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
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.
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.
