the ride up.

After considerable white-knuckling, we arrived at the top of the grade and continued on into Groveland, a tiny community with buildings erected immediately adjacent to the road making for driving caution to avoid running over oblivious tourists, most of them eating ice cream while meandering around town, suddenly stepping off the narrow boardwalks into the highway and malingering in imaginary crosswalks. Another 20 miles or so up the road, we turned into the Yosemite Lakes Thousand Trails Preserve.

We set the trailer up in a big grass field surrounded by towering pines. The south fork of the Tuolumne River passes by the edge of the RV spots. It is very pretty here, particularly when one realizes this is an RV park.

We packed up our stuff, folded up our chairs and took down our bird feeder before departing from Lemon Cove Village RV Park and continued our mostly northward trek. We backtracked west on CA-198 for about 20 miles into Visalia where we turned north on CA-99. We set in for a long drive up the freeway through Fresno and Madera, stopping 20 miles later in a place called Delhi. In Delhi, which doesn’t seem to exist, we pulled into the Merced River RV Resort, a private campground with full hookups, a laundry, a pool and lots of other stuff we rarely use or visit. The roads are a bit skinny but the place is well-maintained and has large hardwood trees offering ample shade and no satellite reception. Fortunately, they have rudimentary CATV with about a dozen channels. Three of the channels are affiliated with the Fox Network which seems to be operated by right-wing, conspiracy-spouting fascist goon Nazi types. We have stopped here because it is close to a Costco and a Smart & Final grocery where we can stock up on vittles before heading up the road to Yosemite for a week.

We drove for the last two days so we laid low today. We did take a short spin up to Lake Kahwea where many of the Corps of Engineers campgrounds are partially submerged in the lake due to abundant rainfall this year in California. We could see large expanses of grass, picnic tables, lantern hooks, roads and fish processing sinks, blurry under the water at the lake’s edge. Apparently, it has been so many years since the lake was full or overfull, they forgot where the water level was such that improvements would remain dry.

We also stopped for fuel and at a stand that advertised avocados but only had oranges. We malingered at the campground through the rest of the day, feeding the birds and yakking in our new, comfy folding chairs while seated in the shade.

CSee photos. Click the link. https://photos.app.goo.gl/fTQFbQx39Rx4bTnG9

We woke up this morning to the happy sounds of about two dozen sparrows, blackbirds, cowbirds, purple finches, Black-headed grosbeaks and a few chubby doves discussing seed distribution policies below our feeder. They were quite hungry or very efficient because they almost drained the feeder in less than 24 hours.

We jumped up, fortified ourselves with breakfast and enhanced coffee and hopped into our pickup, Charlotte, and headed up CA-198, by Lake Kahwea, through Three Rivers and on into Sequoia National Park. Our Interagency Geezer Pass got us through the gate without charge. CA-198 is a screwy road into the park and we pushed on up the switchbacks all the way to the Giant Forest Museum & Visitor Center which sits in the midst of some truly magnificent redwood trees. Once in the park, 198 becomes General’s Highway. Despite it being about 80 degrees down in Lemon Cove at about 500 foot elevation, it was pretty chilly up here at around 7000 foot elevation. There was quite a bit of snow alongside the road and on all the slopes above the road.

The terrain here is spectacular cliffs, huge boulders, vigorous creeks and rivers all filling in the scenery behind the gigantic redwood trees, The road through the park meanders along the ridge line between 6500′ and 7000′. We continued along the General’s Highway for about 30 miles of stunning scenery, stopping in many of the turnouts and viewpoints along the way. At Grant Grove, we turned on CA-180 and began a long descent into King’s Canyon National Park. I can’t remember where one can see a bigger elevation change that is so abrupt. The bottom of the canyon is at about 4000′ and the surrounding mountains that are the canyon walls top out above 10,000′. The rock formations here are otherworldly, impressive and very steep. After dropping about 2000 feet, we turned around and headed for a place called Hume Lake. The road in is an unmarked, lane-and-a-half wide downslope at about 8% but we didn’t meet anything we couldn’t get by and eventually arrived at the lake. Strangely, considering this is federal land, there is a well-developed Christian goon camp here with numerous apartment-style barracks, a big store, a common dining hall big enough for a regiment and lots of stuff that brave souls can use to go out on the lake. Since the lake is glacial snowmelt, there were no takers on the water sports but there were ample numbers of people about wearing clothes like my mom made me wear in 1967. There no brothers visible.

We drove back up out of King’s Canyon and back through Grant Grove where we picked up CA-180 again. About 5 miles later, we turned down down CA-245 which did not look very twisty on our atlas. The atlas was full of shit because CA-245 might be the curviest road we have ever driven. The distance from the 180/245 split to Woodland was probably only about 40 or 50 miles but it took us two hours to drive it. What it lacks in linearity it more than makes up for in beautiful mountain scenery followed by oak forest and eventually fruit groves in Woodland. The flowers were out in force. From Woodland it was just about a 15 minute drive back to our RV park in Lemon Cove. We made it home in time for cocktails.

There’s a few pictures. Click the link. https://photos.app.goo.gl/JKWhevpf5juaHBNYA

Today we pulled up stakes in Acton and boogied north. In the morning, as we drove the few miles from Acton to Lancaster, the wind started to blow with gusts that seemed right up around 60 mph. As we continued north on CA-14, I was busy trying to keep the truck and trailer in one lane, maybe because the side of our trailer looks like a billboard and the effects of crosswinds are harrowing. We continued up toward Mojave and the wind slowly backed off. Right about the time we turned west toward Tehachapi, the wind almost quit and made the long descent into Bakersfield easy.

In Bakersfield we turned north on CA-99 and began a long run through abundant agriculture. There certainly are a bunch of citrus groves but the only way I could identify the plants was because there were lots of oranges on the ground. In Visalia, we turned east and followed the road about 20 miles until we spotted the Lemon Cove Village RV Park and Campground. It is located right between stands of oaks and orange (or maybe lemon) groves. There are full hookups, a pool, a dog park, a little store and mature shade trees. It is pretty here. We put the bird feeder out right away because there are birds everywhere.

We called a few repair facilities in the local area to see if we could bring in our fifth wheel and truck to have them exorcise the demons from our braking system. We also called the guys down in Menifee who did last week’s diagnosis and they stated the codes that were being shown in the past indicated some wiring or magnet anomaly but crummy ground could be the problem. Peggy and I were about to hook the trailer up to the truck for a test drive when one of the repair joints said they could see us in a few hours. We hooked the trailer to the truck in earnest and started our careful pull to Lancaster. I knew we would have to be extremely cautious because the last time the truck was hooked to the trailer the brake controller in the cab was trying to tell us something about a mysterious short in the brakes and the brakes seconded the motion when they quit functioning at an idle. It was particularly worrisome in city traffic since the brakes were compromised in stop-and-go driving and we weigh 10 tons.

After manually applying the brakes in the campground, we pulled out onto the road and the brake controller worked perfectly. We drove around for a bit, stopping and going, doing panic stops, applying the brakes during prolonged idling and adjusting the brakes for daily use. We drove a few miles up to CA-14 and bought diesel before returning through both city and open-road driving and the brakes worked perfectly. No cryptic codes were displayed on the controller at any time.

It seems that my replacing the slightly funky looking ground terminal was the trick. Who’d athought? Anyway, we drove back to Soledad Canyon, pulled into exactly the same space and set up for another day. We did not have to re-arrange our schedule and I can quit being a fretful crybaby about our RV. We called the repair guys and told them we would not be bringing in the Invader. I think I will drink some whiskey.

Since we have spent the last two days driving, we intended to lurk around the Soledad Canyon Thousand Trails campground today. This allowed me plenty of time to become more apprehensive and distressed about our new trailer brake controller that was sending frightening code displays when I was braking last Thursday on our way here from Wilderness Lakes. Nobody in the mobile RV repair business works Sundays so calling for help was right out.

Despite being almost completely ignorant about electrical braking systems, we still elected to wander outside our trailer to check out that about which we knew nothing. Peggy crawled under the Barbarian Invader and checked out all the trailer brake wiring at the business end. No wiring flaws or scrapes or broken stuff was detected. I, meanwhile, stared at some of the trailer brake wiring under the hood of the truck. I did note that the trailer brake controller ground wire at the battery didn’t look too sanitary so I put on a new terminal and reattached the ground wire. I have considerable doubt we fixed anything.

After doing almost nothing, we called off our efforts and retired to the trailer where I started researching repair facilities between us and our next destination. We found a promising facility in Lancaster but they do not answer the phone on Sundays so we’ll give them a jingle in the morning. We also prepared to call the next few RV park we were scheduled to visit on our way north so we could tell them we were going to arrive behind schedule.

My Dad always seemed like a pretty bright guy to me but he had some interesting personality quirks. Back in the 60’s, there was a tremendous amount of interest in the SST or Super Sonic Transport jet aircraft. Many pundits believed that supersonic passenger and cargo aircraft were the way to the future. These types of aircraft have a some serious but apparently ignored flaws one being that when decelerating from or accelerating to supersonic speeds, there would be impressive sonic booms.

An entire metropolitan area with many isolated neighborhoods was laid out, some utilities were installed and many roads were anticipated in the area now filled with the cities of Lancaster and Palmdale. Giant aircraft manufacturers and contractors flocked to the area because there was to be an airport long enough to land SSTs and plenty of room to have sonic booms over mostly uninhabited desert. Building contractors were busy with abundant construction. Paradise was looming. There were plans to create lakes although the soil looks a bit porous to me. Land sales boomed.

My Dad, despite being an aerospace engineer, reckoned he could get a real estate license and make a little money selling acreage to the looming population. Unfortunately, right about that time reality set in when even the most ardent SST supporters finally admitted that the SST concept had additional previously glossed-over but fatal flaws. The things sucked fuel. Their cargo carrying capacities were unimpressive. They were shaped like rockets with very skinny fuselages making passenger capacity was so low that passengers would be required to pay a bunch more for all the fuel needed to make them go fast. There were few airports with surrounding populations that were deaf so destinations were limited. My Dad really wanted to sell some of the unremarkable desert to someone before the land boom went bust so he sold 5 acres to himself. My sister thinks he paid about $12K.

The flawed airport and aircraft concepts were abandoned. The aircraft manufacturers vanished. Despite the setbacks, Palmdale and Lancaster collectively have a population of over 300,000. Perhaps those buying in early preferred to live here and commute to the Los Angeles Basin than to move again back into a smaller house in the city. They were trapped. Many years of static land values ensued.

When my Dad passed away a few years ago, my siblings and I inherited the 5 acres he sold himself back in the Nixon Administration. A probate guy went out to Palmdale and found the property way beyond the last paved road east of Lancaster in what was supposed to be the proposed, nearly imaginary neighborhood of Hi Vista. His best estimate of the land’s value was $10.00.

Skipping ahead to today; my sister Julie and her crony, Steve, drove from their comfy digs over in Pasadena out to our RV camp at Soledad Canyon where we all piled into our spacious truck and went out to see our legacy. Steve was our navigator once we traveled through Lancaster and was the only one in the truck that knew anything about the area. Julie, Peggy and I were completely ignorant of anything local. I guided us down the wrong road for a bit but soon we accessed a state highway and then a freeway up to Lancaster. There we turned off and headed east on what may be the longest straight city street in the world. Miles in the distance, the same road could be seen until cresting a ridgetop. We drove for quite a while before we drove over the ridge where the same arrow-straight road could be seen crossing the next distant ridge. We were looking looking for a road intersection called H.8 and 255^th and we started out in Lancaster at 1^st Street.

With Steve’s steadfast map perusal and accurate dead reckoning, we found the family lands. The estate is partway up a gradual slope so there is an expansive view of the abundant surrounding nothingness. All the roads are dirt. Water seems to be available from a leaky water station at H.8 and 250^th where we spotted a guy filling a plastic water tank in the back of a pickup truck. Perhaps he was the local water delivery guy but while he was filling his tank, water seemed to be spouting out of many locations on the infrastructure. Across the street from the family manse, there is a resourceful group with about 10,000 square feet of tarped-in reefer farm. There are no nearby proper houses although a very few old RVs can be spotted in the bleak, austere surroundings. We spotted some telephone poles but, strangely, no wires. I think the yearly property taxes are about $150 so we may not be knocking them dead with this asset.

Leaving our valuable holdings and after only another mile or two of dirt road driving, we found a paved road and started on the long, dead-straight road back west toward Lancaster, invisible in the distance. Our wayfinding computer kicked in and soon we were back in our trailer in Soledad Canyon.

About a million years ago, back during my first year in community college, I worked at CalTech as a custodian. It was actually a pretty great place to work although the wages for temporary employees like me were lousy and work started at 5:00 A.M. The trade-off was that the people I worked with were terrific and quite bright albeit a tad eccentric. I met another sub-par wage earner like me named Guy Richardson there back in 1972 or 1973.

Over the next couple years, there were many changes in our lives and we pretty much lost contact. A death of one of our former cronies compelled Guy to get ahold of me a few months back even though we had not seen each other for about 40 years or so. During our rambling subsequent conversations, Guy told us about a museum in Sylmar, CA, called the Nethercutt Collection. The Nethercutt is actually two separate collections installed in two separate buildings located across the street from each other in Sylmar.

After much recent tomfoolery with my smarter-than-me phone, we agreed to meet at the Nethercutt today. One of the two facilities was closed for renovations today but, fortunately, the massive automobile collection was open. We had been ambling around in the fabulous collection of vintage automobiles (all of which are not only meticulously maintained but also fully functional) when Guy strolled in, fresh from a bit of business he had accomplished this morning. Disappointingly for me, he looks quite healthy and is an affable guy but our reunion was very nice. We spent the next couple hours checking out the fabulous automobiles and hobnobbing about nearly everything before departing to go eat.

Yesterday I had checked Sylmar for good restaurants and had suggested we go to Buffalo Bill’s Mercantile, a barbecue joint. Once we got there, however, it was a grubby-looking little hovel and nobody seemed to be home although it was tough to tell because there is no parking nearby. We then consulted the internet and headed to nearby Taqueria Mi Ranchita which now seems to be a child dentistry place. Foiled again, we drove down the street to a little place called Los Tres Hermanos Express, a combination tiny dining place with a drive-up window. The food was pretty good and the cute waitress was very nice.

After some more hobnobbing, Guy went back toward his place in the San Fernando Valley and we headed back to Acton. The usual L.A. traffic reared its ugly head and we had a slow passage going home but were able to turn off crowded CA-14 onto Soledad Canyon Road which had blissfully sparse automobile activity. It is about a 10 mile drive from CA-14 to the campground but recent rains have greened everything up and it is a gorgeous drive.

We got a few photos and you can see them by clicking the link at the end of this sentence https://photos.app.goo.gl/YU8EdK8QJ4546GkV9