Made less than 200 miles today, owing to a late start, a stop for breakfast, realizing just in time that the campground I was aiming for is in Bishop, not Lone Pine, and that it was 100 degrees when we got here. Bishop, Independence, Big Pine, and Lone Pine, in the eastern Sierras are terrific little towns, and tonight we vowed to come up here for a weekend soon. This place, Brown’s RV Park, is a beautiful, shaded park right next to a nice golf course. There are several good restaurants in town, as well as bakeries (including Eric Schatt’s), a smoke-house (meats, not pot), an independent bookstore, lots of hiking, and a small casino. In the fall the weather will be much better. We usually blow through here on our way to visit daughter Carol in Incline Village, but it deserves a weekend.
US 395 between home and Reno is one of our favorite drives for scenery; we have the new Scott Turow novel on the DC player (thanks to Arnie and Diane), and we had ice-water and hot coffee to sip. There is a lot of construction on northern part of this route. Apparently Nevada got more out of TARP than Sharron Engle and Sara Palin have noticed. The improvements on 395 (and you should see the project at the junction of 395 and I-80) will eventually will be a very good thing, but the signage could be improved. We got goofed up at a detour and ended up on NV 431 headed up Mt. Rose and had to make a U-turn (YIKES), and go back to the beginning. So it was after 11 before we got going in the right direction this morning.
It’s been a great trip, despite the mechanical problems. Steve is going to talk to our usual repair guy, whose techs supposedly packed the bearings and checked the brakes before we left. They also washed and waxed the trailer, which looked great until we noticed they had missed whole sections – especially the nasty black marks on the seals. We’d like to keep using them, but need some assurance that they will pay better attention. It’s hard to say what our favorite place was. Steve’s are Fort Worden and Victoria. I agree. Seven Feathers casino RV park is up there on the list as well. For scenery I pick Columbia Gorge, despite having crummy accommodations while we were there. Westport, OR would be wonderful if it’s not 50 degrees and raining, as well.
No internet again tonight, so this last blog post for 2010 will have to wait until I get home. Home is about 270 miles, and we’ll make it tomorrow for sure, hopefully by getting an early start so that most of the Mojave is behind us early in the day and we’re down the I-5 before rush-hour.
Tuesday August 24 Post-Script
When we're on a long trip, we know we're almost home when se see the Joshua trees
Arrived home early yeserday after easy 270 miles from Bishop. It was hot, but very little traffic. It's good to be home.
Thanks for reading!
