(Apologies... tonight’s post is without pictures due to very limited bandwidth. SC’)
Good Evening, Campers! It’s Silver Cliche’ with you again. Tonight’s report is from Three Rivers, California and the Three Rivers Hideaway RV Park. Normally when we are this close to a National Park (Sequoia National Park starts about five miles up the road) we stay... where?... class?... anyone?... that’s right Sharon... we stay in the National Park! For crying out load... if you wanted to see Manhattan you wouldn’t stay in Chicago, would you? So what are we doing here? Well, the road from here to Potwisha Campground about 7 miles from here and inside the park is so narrow and twisty that the park service does not recommend driving it for anyone pulling a trailer or any vehicle longer than 22 feet. Well, that means they don’t recommend it for us twice. Not wanting to be used as a bad example again (I’m wondering if our picture is now being handed out as the “don’t do this” couple at Rockhound State Park, New Mexico) I decided to book a spot here where we can drop the trailer to see the big trees tomorrow.
Talking about twisty roads, let me tell you about today’s trip. Oh, wait... I never closed out yesterday.
So, we traveled from Joshua Tree to Kernville, California yesterday. Leaving Joshua Tree we saw things that would have caused us to gasp with amazement and swerve 7 tons into the closest pull-off for a picture just days before. This time Mrs. C’ and I looked at each other and said “Ya, ya... towering piles of unusual rocks of dramatic colors heaped up as if Picasso shaped and placed them by hand and surrounded by the most alien-looking and unusual “trees” or “cacti” or “Venus Palms” or whatever-the-stink they are. What else you got?” Remember, we are the people who booked four nights in Yellowstone and wondered why we didn’t stop at three. Don’t get me wrong... we love what we see out here. We love it enough to give up four months of our lives and a fortune in gear and gasoline to go see more. But for us, and our short attention spans, seeing it once us great. Seeing it twice is once too many. We were off.
The trip to Kernville was like playing toy trucks in a sandbox in a pizza oven in a tanning bed. It was hot, bright and tedious... but at least it was long. The high point of the trip was seeing Barstow, California... an oasis in the Mojave Desert. Ha ha, just kidding. I said that to win a bet. In the history of travelogues nobody has ever written “the high point of the trip was seeing Barstow, California”! It’s a sandbox in a pizza ... oh, you get the idea.
Thursday was day 28 of our trip. I almost titled this entry “And on Day 28 God delivered them from the desert”. I do have one good thing to say about the desert... crackers don’t go soggy in you if you leave the bag open. As the day wore on we saw things we had not seen in weeks (except in Flagstaff)... tall, healthy trees!... standing bodies of waters called, I believe, “lakes” and lawns with living plants called “grass”. It was a miracle of deliverance... we had survived the “curse of the four deserts” (Chihuahuan, Sonoran, Colorado and worst of all the Mojave). We were in Kernville, California on the southern end of the Sierra Nevada mountains.
We had a reservation at a Forest Service campground in Kernville. I was looking forward to addressing some correspondence, posting the blogs and pics from Joshua Tree and catching up on News. About 1/4 mile short if the campground we lost cell signal. Deader than a prospector in the Mojave. So we tossed that idea, backtracked and checked out a campground in town. I’ll politely say “it wasn’t for us”. If California is known to have a homeless problem, this was a halfway house. We tried another. There was a guy in the parking lot shepherding a group of 10 year olds on mountain bikes. He asked if he could help us. Turned out John owned the place which was “Mountain and River Adventures”. He understood our plight, used a window to task a young woman in the office with helping us and got back to corralling the pre-teens. We found a spot in their campground that backed to the Kern River and our problems were solved. The folks who we met in Kernville (that would be John and several members of his team) were friendly and helpful folks. What we saw if the town driving through twice tells me it ranks high in the Silver Cliche’ Authenticity Test. Seemed like a genuine mountain town with a nasty kayak and rafting habit. Works for me.
This morning we lounged knowing we only had 2 1/2 hours to drive here to Three Rivers. It was day 4 of 4 for the first heat wave of the spring in Southern California and were in no hurry to park a sun baked trailer and move in. An evening arrival might solve some of that.
It’s 55 miles as the crow flies from Kernville to Three Rivers. There is that minor issue of 10,000 foot peaks of the Sierra Nevadas to complicate the choice of routes. Google offered us three choices... 2 hours and 33 minutes to go 104 miles (only 2x the air distance!), 2 hours and 35 minutes to go 111 miles or 2 hours and 42 minutes to go 142 miles. Which would you choose? We chose the fastest one. As this story will be told later, I chose the fastest one... Mrs. C’ had absolutely nothing to do with it. She will never, ever, in her life allow me to distance myself from the choice of the shortest, fastest route. For the rest of my life, if there is an important decision to be made and the choice falls on me she will watch me pondering my options and say “Remember, you are the one who picked the mountain route from Kernville to Three Rivers, “Mr. let’s get there sooner”.
They key that would have allowed me to predict the events of the day is in the distances and times Googles offered. The first one implies an average speed of 40 miles per hour. We knew that the last hour was highway at 55-65 MPH. So the first half of the trip had to be on roads with 25 MPH limits or something like that. Oh, I feel all smart like a “mathelete” now working these numbers for you. I wasn’t feeling that way 35 minutes into the trip when the Trusty Tundra was in first gear at 10 MPH getting less than one mile per gallon (did I mention that we left with a quarter tank and a plan to gas up along the way?) on the steepest, narrowest, curviest road we’ve ever traveled and I did that math for the first time. No siree. I also knew that the long slog to over 6,000 feet would be followed by the same curvy, steep, narrow descent. Oh... 7 tons of steel and aluminum doesn’t like to move uphill but it LOVES to move downhill. I can almost hear the Tundra’s engine and transmission saying to the brakes “your turn is coming, suckers!”.
As we created what I hoped was the top of the ridge at 6,100 feet, by which time the temperature had dropped from 92 in the dry valley of Kernville to 70 in a redwood forest, the Tundra rang its chimes and on came the low fuel warning light. WE HAD BURNED A QUARTER TANK IN ABOUT 15 MILES! Sorry, Honey... I mean I had burned a quarter tank in 15 miles. Then the downhill began. Good news... we were getting 500 miles to the gallon. Bad news... the California Department of Highways had no money left in the budget for guardrails after putting down the pavement on this narrow mountain road. As for gas, I asked Google to tell me what options lay ahead. She said “you need an internet connection for that... try again”. Evidently the only thing scarcer than guardrail posts or other motorists on CA 155 between Alta Sierra and Posey is cell service.
I want to apologize to those of you who received a selfie movie of Mrs. C’ screaming while on a twisty, turny, downhill ride. That may actually have been taken on Thunder Mountain (the runaway mine train ride) at Disney World last year. She’s not too good with the technology stuff. Don’t let the grey leather interior or sunroof in the background throw you off. And no, I wasn’t “trying to kill us all”. She greatly... well somewhat... or at least slightly... exaggerated the sense of danger. I have no explanation as to why Zachary started to pace and pant at this point. What do dogs know about the smell of hot brakes and the coefficient of friction required to prevent skids at various centrifugal loads including the roll induced by top-heavy vehicles on negatively banked hairpin turns? They are just DOGS!
This road didn’t need “Watch for Falling Rocks” signs. There were freshly fallen rocks in and beside the road at many points. At one turn I pointed to a fresh rock the size of a bowling ball and said “If one that size hits us it’s not going to buff out”.
After some time we made it out of the steep and curvy section and into a valley. It was beautiful open farm country with spectacular weathered barns, horses grazing and ground squirrels darting back and forth across the road. Sort of how I envision Eden. We had just traveled the 20 most challenging miles I’ve ever driven with the Airstream in tow. Eden was a welcome sight.
Then came Phase II. It wasn’t quite as steep or twisty as Phase I. It made up for that with worse pavement and narrower lanes. Sadly, the guardrail budget had not been replenished for that section either. At times the inside curve was a vertical rock face set 6” beyond the white line marking the right hand edge of the road. I would normally consult the right side-view mirror occasionally at a time like that to calibrate the clearance between the trailer and a potential obstacle. Since she’s 2 feet wider than the truck, it’s the only sure way to verify placement in the lane. On this road, the time required to take eyes off the road ahead to check the road behind created too much danger.
The low point of Phase II came when it became impossible to fit the 8 1/2 foot wide Airstream in the increasingly narrow lane. The complete lack of traffic gave me the opportunity to ride across the line. Then the sign appeared: “Road Narrows”. I turned to Mrs. C’ and said “I didn’t think that was possible”.
After 2 hours of white knuckles and some of the most incredible vistas and scenery I could imagine we saw signs of civilization. First off, internet returned. I learned there was gas 9.8 miles ahead in Porterville. We entered some of the most fertile agriculture land I’ve ever seen. It was all orange groves at first. More orange trees than be ever seen and, remember, we live in Florida and have cross crossed the State. Later we saw vineyards of grape and trees that may have been olives.
We did a bit of shopping in Porterville then finished the drive to Three Rivers on some boring, smooth, road. Yawn!
And as for those other two route options Google gave us? Do you think either of them would have given us something to laugh about and share with friends when we get home in July? What? Too soon? The laughing about this one won’t come for 12 months or so? So be it. One day we may look back in CA 155 as the most memorable 50 miles of this 10,000 mile trip.
Tomorrow it’s up and into Sequoia National Park. I hope you’ll join us.
Later...
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