Tuesday April 12 is the Grand Opening of the very cool looking new Virginia Street Bridge in Reno, and I decided I wanted to go to that. Friday April 15 is the almost debut (second show, I believe) of the newly re-formed Death Valley Troubabours (Chad’s band) in Blue Lake, and I want to go to that also. For me, that constitutes a pretty clear agenda. Take Wednesday and Thursday to drive to Eureka, visit the family and see the most important debut of all, my newly formed three week old granddaughter!
Wednesday (Apr 13)
I have the trip to Eureka pretty much down to a science. It takes 3-ish hours to drive to Cave Campground, including a stop in Susanville at the McD’s or the Starbucks. This time of year sun sets at 7:30-ish, so I don’t really have to get going til 3-ish.
Last night I did that thing were I’m excited about the trip so I party a little too hard … with the result that I am a little slow getting in gear this morning. But even so, I am showered, shaved, clean-kitchened and starting my adventure at 1:45!
My friend Mandy says the run from Susanville to Old Station is one of her favorite drives, and I think I agree. It has really grown on me. From S-ville to the junction where 32 heads southwest to Chester and Red Bluff it is just boring trees, but then it opens up to become very pretty. Mostly 5-6000′, flat-ish alpine meadow terrain. This winter it was pretty, untrodden snow fields. Now it’s very, very boggy swampland. Water, even instant, shallow lakes, everywhere. No doubt a lot of mosquitoes if I were to get out, which I didn’t.
Then comes the scenic descent into the vast lava plain that is Hat Creek Valley, and my campground.
WHUFU page for: Cave Campground
Smack on the way from Reno to Eureka, where CA 44 meets CA 89.
A geologically interesting valley. A giant, recent lava flow that feels like the recovering disaster area it is. The Lava Cave is a short walk across the highway.
The Forest Service keeps one campground open all winter, and it is this one.
A deep blanket of pine needles makes it quiet except for the occasional truck on 89.
tonight:
Nobody here. I got the best spot. The creek (really a river in Nevada terms) is very high, so the rapids under the footbridge are quite dramatic. My new thing is exploring downriver (northward) rather than my usual upriver through the closed-off part of the campground.
There is a large RV set up with a “Camp Host” kind of permanence behind the gate in the main campground. I think they are getting ready to reopen for the season.
There is a waxing moon tonight! My favorite time of the month. I took a very nice walk downstream along the creekside. The creek is raging, the manzanita bushes are blooming and manzanita is most of the groundcover here. It was very peaceful and pretty.
Thursday
I happened to wake up at sunrise and thus had the good fortune to see a couple of inches of fresh wet snow that were not there last night … and would not be there when I finally did get stirring quite a bit later.
By 10 am it was all gone! I hung around till 11-ish. I usually stay later at this enchanted place, but there’s an urgency to the weather – it’s not sittin around weather (whatever that means…), it’s gettin somewhere else weather.
After a few miles a light rain started. The temp had dropped to 48°. A few more miles, to where Hat Creek leaves the road to head up the north flank of Mt Lassen, the raindrops started getting fat and icy and the temp was in the low 40’s, then high 30’s. By the time I got to the intersection with 89 from Lassen it was full-on snowing, starting to stick on the highway, outside temp 31°. It wasn’t that much farther till I crested XX Pass. Big sigh of relief, now all I really have to do is roll downhill and I’ll eventually end up in the relative tropics of Redding.
I’ve discovered an excellent breakfast place in Redding with wifi! It’s called Corbett’s, only a block away from my former must-stop, Brew coffee. I like them both, but I fear coffee and wifi plus food will trump coffee and wifi and still need to get food later most of the time.
There was an even longer than usual traffic stop on Buckhorn Mountain. They are doing some major, major roadwork there, and that is going to continuen to annoy for a long time.
WHUFU page for: Pigeon Point Campground
On a bend in the Trinity River. The main deal here is the heavily used boat ramp, I think the campground was built as an adjunct to it. Just seven sites, a couple of which are really nice.
Busy Route 299 is only 30 yards away, so when a truck passes you hear it. Fortunately, the road is not busy after dark.
Not quite as torrid as Redding, but still pretty darned hot until the sun goes down.
tonight:
I never know what the scene will be here at Pigeon Point. To my surprise almost all the spots are taken, except the one that usually goes first, the two-table spot on the hill next to the bathrooms. I do my usual thing and take the edge space facing out on nature, and I'm set for the evening!
Keeping up with the weather of this morning, it is a blustery, cold afternoon. Too much so to do my laptop thing outside, so I spend it sitting in the van on my cooler, facing out the door. This works very well – I am looking outside, hearing the birds and the river (and the trucks) as if I’m outside, but I’m out of the wind.
When I got back from my evening walk I noticed a stupid noise from the engine. Was that happening all afternoon while I was sitting inside? It must have been, but I sure didn’t notice. It seems to be some kind of fan deep within the engine – I could hear it and feel the breeze, but not see it. The main radiator fan was not moving.
Anyway, it’s still happening, and I handle it kind of stupidly. It’s the first time my van has ever really had an issue, so I kind of just hoped it would go away. It didn’t.
Friday – Sunday
Dead battery. Yuck. No phone bars to call AAA. Double, triple suckage.
Time to make friends in the campground. The nice mom with her busy little 6 year old ginger boy across the road has phone bars (Verizon, to my ATT), but her phone is dead. We charge it enough to work long enough to be on hold with AAA, and on the third VERY frustrating try we succeed! The first two I would spend literally minutes listening to recordings until the human came on, we would do somepart of the thing and the line would drop. AAAARRRGGGH.
Anyway, success! The dude comes in his big truck, never seen a Sprinter before, but is able to find the charging post where you can jumpstart. The actual battery is hidden under the driver’s side floorboard. I am on the way to Eureka, with effusive thanks to my new friend Laurel.
I stop at German Motors in Arcata, but then I turn off the engine … no noise! Whatever the eff it was, it fixed itself – woo! So it’s all good (for now). No expensive complicated things to do this Friday afternoon or Monday morning, so on to family fun time!
Saturday
Game One of the NBA Playoffs for the Warriors is today. I of course want to see it, but Chad does also. We go to a nice roomy pizza place downtown and do it! It was fun.
Turns out that the Troubadours show that I was hurrying here to see last night was not last night, it is tonight. Party on.
Leave the house 7:30, pick up instruments from their practice room in the Arcata warehouse district, Logger Bar in Blue Lake 8:30-ish. Mill around … There is a first band – Belles of the Levee. Much to everyone’s bemusement I know one of them – my friend Beverly, formerly of Reno. My friend Dan’s good friend. Cool!
The show was great fun. I got a little cranky with a couple of folks trying to bogart my spot, but it was all good. Once you’re posted up, you do what you gotta do to maintain position.
Sunday
Gannons arrive 10:30 am, delivering Tyler back from spending his Spring Break week in San Rafael. They must’ve left San Rafael at 6 am. Crazy. They will make the (4.5 hour each way) trip up and back and will have a couple of hours of daylight left when they get home. Not my style, but good for them having the energy to do it. I vacate Ty’s room and we all hang out in the living room for a while … then they leave. It was nice to hang out all together for a while.
The three generations (me, Martha, the two boys and the girl) go for a walk. We walk the three blocks over to the “Coast Guard basketball court”. So called because it is in a little enclave of government housing built for Coast Guard families. It’s a pleasant, very well maintained place, nice playgrounds, grass, and two basketball courts! It is very hot today – dislike.
Entertaining guests so early in the day has thrown my schedule off. I’m not able to get around to my Sunday paper search until 1-ish in the afternoon. I am lucky – Safeway still has a couple left! I celebrate with coffee at Old Town Coffee, fresh Sunday paper in hand.
Then home to hang out with Rylan while the folks do grown-up things. After a while the sun is lower so it’s not so hot, I get the energy to summerize my van’s water system. That’s a word I made up for undoing the effects of winterizing. Before the first hard freeze I must drain the water system and blow out the pipes so they don’t freeze and burst. Now, after the last hard freeze I must put water back in the water tank and bleed the air out of the system so I have water coming out of my faucet for the summer! It’s way easier to do this at a house with a hose in the front yard than it is to do at my condo. I am pleased to have done accomplished this seasonal milestone.