the california loop: part two

After leaving Orange County in early January, Free Real Estate headed north to go snowboarding and visit friends and family in Northern California. We basically had a month and some days to fill our travels before we wanted to be back in SoCal for (more) family events.

Lone Pine

We first went up the 395 towards Tahoe, stopping a couple of places to break up the long drive. Our first break was in Lone Pine, a small city at the base of Mt. Whitney and known for its role in western films and shows.

Our stay was only for two nights at a mid-sized campground that we nearly had to ourselves, so we essentially had a boondocking experience with full amenities due to all the open space and views around us. I live for this kind of landscape, so I loved our short stay here.

We went mountain biking once and stopped by the Museum of Western Film History, where I realized I haven't seen many westerns at all. It was fascinating nonetheless.

Carson Valley

While this wasn't necessarily a mandatory stop, it made the drive a lot less stressful the next day. We stayed one night at the Carson Valley Inn Casino (not to be confused with Carson City, which is north of this place), which is essentially just a large parking lot with a couple of trees inbetween sites. That's not a complaint on my part - I actually found this place to be pretty cute for what it was. The brochure they gave us upon check-in said the casino had a ~sunset dinner special~ so I asked we immediately jump on that, which we did, then we won a couple hundred bucks on craps. A pretty good night.

I didn't take any photos of the campsite, so here are some from the drive up to Carson Valley (v beautiful):

Zephyr Bay

The drive from Carson Valley up to Lake Tahoe only took an hour, something I'd be very happy for considering how awful it was trying to get the trailer situated in our spot.

When you find a place to park your trailer or motorhome, whether it's in a designated spot in a campground, a driveway, or out on public land somewhere, the most important thing you have to do is make sure your RV is level. A front-to-back level is most important for RV fridges (something about ammonia and pooling, I don't know) and is easy to correct with our built-in landing gears. But the side-to-side leveling, which involves putting 2x4s or something like the levelers we use under the tires, was a pain in the ass this time. I almost threw in the towel. I just wanted to go inside and live. The ground was so icy that any attempt to drive up on our levelers resulted in it slipping out no matter how well I broke up the ice, how much snow I packed underneath the leveler, or how fast or slow Chris drove over them.

About an hour and a half of futile leveling attempts, our neighbors asked if we needed help and they brought along salt and some rubber pads to give our tires a chance to be on something dry. That worked. I'm forever grateful. I mentally noted that we should get some of those rubber pads, which of course we didn't do, and I was only reminded of it the next time we parked in snow about a month later (it was not nearly a big a deal, thank gosh).

Chris spent most of this week snowboarding and getting a dent in his butt from landing on a log, while I played and beat Dragon Age 2. It was embarrassingly lazy. One night we went to a nearby casino and lost the money we had won at Carson Valley. Pretty cool.

The thing I did really like about staying here was that it was absolutely beautiful and quiet. There were only a handful of other campers here, it was cozy (we only needed our space heater to keep the interior warm enough), and by the time we left most of the snow had melted. It was just the introduction that got to me.

We started to make our way out of the cold and back down to Southern California after this stop.

Park Delta Bay

Finding a spot in the bay area ended up being kind of tricky - we had looked too late to find a place close to the city, and the park in Oakland we considered wouldn't let you back in after 10 PM (not even with a code), something we weren't willing to chance. In hindsight, we probably would've been fine with the curfew, but staying in the delta was still worth it.

This particular park is on Andrus Island, right on the San Joaquin River. It's in the middle of nowhere and it doesn't feel like California. As someone who's never been to Florida, I imagine this place is kind of like parts of Florida: green, marshy, people shooting at birds in a field, and water-front venues where boats can dock and boaters can get a beer. The delta was quiet while we were there, but I'm under the impression it's a pretty popular spot in summer. It's like a resort in the boonies.

We spent most of our time near the park, either working at home or exploring Isleton, a small town on the island. The couple of times we left the area we went to Fremont, San Francisco, and Oakland to visit friends and family (boarding the dogs for the latter two because we wanted to spend the entire day over there). We got our obligatory Philz Coffee and Bi-Rite while in the city.

Isleton was a surprise. Only about 850 live there, there's one main street, and they have a great barbecue place that delivers to a super cute beer hall just two doors down with the nicest folks. It was packed the Saturday night we were there, and even on a Tuesday afternoon people were filtering in and out. 10/10 would visit again, even though I (Leslee) don't drink anymore.

Harris Ranch

The drive between the bay area and SoCal is easily doable in a car sans trailer, but it's a slog driving this thing for more than 200 miles or so. For our halfway point we stayed at Harris Ranch for one night in their RV-designated parking lot. While not glamorous, it was super convenient because it was FREE and because of the restaurant on the grounds. We have full access to our bathroom and bed with the slides pulled in, so it's not super restrictive in this situation.

Anaheim RV Park

We settled back into Anaheim (although a different park than last time) for our last California stop. There wasn't much privacy because the sites are packed in, but the grounds were well cared-for and it was clear the owners have put in a lot of work to make this a great place for a Disney vacation. The Anaheim Resort Transportation bus came by every 30 minutes as an easy way to get around the area, which we took advantage of more than once.

While in town we spent time at the beach, Disneyland (we gotta make those passes count!), and valuable with our family.

way better than snow and not being able to level imo

After this we made our way out of California and spent the next couple of months exploring the Rocky Mountain States, which will have its own post in a couple of weeks!