Can't give it away! Clearing out the house

Silly me.  I thought that I would use this summer to clear out most of the house.  I go back to work next week and am planning on leaving California as soon after my last day of work (June 1) as possible.  Well, didn't work as I expected.  I started out with a garage sale in April.  Hauled tons of stuff out into the driveway, sold 4 things.  Too much work.

Someone told me about Letgo so I started using that.  At first, I was really excited because everything I listed sold right away.  I dispatched the following:
*two iron skillets   *shabby chic end table   *unused make up brushes kit   *indoor bicycle exerciser converter   *bicycle trainer/cart   *pet steps   *hedge trimmer   *skil saw   *glass and brass foyer table   *4 panther pottery statues   *couch     which seems like a lot, however, my house is still very full.  Keep in mind, the above took 8 weeks. 

So then someone said, why don't you use Facebook Marketplace so I copied a few ads there too.  Was that a disaster.  I spent more time messaging people back and forth, giving out my address, making appointments, and I have sold nothing!  4 no shows so far.  So I deleted those ads.  I think people were just trying to see if I was home or not.  Who knows.

I have placed duplicate ads on Craigslist but get very little response from that either and the few people that do respond don't follow up.  What is it with people?

My stuff if even cheaper than the thrift store -- most of the furniture is $5 or $10.  Give me a break.  Other than saying, "Free, come and get it," here it still sits, all staged in my living room.

I guess I'll just keep plugging along and then, when it comes to crunch time, try to donate as much as I can for a tax write off.

Snowflower Resort, Emigrant Gap July 2017

This was my "big" vacation before going back to work (only 10 more months, yay!).  I scheduled to be there for 5 nights but we came home about 21 hours early because my little Shih Tzu needed a vet appt.  I made the appt. for her ear infection but it turned out she also had bronchitis.  I thought her symptoms were due to her heart murmur so I'm glad I took her in when I did.  She's much better now.

Why was I excited about this particular trip more than others?

• It's much cooler up there than in Sacramento
• It's away from the teeming hordes 
• I used to live up in that area and sometimes get homesick
• We were going to relax for 5 days with no agenda

Things didn't all turn out as I expected and we had quite the adventure but all in all, a good week, one for the books.

If you can plan your trips around busy weekends, do it.  In the last 3 resorts I was at, it is just about perfect and then starts to get really crazy by Thursday afternoon.   On Monday, we had our choice of many, many spots.  Snowflower has 5 basic areas that are ok for motor homes -- the cliffs, lower fawn, middle fawn, upper fawn, and redwood circle.  They have other areas but they are reserved.  And DON'T try Tahoe, Sierra, Cedar but I'll save that story for the end.

The cliffs, if you have a really large rig or don't want to drive on gravel.

What is deceptive about this map is that about 50% of what is shown is inaccessible due to very bad roads or just off limits.  Last time I was here (Sept 2016), as I was walking the dogs every day, I made note of sites that I really liked.  #51 in Upper Fawn was one of them.  It looked out over the lake and didn't have neighbors right on top of you.  Lo and behold, #51 was available!  After getting parked, with an older gentleman trying to help me and me trying to be polite but asking him to not help me please because it makes me nervous, I started setting up.

As perfect as this spot looks before parking, there really isn't a lot of room to set up dog pens or put out chairs.  I was only able to set up one pen and it tilted a little.  We stayed here for 24 hours before deciding to move.

As we had been walking previously, I made note of some better spots we could take.  On Tuesday afternoon, I decided to pack up, unhook, go dump and then move.  We tried for one that I really, really liked but I spent an hour trying to get level to no avail.  I was forced to give it up which made me sad.

However, I was really intrigued by the area I hadn't seen yet, Tahoe, Cedar, Sierra.  I drove up to the store to get a candy bar and to ask some questions.  I got directions to these other spots, the lady mentioned bears but said if I'm in a motor home, there won't be a problem.  She knew I was in a motor home and never said a word about the condition of the roads.  This was a bad thing.

I ended up way far from where I was supposed to turn because the only right turn did not look like a road, it looked like a washout.  Luckily, the narrow mountain road I was on had a place to turn around near the top.  Several miles later, I was back at the parking lot and went back up to take this right hand turn to the campgrounds.  I hesitated when I got there because it didn't even look like a road.  I thought, it must open up around the corner so I started down.  Well, all I heard for 50 yards was bushes and trees scratching and scraping both sides of my motor home!  Aaaaaaaaa!  Then, it didn't get better, it got worse.  Of course, I hadn't thought I would be doing all this boonie crashing so I hadn't put anything away inside the motor home before we embarked on this journey.

Thank goodness before it got too horrible, there was a clearing where they had been cutting trees and I was able to turn around.  However, scratch, scrape, screech all the way back to the main road again.I was so mad.  Why this woman didn't say anything, I have no idea.

So then, I decided to try Redwoods, which had been closed earlier due to a reunion but was now open.  I found a nice spot, with a very long back in (more than 60 feet).  Turns out, the water was at one end and the electricity was at the other end.  😣 An employee was driving up as I was debating and said he could loan me a 110 extension.  I said, no thank you, as I didn't really know how that would affect the stuff I usually run.  I decided to see how long my 30 amp plug was but it was short by about 30 feet.  Darn.  So I left there and moved again.

I ended up at spot #73, which is the original one I had considered the day before.  Why I didn't just go straight there to begin with, I'll never know.  After we parked, I had to tie the dogs out and spend 45 minutes cleaning up spilled ice tea, dish soap, dishes, etc. from the floor.  An odyssey that started at 3:00 didn't end until almost 6:30.  Poor doggies.

Rest of the vacation was blissfully peaceful with nothing to report.  I'm miffed about all the scrapes on the sides of my 2016 motor home but when you're inside, who notices, right?

We left about 3:00 on Friday and got home safe and sound.

Two days at Lake Minden -- July 11 to 13

Lake Minden is only about 26 miles from my house and we like it for a quick getaway. I booked an overnight to try out the cats in the motor home but it was a failed experiment before it even got started.  One cat couldn't even be caught to put the harness on and the other cat got a soft tissue injury to his foreleg and was limping the day before we were to leave to I added another day to our trip and left the cats at home.

It was a hot week in Sacramento but surprisingly, the evenings at Lake Minden really cooled down.  Sleeping with the window open almost felt like tent camping.  It was really nice.

The facility was only about 2/3 full and felt really empty.   No outdoor groups bbqing, nobody on the lake at all, something I've never seen before.  However, they were getting ready for the boat races.  Those folks were starting to check in as we were leaving and that gets to be a busy, crowded event.

We just chillaxed for 2 days and enjoyed the ambiance.

Thousand Trails Yosemite Lakes Resort June 27 to July 1

I do love Thousand Trails but use the word “resort” loosely. With my TT membership, I can camp at any facility in the West or South for $14 a night for the first 30 days and $3 a night after that. Traveling with 3 dogs, I don't expect luxurious accommodations and we always feel welcome and comfortable at TT parks. Complaints include they are run down and that there is bad customer service but this has never affected me adversely.



This was my first time at the Yosemite Lakes TT. First of all, be prepared that the weather is not cool here in the summer like I was assuming. The week I was here, it was actually hotter than in Sacramento. Secondly, it's the first TT resort I've been at where it appeared that at least 50% or more of the sites were not level. On the plus side, the members only area has a key code entry and it's really nice by the river. I like that the members and non-members are separated.

The first day, we could have parked next to the river but the spots seemed rather close together so we found a place across with a huge pine tree. It was a great spot with no people on three sides but I could not get level. I tried periodically so many times that a couple other campers came by to ask if I needed help. The next morning, I decided we would have to move. Luckily, about 11:30, as I was walking one of the dogs, we found a guy pulling out of a river spot and he said it was ours. The rest of the trip was spot #84, not only by the river but the spot next to us was out of service.


Our spot by the river





Doesn't get any better than this



Day one -- we explored and got to know the place. The family lodge had benches outside which many people used to sit and check phones as it's the only place in the whole resort that has wifi and there's no phone service at all. Areas include a group camping area, a yurt village, and lots of little cabins.


The cabins in the Group Camping area


Tuolumne River

Day two -- took our first extended walk up Hardin Flat Road in the morning. It's paved all the way so I took the stroller for Jorja. Much to my surprise, 1/4 mile up the road, we found a sign that said Entering National Forest. We ended up at an abandoned group camping area that I found out later was Berkeley Camp. It got burned out in the Groveland fire of several years back.


This is a home that borders the National Forest


Entering National Forest











What is left of Camp Berkeley after the fire of 2015

Day three -- we decided to hike the fire trails that leave from the group camp area. There are also some designated TT trails -- Mountain View and Dam Trail -- but the Welcome Center gentleman informed me that they aren't maintained and there is a lot of poison oak. The fire trails were nice and wide but OMG! Straight up the hill. Poppy and Dover wanted to run and I was carrying Jorja (20 lbs) on my back and I'm about 20 pounds overweight. Thought I was going to die! We went up as far as we could go without climbing over a bunch of downed trees and stopped for a water break. Then headed on back down. Of course, we were the only ones on the trail. People get such a kick out of seeing Jorja in her backpack. I know it looks funny but it's the only way we would get some exercise.


Riding in style -- she loves traveling like this





Stopping for a water break








Recovering from the big fire


Mountain View trail


Dam Trail



Day four -- I decided to start walking the dogs separately in the evenings and last night Dover and I discovered a secluded little beach that would be perfect for dog swimming, so that was our plan for today later in the afternoon. For our morning walk, we went up Harding Flat road the other direction and took the stroller. It was a pleasant walk with very sparse traffic but started to get too steep for us after about 1/2 a mile.

In the afternoon, we walked over to the "dog" beach and I let Dover and Poppy off their harnesses. They had a blast. There was a mom there playing with her son in the water and they had a little dog too. I was holding Jorja's leash but she surprised me and walked into the water so she ended up with a soggy harness. Thank goodness for outside RV showers. It took me about 20 minutes to get all the sand off them and then we relaxed on the patio and dried off.

The river all the way across was only about knee deep and people were having a blast just walking around or tubing or rafting. It was very cold though. Even Poppy, who's the penultimate water baby, couldn't stay in very long at one time.















Day five -- Time to think about packing up and leaving and there were two people that kind of "tussled" over my site. I apologized to the lady that didn't get it, explaining that I had talked to the other lady earlier. We managed to get out of there by 10:00. We made 5 stops along the way and got home at 3:30. It was Saturday morning, 4th of July weekend, and we passed about 1000 cars heading into Yosemite Valley while we were driving down 120. Nuts! Most of them probably couldn't even get into the park when they got there.


Our good-by photo

Something exciting but I couldn't do it with the dogs -- YARTS is a bus that picks people up from the campsite and takes you into Yosemite Park for less than $20 round trip. I am hoping I can figure out a way to still do this before I leave California. I just don't want to leave the dogs in the motorhome for 7 or 8 hours all alone.

One of the stops on the way home was on Groveland. There is a city park that includes a library and a free museum. I would highly recommend this stop if you have time. The museum is outstanding, with very professional dioramas and many historical items, as well as souvenirs to buy. One of the docents told me that the man who created the dioramas used to work for Universal Studios. I was able to leave the animals parked in the MH with the AC running while I visited so that was nice.