Today was a travel day. We reluctantly departed from TT Yosemite Lakes and drove west on CA-120. After quite a bit of steep climbing and descending, we came to the geezer-frightening Priest Grade and followed the steep drop down the 6 miles of harrowing curves before arriving at the bottom and flatter land. Thanks to Ford and Forest River for good brakes because we needed ’em.
We maintained maximum California speed, to the greatest extent possible, as we zinged across nice agricultural land until we got to Manteca where we turned north on CA-99. The first hour wasn’t too bad but we ran into some horrible traffic in Sacramento and were able to observe many terrible drivers doing strange things like failing to yield, illegal multiple lane changes, oblivious merging and outright speeding and/or reckless driving. It was bizarre. Many hand gestures were noted.
North of Sacramento we broke out of the knotty traffic nightmare and continued north on CA-99 to Nicolaus where we pulled into the Lake Minden Thousand Trails. We have been here before and it was nearly vacant then but today it is open for business and almost all 200+ spots are filled. The campground and artificial lake are located in the middle of a nut tree orchard so it is pretty quiet. We are at a loss to explain why so many people are here because there is very little to do in or near Nicolaus except fishing in the lake for bluegills and carp. We are only here for one night before continuing our northward trek to find reasonable temperatures. The park has some spaces with sewer but we didn’t get one of those. We found a spot in the cheap section and climbed into the Barbarian Invader to rest up for more travel tomorrow.
Pix? – click here