At the end of our last blog post, we were leaving Mono Lake and Yosemite and heading north. Our next stop was Lake Tahoe, a place we had not visited before and were looking forward to seeing.
Tahoe is crowded with tourists during the summer - lots of traffic, sprawling vacation homes along the lake front, and few camping spots. We were able to get a spot near the lake shore in a US Forest Service campground. It boasted of lake access (which turned out to be a 20' x 20' stretch of river rock, hemmed in on both sides by private property). The campground had no hookups, giving us a chance to see how we would do "boondocking" for five nights, just relying on the water stored in the RV, battery power, and our generator. [NOTE: we did just fine.]
The road up to our site was quite narrow and winding, and there was this rock by the side of the road, which we encountered... up close and personal.
Unfortunately, Doug (who was driving) hooked the edge of the rock with our engine tailpipe (which comes out the side of the Ciaowagen), and the force pulled off the muffler and the tailpipe, which the RV's rear wheels then ran over. Other campers heard the noise, and helped us retrieve the assembly from under the Ciaowagen. We could still drive, and the Ciaowagen did NOT sound like a Harley even with a muffler.
We managed to get into our campsite, carefully avoiding other trees and rocks as we continued uphill. While setting up for the week, we opened the refrigerator door to get some food, and the door fell off - one of the hinges had broken.
Anyone who RVs would tell you that repairs are part of the lifestyle (our New England travels last fall confirms that), so you just roll with the punches. We found an RV repair guy about 20 miles away in Nevada who was able to put reinforced hinges on our fridge door (we took the door to him, rather than paying to have him travel to us), and we also found a highly-rated muffler guy in Reno who was able to give us a new muffler and tailpipe at the end of the week for less than $500.
Enough of repairs... what about our touring?
We enjoyed Lake Tahoe, and the lake is beautiful, if somewhat on the high-end touristy side. We stayed mostly on the west (California) side of the lake, climbing up to Eagle Rock for the stunning views, visiting Emerald Bay and its waterfalls, and renting electric-assisted bikes (hey, we're seniors) to ride 21 miles near the lakeshore.
We left Tahoe on Friday and headed to Reno, NV for the muffler repair. While waiting, we visited the town of Virginia City, NV, which definitely offers an old Wild West vibe. We also took in a midday Disney-themed concert by the City of Reno Municipal Wind Band.
After Reno, we headed west toward the California coast, stopping for two days to visit Lassen Volcanic National Park. Lassen Peak erupted just 100 years ago, and there's still evidence of rock slides and pyroclastic flow, along with pictures a photographer took of the eruption using an old box camera. There are active geothermal areas (see the boiling mudpot video below). Finally, there are beautiful pristine lakes, some of which we could hike around, and some of which were still snow-covered and frozen in the higher elevations. The California mountains had significant snowfall last winter, and not all had yet melted even though it was the middle of July! We were able to do a short hike on a snow-covered Lassen mountain trail.
Lassen is one of those national parks that doesn't get a lot of visitors - a hidden gem.
After two days, we headed west again to the Pacific Coast. On our way, we passed through Redding, site of one of those terrible California wildfires in 2012. The devastation is still plain to see and seemed to extend for as far as the eye could see. Every now and then we saw a small cluster of trees that somehow managed to escape the raging flames in the middle of a burnt-out area. There is a lot of fire safety awareness in California and we saw many notices about ensuring homes were "fire prevention compliant." We learned from a couple from Redding that Californians have to keep their gutters clear of debris since one floating spark could cause a house to go up in flames.
The California redwoods were our next destination. More on that in our next blog entry.
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