Saturday February 5 – Saturday February 19
Saturday, we headed north toward Santa Barbara: SR 805 to I-5, then 101 up the coast. I had a reservation at Malibu Canyon State Park, north of Malibu. I thought driving up the coast would be less traffic than going thru L.A., but boy, was I wrong! It was the weekend, the weather was really nice, and traffic was terrible. Parking was all full, lots of folks headed to the beach! We had to go up a residential street to find a place to park so we could take a short walk! It was almost dark when we got to the park. Just enough time to get setup. Continued north on US 1 and 101 on Sunday, not as much traffic. Stopped at Ventura State Beach for lunch and a nice long walk with Sunna.
Arrived at Karleen Patrick’s place in Santa Barbara by mid-afternoon. She recently purchased a mobile home in a very nice park. At first I parked the trailer near her house and slept in it for several nights, then the park staff let me know I couldn’t do that, so I had to move the trailer to a storage area and slept in Karleen’s house. Karleen and I walked up the hill at More Mesa, near where her friend Rod lives, for a great view of the ocean. Karleen had a hip replacement only about 6 weeks earlier, so we paced it slowly, but she did fine! We watched the Olympics every night. Another day we went to Henry’s Beach where there’s an off leash dog area. Sunna and I walked the length of the beach and back, then Karleen and I had dinner at the Boat House restaurant. She’s a long-time Lopez friend.
On Thursday we packed up and headed back down 101 toward Ventura. I was looking for a pet store than sold Nzymes products for Sunna. Then we headed east towards Bakersfield. We stopped at Kern County Campground on the Kern River. We had stayed there several times before and it was a lovely park, no hookups, lots of places to walk. This was where I stopped 10 years ago to test my new solar panel with my Toyota motorhome, when I was just starting to learn how to camp off grid! It’s on the Kern River and this time the water was calm. Several years ago there was lots of rain and flooding and the water was running so fast it had waves and white caps!
Then we continued east toward Bakersfield. I called ahead and made a reservation for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at River Run RV park because it was the weekend. We had stayed at this park before too. It’s also on the Kern River, and there are lots of places to walk outside the park boundaries along the riverbed. This time the river was DRY! Apparently that’s caused by excessive water use for agriculture. There were a number of tents along the river, so I was careful to avoid them when we took a walk. The RV park was fenced and very nicely kept. They had a pool and a hot tub. I decided to stay a few extra days to get some computer work caught up. THEN on Feb. 14th when I went out to take Sunna for a walk, I saw that my truck had been broken into and ransacked!! Happy Valentine’s Day! To be honest, I had not locked the doors the night before. The park felt very safe and I just forgot to do that. Of course, I reported it to the police and the park staff. They looked at video of the single entrance road and saw a vehicle from outside the park at about 5am go down the rows checking the doors of all the parked cars. When they got to my truck they hit the jackpot. Took vehicle registrations, insurance, other papers, Covid masks (why?), but the most significant thing was my backpack. It had my binoculars and a really good camera and a bunch of other things I used all the time. DARN! This made me really paranoid for the rest of the trip and has continued this past summer. This was one of the very few bad experiences I’ve had while traveling. Besides a lot of time dealing with theft reporting and details and filing an insurance claim, I had to spend time reviewing legal docs for the sale of Virginia’s house on Lopez. It was still a work in progress…
After spending a whole week in Bakersfield, we finally left and continued heading toward Death Valley. Our next stop was in Ridgecrest, which is just a little west of the southern end of Death Valley. Stopped for a walk at Lake Isabella. Water in the Kern River and the lake was very low. We went on to the campground at the Fairgrounds. I was exhausted when we got there, so I stayed two nights to get caught up on things and rest after the trauma in Bakersfield.
Next installment: Death Valley
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