RV Rampage - Day 2
So as I had mentioned, Day 2 started with a crick in my neck and Plumb on the floor. Thode, apparently an early bird, had already laid out our CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST when I woke up. Fancy. We exchanged stories about how our sleep was that night (in general, not so great), brushed our teeth and had breakfast. I managed to remember to pencil in a few eyebrows so I didn't look all Whoopi Goldberg on this unsuspecting crew - sadly this was not the case for the rest of the trip. Anyway, breakfast was great - and while making a grilled peanut butter and banana sandwich in a little hobo camper clamp thing, we decided that I should have my own camping cooking show. I discovered that the trick to making a delicious grilled peanut butter and banana sandwich is to have your sweet boyfriend hold the damn hobo camper clamp thing over the fire while you run around eating cheese and fresh fruit and chatting with everyone. Just a note should anyone decide to try to make one themselves some time.
We were all looking forward to showers and coffee, but sadly our generator was not working. Sigh. We needed the generator to work, so that we could retract the slide out, so that we could actually drive the RV. It took about two hours to figure out what was wrong (on account of us parking at an angle, the generator thought we didn't have enough gas to start it), and the whole ordeal gave me about seven new wrinkles from frowning for two hours straight. But, at last we were on our way.
Sadly, the route we chose, which LOOKED like a nice big freeway, turned out to be the world's windiest/steepest road ever. Poor Thode was the one stuck driving and I have to say, she did an excellent job. I probably would have just burst into tears, abandoned the RV, and sent smoke signals, hoping to be airlifted out of the mountains. I think it took us about 3-4 hours to get back to the Fresno area where we dropped off Jessie. We stopped several times along the way to buy things like gas, ice and coffee. There were a few missed turns, a couple of stops for direction, a few more stops for extra firewood and propane, and finally we were on the right path to Sequoia National Forest. Unfortunately, the right path turned out to be yet another curvey small road that took us ultimately to an elevation of 6100 feet. Poor Max was the one driving, in the dark (by then it was nearly 7 p.m.), with only the headlights of RV to guide him away from driving off the cliff and killing us all. I seriously was so scared that I think I left a sweaty palm grip print on the sofa seat.
By the time we got to the right general area, we still had to look for the actual campsite. We first tried Long Meadow - which turned out not to be the right campsite. This time Kate was stuck on "checking the campsite out" duty, which she was good sport about. After doing a U-turn on this smally windy (am I spelling that right? - wind-ey) road we turned into Redwood Meadow, which was the right campsite. Sadly, some ASSHOLE JERKS had taken our campsites and though Kate seriously looked like she might murder them, the fact that they were carrying shot guns dissuaded her. We decided instead to be ASSHOLE JERKS ourselves, and took over someone else's campsite. It was a pretty crappy site. Very slanted on the side of the mountain. I kept looking at the parked RV, thinking it'd overturn and crush us all while we ate smores.
Luckily, by some miracle, Julia and Reggie, who were supposed to meet us hours ago, managed to actually find us in the dark of the night. They had apparently set up camp back at Long Meadow, and had this awesome space. We decided to put out the fire we had just started, load up the RV and move to their campsite. At the time, I was all for staying as didn't think I could endure trying to back the RV up and out of the rutted roads of the campsite and back into more rutted roads at the second campsite but I'm really glad we moved.
Turns out the Long Meadow site was perfect and beautiful. Very flat with a nice campfire ring. We soon got a great campfire going, cooked up our food (I even got a chance to try those foil dinner things - not bad!) and sat around just chilling. The stars were so bright and beautiful - the thing about living in LA is that you see very few stars.
Anyway, it turned out to be a very nice ending to a day that was pretty stressful all and all.
Day 3 to come later...
We were all looking forward to showers and coffee, but sadly our generator was not working. Sigh. We needed the generator to work, so that we could retract the slide out, so that we could actually drive the RV. It took about two hours to figure out what was wrong (on account of us parking at an angle, the generator thought we didn't have enough gas to start it), and the whole ordeal gave me about seven new wrinkles from frowning for two hours straight. But, at last we were on our way.
Sadly, the route we chose, which LOOKED like a nice big freeway, turned out to be the world's windiest/steepest road ever. Poor Thode was the one stuck driving and I have to say, she did an excellent job. I probably would have just burst into tears, abandoned the RV, and sent smoke signals, hoping to be airlifted out of the mountains. I think it took us about 3-4 hours to get back to the Fresno area where we dropped off Jessie. We stopped several times along the way to buy things like gas, ice and coffee. There were a few missed turns, a couple of stops for direction, a few more stops for extra firewood and propane, and finally we were on the right path to Sequoia National Forest. Unfortunately, the right path turned out to be yet another curvey small road that took us ultimately to an elevation of 6100 feet. Poor Max was the one driving, in the dark (by then it was nearly 7 p.m.), with only the headlights of RV to guide him away from driving off the cliff and killing us all. I seriously was so scared that I think I left a sweaty palm grip print on the sofa seat.
By the time we got to the right general area, we still had to look for the actual campsite. We first tried Long Meadow - which turned out not to be the right campsite. This time Kate was stuck on "checking the campsite out" duty, which she was good sport about. After doing a U-turn on this smally windy (am I spelling that right? - wind-ey) road we turned into Redwood Meadow, which was the right campsite. Sadly, some ASSHOLE JERKS had taken our campsites and though Kate seriously looked like she might murder them, the fact that they were carrying shot guns dissuaded her. We decided instead to be ASSHOLE JERKS ourselves, and took over someone else's campsite. It was a pretty crappy site. Very slanted on the side of the mountain. I kept looking at the parked RV, thinking it'd overturn and crush us all while we ate smores.
Luckily, by some miracle, Julia and Reggie, who were supposed to meet us hours ago, managed to actually find us in the dark of the night. They had apparently set up camp back at Long Meadow, and had this awesome space. We decided to put out the fire we had just started, load up the RV and move to their campsite. At the time, I was all for staying as didn't think I could endure trying to back the RV up and out of the rutted roads of the campsite and back into more rutted roads at the second campsite but I'm really glad we moved.
Turns out the Long Meadow site was perfect and beautiful. Very flat with a nice campfire ring. We soon got a great campfire going, cooked up our food (I even got a chance to try those foil dinner things - not bad!) and sat around just chilling. The stars were so bright and beautiful - the thing about living in LA is that you see very few stars.
Anyway, it turned out to be a very nice ending to a day that was pretty stressful all and all.
Day 3 to come later...
posted by S at 5:03 PM
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