Click, click, click. There's no place like home.
Daily Summary
May 19
Day 37
Start Fallen Leaf Campground in South Lake Tahoe, CA
Finish Home in Bend, OR
Today’s Miles 448.2
Trip Time 10:16:32
Moving Average 55.4 mph
Speed Max 73.3 mph
Time Moving 08:33:27
Odometer 2510.7
Highlights/Lowlights
Once we make up our mind we’re doing something, we get very focused on completing the goal. In this case, the decision to head home was the first domino to topple. And so we drove 450 miles home. And while it was a long day, we were glad to be home. We parked in the underground garage and unloaded only the essentials. The rest will have to wait until tomorrow. And then we luxuriated in our hot shower and high speed internet. And we drank a toast to ourselves.
The totals:
Adventure days: 37
Adventure miles: 2,511
Adventure memories: too many to count
Our Teardrop is a Poikilotherm
Daily Summary
Day 35
Start Gull Lake National Forest Campground near June Lake, CA
Finish Gull Lake National Forest Campground near June Lake, CA
Highlights/Lowlights
So while we are enjoying the good weather at Gull Lake, 10-day forecasts are showing a large weather pattern bringing freezing temperatures and possibly snow later this week. Here’s the lowlight: this weather pattern spans from the Sierras all the way up to the Oregon Cascades. So there’s no escaping the cold. We remind ourselves that this trip was initially conceived to head south into California to ESCAPE the winter for a month or so. Oops! We have had many more cold days than warm.
We are declaring our trip an overwhelming success and now it’ time to wrap up. Our plan is to begin to head home to Bend arriving around Saturday.
Back to the highlights: pie in a jar. Who knew? We stopped at Mimi’s Cookie Bar yesterday while running errands in Mammoth Lakes. We bought a jar of Sweet Banana Caramel Cream Pie and Mammoth Mud Pie. And they were oh so good!
Meandering Home
Daily Summary
- Day 36
- Start: Gull Lake National Forest Campground near June Lake, CA
- Finish: Fallen Leaf Campground in South Lake Tahoe, CA
- Today's Miles: 165.3
- Trip Time: 06:49:35
- Moving Average: 38.7 mph
- Speed Max: 65.0 mph
- Time Moving: 04:29:17
- Odometer: 2062.5
Highlights
If the weather promised to stay nice over the next week, we could have seen ourselves staying in this area for a few more days. But alas, it’s time to start heading home. We drove the rest of the so-called June Lake Loop past Silver and Grant Lakes (and several waterfalls) and back on to Highway 395. We were aiming to get as far as the Lake Tahoe area. But first we made a side trip to the ghost town/state park of Bodie, CA. At one time a booming gold mining town with its own Chinatown and red light districts, Bodie fell on hard times and was abandoned. Now it is maintained as a state park in “arrested decay” meaning there is no renovation of the structures but they are maintained by the state park system. Pretty interesting place.
After reading RV Park Reviews, we set course for Fallen Leaf Campground in South Lake Tahoe, CA. Situated on the north shore of Fallen Leaf Lake and near the south shore of Lake Tahoe, the campground is a great base camp for exploring the recreational opportunities in the area. When we arrived it was nearly empty having just opened for the season. The campground is beautiful and well-maintained by one of the concessionaires contracted by the NFS. Our site #25 was adjacent to Taylor Creek. Mr. Spock loves a good creek; however, the creek was too swollen and rapid for his little paddle legs. The four of us took a nice stroll along the creek until T'Chat got spooked by the loud, rushing water and ran back to the teardrop. It’s amazing that her little internal GPS knows exactly where “home” is.
Lowlights
There’s a lot of road construction in the area with long delays that worsen the already terrible traffic in the area.
