Wintering South in the Before Times

Before everything went south, we did — to California and Arizona.

Even before the trip began, it was pretty weird times for Team Toto. In the second half of 2019: some parents expired; an ailing relative visited at our place so he could work with Seattle doctors; the terriers continued their aging thing; and so did we. Everything seemed a little nuts.

Through it all, we somehow managed to plan a trip to spend the holidays with (as it turned out, a slightly smaller) family in the Sacramento area, and to then continue toward destinations scenic, southerly, and (in one case), infested, with, I mean inhabited by, additional family.

Yes, we thought those were weird times. It was December, 2019, and we took our sense of loss and dread and just went. Why cancel a trip just because odd things had occurred? It turned out to be good that we went, of course, because now all those campgrounds are closed.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

Like so many earlier trips, this one began at an RV Resort owned by a band of native Americans.

Our trip started two days later than planned — we had to wait out a storm that turned I-5 in southern Oregon into an ice rink. Seven Feathers RV Resort welcomed us (and hardly anyone else) our first night out. In the photo above, if you look to the left back there beyond our rig, you’ll see an Escape fiberglass trailer. Apparently we can’t get completely away from them (and why would we want to?). You can also see that the storm had washed all the colors away from the resort.

Here is another thing that you can’t see in the photo: that the RV sites at Seven Feathers form an ideal setting for studying illusion and reality. Illusion: your rig is situated perfectly parallel to the edge of the parking pad.

Reality: no, it’s not. It only looks that way from Chief’s driver seat. Exit the truck, walk up by the front bumper, and look back, and the sense of parallelism disappears.

Even worse: walk back to the Toto’s stern and turn around. Not even close to parallel — in fact, crooked in the other direction, at a different angle.

Climb back aboard Chief, adjust the rig’s position, then get out and look again.

Worse.

This is about the time that the more attractive member of the team offers up: “Life is hard for you, isn’t it?”

I’ll have more to say about this later. This phenomenon occurs regularly, but it’s more obvious at locations with straight-edged parking pads. I do not expect to have any answers, but I’ll have more questions.

Meanwhile, we got ourselves to Folsom Lake State Recreation Area, where we’ve been many times before. Close family, pleasant campsites, and overrun with rattlesnakes only during mid-summer, when we never go.

One lights the fire. One sets out the chairs. One waits for a refreshment as a reward (in addition to the reward of just being outside). One waits in vain.

Holidays! No white Christmas in the greater Sacramento area. But it was good to gather with family. We even got to see some wonderful, longtime friends who gathered for a final goodbye to one of the aforementioned croaked parents.

We have not been accused of being overly ambitious with our holiday decor. It did begin to look quite festive about the time that glass became empty.

Onward. Our plan was to rocket down California Route 99 for an overnight in Bakersfield, then jump over the Tehachapi range on the way to a Joshua Tree National Park campsite. BUT.

Did I mention that the Toto had a little bump on his brow? He did.

Yeah, the Toto is dirty in this picture. This is not my fault; the dirt did it. Anyway, just below and to the left of the yellow marker light, there is this bump. Is it serious enough to have repaired? No one knows, but everyone has an opinion.

He was born with it. We didn’t notice it when we first adopted the little tyke, but we saw it later, and it bothered us. So upon departing Bakersfield, we wound our way over the Tehachapis, and then veered south toward the Toto’s birthplace in Lancaster, California, a high-desert place where trailers are born.

The Lance Trailer team in Lancaster determined that the Toto’s bump ought to be smoothed out, and we agreed to a late-January reunion (in Lancaster) to that end. And then we motored on, over Cajon Pass, toward the south end of Joshua Tree.

I will say this about our drive through central and southern California: the roads are too damned bumpy. Now, maybe if I were in charge of CalTrans, I couldn’t do any better. But I surely wish they could. Bumpy! And we have already seen how the team feels about bumps.