Lake Millerton

The road map showed a fairly large state recreation area just outside of Fresno, so we stayed on the state road and found our next stop, Millerton Lake. You could see mountains in the distance, but the park was in the rolling hills again. This was another park and lake created for water management, but this time is was to bring water out of the Sierra Nevada mountains for the huge farming operations of the San Joaquin Valley. The lake actually covered the town of Millerton, and all that survived was a historic court house that had been moved to higher ground. We registered at the gate, and found the RV campground at the end of a winding road on the north side of the lake. This was just a big paved parking lot with campsites on either side of a grassy median. There were water and electric hookups, and we chose a spot next to the “accessible” (that means handicapped) campsite. There were quite a few other RVs there, but our spot had an open space on either side. We could look out our rear picture window and see the trees and a bit of the lake. We got set up and took a walk along the shoreline of the reservoir. Although it was Friday afternoon, the campground was not completely full, except we did not take into account that these mainland people think nothing of driving three hours to get somewhere. The Rvs just kept rolling in, and the last one arrived at 10:30! In the morning we discovered that all the campsites were occupied except for the handicapped site next to us. This was our first experience of being in a full campground.
Campers etiquette says you use common sense and respect the other person’s space. The family next to us had four kids with them who played well with each other, didn’t yell and scream, and took care not to cross our parking spot. It was nice to see a family out for a weekend camping trip, in fact, it was nice to see the park getting well used.
The park ranger at check-in had told us there was an Indian casino about five miles up the road, so on Saturday we took a drive to try the slot machines. Indian tribes around the country are allowed in varying degrees to operate casinos on tribal lands. This casino, Table Rock, was squeezed into a valley pass above the reservoir, and had slots and table games. The casino was busy, and Lei had a hard time finding a promising slot machine to play. Howard hung out watching sports on TV, and Lei deposited some dollars in the Indian casino bank.

RVers like us find places to park in various ways. There are two directories published that have complete information and ratings on RV parks across the nation. There are several web sites with varying degrees of information, and online forums have listings and comments. Every state we have visited has a website with state park information, and California has a great visitor information system of offices on the interstates on the state borders. There’s lots of billboards along the highway, although we don’t consider that a good thing. And there’s always word of mouth, just talking to other campers in a campground and at state and local information centers.
We had ordered a directory called Trailer Life in February while still in Hawaii. While waiting for it to arrive, we grabbed whatever park information we could from RV stores and tourist information centers. The Rand McNally road guide also shows state parks. After trying the information from stores and tourist publications, we decided to stick to the state parks, which has served us well.

Our new home 

Picture time

We finally have a photo of the RV for all to see. This was taken at the Pueblo Lake State Park in Pueblo, Colorado. We actually stayed in Pueblo for ten days to visit with Lei's friends, Jan and David from Sydney. That is a long story to be continued later.

Power Plant Park

Howard was still getting used to towing the trailer as we drove south through California. He decided to take a state highway instead of the interstate to our next stop, a local park owned and operated by the Sacramento Power Authority. We had to take a few more local roads, and thought we were lost when we saw the cooling towers for a nuclear power station. The is in cow pasture land, rolling hills near a little town call Clay on California Highway 104. So we found this park, Rancho Seco, built around the lake used to cool to nuclear plant. It had started to rain, so we paid our money, parked and hooked it up. The park is built around the lake, and has fishing, swimming and canoe rentals. There’s lots of picnic tables, kids’ play areas, and plenty of parking for day users. It was still the middle of the week, so there were only a few other campers and one man fishing out on the lake. This campground had a laundry room, so we counted out the quarters and walked back & forth in the rain with the laundry basket. Because of the cold and rain, we stayed bundled up in the trailer the rest of the day, and set off down the road the next day.
Electrical power in our trailer is provided by two marine batteries. The batteries are charged as we drive along by a connection to the truck The lights, slide out motor and water pump are powered by the batteries when we’re not plugged in. The stove/oven and furnace (heater) are propane, and the refrigerator also runs on propane when no electricity is available. Then there is a long 30 amp electrical line for us to plug in at campgrounds. It powers the microwave, air-conditioning and all the plug-in outlets (12 volt) throughout the trailer, and everything except the stove and heat switches to the land line. We especially look for electrical hookups at camp grounds so we can use the little space heater at night. Remember, it’s March in Northern California, so the daytime temperature is in the sixties, and night times drop to forty degrees!

State Parks

One of our goals on our travels is to stay at state and county parks whenever possible. Although the prices can range anywhere from eight to twenty-five dollars, the locations and scenery in a state park just can’t be beat. The quality of campground services can vary widely, and doesn’t always have to do with the cost of a night’s stay. The first state park we stayed in was at the Bidwell-Sacramento River Park. It is located on Highway 32 in Northern California, between Orland and Chico. We called ahead and were told to go to the Irvine campground, and when we arrived there, no one was there, no campers, no picnicking, no one fishing on the river. There were about ten back-in spaces for RV’s with water but no electrical hook-ups. There was one space right next to the bathrooms that had electrical, so we looked around and decided what the heck, let’s park it there. Payment for camping is on the honor system in California, you pick up a little envelope at the gate and drop it back with your money in it. This park was eight dollars, and we knew that this one and only space with electricity was probably for a campground host, but the worst that could happen is the park ranger would make us move to one of the other spaces. Although the park is next to a two-lane highway, it’s below the slope of the bridge that goes over the river, so the road noise wasn’t too bad. We had a great, quiet stay among the almond and walnut trees.
The park ranger showed up the next day to clean out the bathrooms. We knew we were in the wrong space when he went to a central switch box and turned off the electricity. He knocked on our door and let us know we weren’t supposed to park there, and made sure we had paid our eight dollars. We were on our way by ten in the morning, off to the next park.
More information on our facilities. The RV has three water tanks. One tank is fresh water, for drinking, cooking and showers. The other two tanks are waste water: grey water, which is the sink and shower water, and black water, which is the toilet waste. RV parks have a dump site, which you hook up to and dump your waste water. At many privately owned parks, you will have your own dump site at your parking space. Where ever we stay, we try to use the bath house as much as possible, that way we don’t have to go through the business of dumping our tanks. And even though the RV has a shower, it’s nice to use someone else’s hot water.

How we started

We picked up the truck in Seattle on March 19th and drove to Eugene, Oregon to pick up the travel trailer from the dealer. We spent the weekend in Eugene and Springfield practicing the towing, driving, setting up and breaking down. We also had fifteen boxes of stuff to unpack, everything from clothes to rice and the rice cooker. On Monday, the 23rd, after sorting out a couple of questions for the dealer, we were on the road!
First stop, Roseburg, Oregon to visit my cousin, Dennis Ihara and his family. We found a beautiful RV park on the fork of two rivers, next to a huge public park. The owners/operators were a wonderful couple with a couple of teenage boys who made us rookies feel welcome and comfortable.
Then came the treacherous crossing of the Cascade mountains at the Oregon-California border. Howard was very apprehensive about the truck’s ability to handle the job of pulling the trailer (and all our stuff) up the long hill climbs, but we took it slow, in the breakdown lane along with lots of other truckers, and made it fine. Stopped for the night at a little town called Weed in California. There was a beautiful view of Mount Shasta, clear and still snow-covered. Unfortunately, the campground we stayed at was awful, located between the interstate, railroad and a truck stop. All the RV’s were wedged in next to each other, and the bathrooms and showers didn’t work.
Which brings us to the subject of our facilities. We now live in a 29' travel trailer, which we pull behind Howard’s truck. There is a bedroom with a queen-sized bed, closet space, night stands, skylight, screen door and a small shelf for a TV. The bathroom has a shower (hot & cold running water), sink, toilet and linen closet. The kitchen has a microwave, refrigerator/freezer, pantry, stove/oven, double sink and storage cupboards. There is a dinette that comfortably seats four, and an entertainment center large enough for a TV and stereo tuner or VCR/DVD. We also have a couch that folds out to a bed and two lounge chairs next to the rear picture window. We have heat and air-conditioning, and lots more storage that we haven’t even used. There are windows everywhere that have pull down shades for evenings. Most of the windows have screens so you can open them for fresh air.
The best feature of the trailer is the slide-out. It is three feet deep and fifteen feet wide. It slides out from the side of the trailer to increase the floor area of the main living area. The sofa bed and dinette are in the slide out, and there is vinyl flooring in the kitchen part of the room and carpet in the living part. The slide-out is powered by electric, so it moves in or out with just a touch of a button.