Crater Lake National Park

At first, I tried to disperse camp for my visit to Crater Lake, but the road into the location I found online looked too dicey for my rig. Instead, with the help of employees of a state park, I found myself at the Forest Service Williamson River campground. To my delight, when I arrived, I discovered they weren’t yet charging a fee, but that changed later on in my short stay. It was a basic but nice campground.
Crater Lake was amazing. I’ve never seen water so blue. Remarkably, my visit during the first week of June was still too early for all the roads to be opened. (The yearly average snowfall is 41 feet!) One advantage of road closures was that we were able to walk on the Rim Road–and I was able to take Sadie. It was great to see so much snow but I want to go again later in the summertime so I can explore the entire park.
After my Park visit, I found another route to the dispersed camping area and moved there before proceeding to my next destination.

Oregon Caves National Monument & Preserve

Next, I headed into Oregon, first to see the National Park site, Oregon Caves. Found a nice, basic forest service campground called Grayback just down the road from the Caves. May was a good time for strong water flowing through the adjacent “Sucker Creek” and also for blooming dogwoods. The cave tour was worth the time & money, in my opinion. Pretty area.

Smith River NRA/Panther Flat CG

I traveled north from the Redwoods intending to make it out of California sooner rather than later. It ended up that I stopped at Panther Flat Campground in extreme northern California and enjoyed views of turquoise-colored Smith River National Recreation Area along the way. (I just learned something; I thought all NRAs were a part of the National Park System, but this one is National Forest)
The camp host couple at Panther Flat was extremely kind. First, they let me park at the cg entrance for several hours on multiple days so I could get sun for my panels (most sites, including mine, were/are shaded) and then, they stopped on their way out of camp to ask if I needed anything from the store. They later returned with the milk for which I had asked and wouldn’t let me pay them. It had been 10 years since they started hosting and they were retiring right after they trained the new couple (who was camped one site over from me). I’ve met a lot of nice people on the road.
See captions for more info.
Next up: Oregon.

Redwoods SP/NP Area

Certainly, the Redwoods state and national parks and coastal areas are beautiful but unfortunately, my bad California luck continued in a big way here. The memories are still fresh several months later, so I will not choose to record those unfortunate events here since the goal is to ultimately forget what happened. Instead, I’ll only mention the good–and usual beautiful–parts and then we’ll move on. (More info in the photo captions.)

Yosemite Videos

Miscellaneous videos from my time in Yosemite National Park.

South Fork Merced River, Wawona Area

Meadow Loop Trail Water Crossing, Wawona. Sadie did great on this.

Pretty Little Stream on the Meadow Loop Trail, Wawona

Granite Walls from the Valley

Yosemite Valley

Upper Yosemite Fall (poor quality but at least you can hear this tremendous waterfall)

Valley View

Lower Yosemite Fall

Valley Panorama

Strong flowing Merced River as I exited the Park to the West

Last Days at Yosemite

After being fortunate enough to grab a campsite at the Valley’s North Pines Campground, I enjoyed a full day in the Valley plus a little more time as I made my way out of the Park on my last day. Part of the reason I left when I did was a forecast of a wintry mix–which did happen. Spring is a great time to visit Yosemite because of all the water, but I will probably choose another time of year next visit, if for no other reason than to have access to all roadways. What a beautiful, beautiful place. ‘Can’t wait to return and visit the parts I didn’t see on this trip–and to see the same parts again! I highly recommend a visit. Just be prepared for the inevitable sea of humanity. Reserve early and also leave early each morning. Enjoy!
(I plan to have one more Yosemite post with videos)

Meadow Loop Trail Incident – Yosemite NP

One day I went into the Park but stayed on the south side for a 3 1/2 mile hike on which Sadie was able to go. It was a beautiful hike on a beautiful day. Unfortunately, when we were about halfway around the mostly-flat loop trail, Sadie started throwing up and then had diarrhea and then had both over and over. I panicked and started calling veterinarians. I found one in the next town and, leaving my trailer in the Park, made a crazy fast light-flashing, horn-honking dash to the clinic. I was so afraid she was dying, I completely lost it. When I got there, they immediately took her back. When the vet came out, much to my relief, the first thing she said was Sadie was going to be OK. The vet thought she had been stung by something and was having a bad reaction. Then they brought Sadie back out to the waiting area and she promptly threw up again–in a big way. That did nothing to calm my nerves, of course, but the vet didn’t seem overly concerned. Anyway, some time later, all seemed to be well and we left. I didn’t get much sleep that night worrying about her but she was fine. We took a “zero day” the next day to recover from that frightening experience.

I do recommend the “Meadow Loop Trail” near the Wawona Hotel–especially if you have a dog. It’s an easy and pretty hike.

Yosemite National Park

My next destination was one of my bucket-list parks, Yosemite NP. When I first arrived, it was early in the day, so I went in the south gate, got some information, and looked around at the Pioneer Yosemite History Center. I found out from the visitor center employees that I could drop my trailer at the Wawona hotel overflow parking lot whenever I made the long drive to the valley. This was extremely helpful as I did not feel my trailer would be secure where I was camping outside the south entrance. I really appreciated that.

At first, I dispersed-camped outside the south gate. ‘Had a scary experience with some aggressive locals so I later moved to another spot in the national forest. I kept trying to get a reservation down in the valley and, after a while, finally snagged one for a couple nights. (In this case, some spots had opened up because of receding flood waters!)

The first time I headed to the valley, what was supposed to be a one-hour trip turned into two because they were doing tree-work along the road. That’s a tough job for the workers with all the traffic.

The valley was just stunning. There’s a one-way perimeter road through the valley to accommodate all the humanity. I found parking pretty easily despite all the people. It was amazing to be in a place I had wanted to see my whole life.

Point Reyes & ff

I suspended my posts a few months ago – possibly from burnout, possibly because at this point, I had multiple, stressful problems with my rig.
After almost losing a trailer wheel, for a time, I was stranded right next to a busy road while I waited on a non-responsive wrecker service to pick up the trailer. When the wrecker finally showed up, the driver was unfortunately rude and chauvinistic. And, the mechanic to which I told him to take my trailer on the weekend would not service the trailer when Monday came. Long story short, a mechanically-knowledgeable nomad friend drove several hours to come fix the problem (replacement of the entire wheel hub). His kindness was deeply appreciated. It was such a relief to get back on the road after all my problems. Mechanical problems are a part of nomad life, of course; however, they can be tough.
There is no doubt California is a beautiful state (I love all the trees and the green), but it doesn’t hold particularly good memories for me because of this and other incidents while there. I will simply have to make some better memories here later.