Sunday, July 16, 2023
Itinerary, 2023– This year we will retrace our path of last year, at least until we arrive in Tillamook, Oregon. We are staying at some of the same locations and some new. We will drive past the Yuba/Sutter Fairgrounds, our first stop last year, as its campground is unavailable. We’ll continue on the Clear Lake CA and stay at a park new to us, the Aurora RV Park located in Upper Lake on the north east shore of Clear Lake. Then we’ll drive to the coast and follow it north to Tillamook, Oregon, then to the Bonneville Fish Hatchery for 2 months of volunteer work there. If the weather holds we plan on doing a little exploring in Washington State before heading for the barn.
We left home at 0900 hours after saying good bye to our house guests Jim and Nancy and neighbors Ron and Chris. We head over to west bound I-80 and start up the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Range. The interstate is heavily used by trucks and the truck lane is really beat up- rutted and for many miles and has been worn to the point that the aggregate of the concrete roadway has been exposed. It’s rough and the RV doesn’t want to track correctly as its tires want to follow the ruts in the lane and not where I want it to go. It’s a struggle to keep it on the straight and narrow.
Fortunately, we have an alternate route available. A few miles past Donner Summit (elevation 7227’) we exit the interstate in favor of California State Highway 20. This two lane highway will take us all the way to Fort Bragg, CA, first passing the old gold rush towns of Nevada City (3068 souls) and Grass Valley 12,860 souls), transitioning to lower elevations at Marysville (12,000 souls) and its neighbor across the Yuba River, Yuba City (70,000 souls). Both towns were settled during the California Gold Rush.
From there we continue on Cal 20 through some small Sacramento Valley farm towns, through Colusa (6000 souls), seat of Colusa County, Williams (3670 souls) and then up into the hills of the California Coastal Range as we progress towards Clear Lake. A very nice fruit stand lies just past Williams. We stop but don’t purchase any of their lovely looking locally grown fruits and vegetables as the stand is packed with humanity, the check-out line is at least 10 people deep. Gads!
Clear Lake
We continue on up the winding Cal 20 following several drainages until we reach the southeast shore of Clear Lake. Clear lake is in chaparral/oak country so typical of coastal California and is the largest natural lake (68 square miles) fully within California as well as the oldest lake (2.5 million years) in North America. The warm water is ideal for big mouth bass, crappie, blue gill, and catfish. Many species of birds such as ducks, grebes, pelicans, bald eagles call the lake home year round. The warm water makes the lake ideal for water sports.
Aurora RV Park
We follow up the eastern shore almost to the end of this large lake to the Aurora RV Park in Upper Lake. The park is a little funky at first glance. Our site is a little short for our RV/toad combo so Mandy in the office graciously offers a much longer site. The park is split in two by Lakeshore Blvd.- very unusual for an RV park indeed. The bulk of the RV sites are inland from Lakeshore Blvd. with maybe 10 back in sites on the lake. The office is also on the lake shore, west of the boulevard. What’s nice about the park is the shaded grassy area adjacent to the office/meeting hall building and the nice tree shaded BBQ/picnic areas are right on the shoreline!
Canoes and water fowl- Clear Lake
The downside of heading out in mid-July is pretty obvious. It’s summer time and it’s gonna be hot- and it is! The Sacramento Valley is always a scorcher and Clear Lake is protected from sea breezes by the coastal range. So Clear Lake temps reached 104*. We had the generator running much of time on the road with both A/C units running full tilt. It got up to the mid-80’s inside the coach in spite of the coach having the largest A/C units available. As soon as we parked at the Aurora RV Park we dropped the night shades which helped bring the temperature down inside the coach several degrees.
We walked the dogs as much as we dared that evening. With cooler weather in the morning we walked the mutzos a little farther before breaking camp.
Travel With Jil and Mike 