May 21 – June 1, 2011
After leaving Yosemite our next planned stop was the Lake Tahoe area. In order to avoid crossing the Sierras on what we were afraid would be a very curvy and difficult road we cut all the way up to Sacramento and then picked up I-80 across the mountains and around the north side of the lake through Reno. I don’t know if this is the worst decision we’ve ever made on the trip since we don’t really know how the more direct route would have worked out but I do know that this was without a doubt our worst travel day ever. It began with California 99, not an awful road but certainly not good. Rough pavement, potholes and as a result constant noise inside the coach. That was just a warm up for I-80 though, I-80 is the worst road we’ve ever been on. The section we were on climbed to a pass through the Sierras with steep inclines and descents but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that the road surface was so incredibly broken and rough that the entire time we were waiting for something (the TV, the stereo, entire cabinets) to come loose and fall on us. It was incredible. Increasing the pain was that we were on Interstate with lots of big rigs around that didn’t seem to mind the vibration resulting in us not being able to go as slow as we might have otherwise. Never again. California, your roads suck!
We had a one night stay in the Carson City Nugget casino, our first experience at casino camping. We got parked and took a quick little swing through the casino before retiring back to Horton for the night. What an amazingly sad little place, dingy, smoky, depressing. The next morning we scouted out a boondocking spot up in the national forest to the south of Lake Tahoe, found a sweet little spot and moved Horton on up. We spent the next several nights there doing a little touring around the area. Overall, we both found Lake Tahoe to not be all that enjoyable. There is very little public access to the lake itself and anywhere that a park is set up its fee based and the fees tend to be pretty steep. Lots of private homes and then the rest is commercial development. So, seen that, done that, no need to come back.
From Tahoe we headed to Walker Lake in Nevada. Walker Lake is just north of Hawthorne, a small little town built up around an Army depot. The west side of the lake has several BLM managed campgrounds which is where we settled after a one night stay at a nice little RV park to fill and empty tanks as well as get some laundry done. Days continued to be quiet for us, we had alternating beautiful if a little cool weather mixed in with rain and snow at higher elevations. There was a good 3G connection at our spot so we caught up with a few movies at night and generally just relaxed during the day. We did make one drive up to the Mono Lake area where we toured an old abandoned mining town, found a tasty lunch in Bridgeport, CA at Rhino’s Bar and Grille and of course toured the lake. At first we didn’t think much of the lake but as we were driving back home we decided to explore down a dirt road on the north side of the lake. We ended up walking around the shores and exploring until sunset. There are large colonies of California Gulls on the lake, several of which kept a close eye on us in case we had something good to hand out. Quite pleasant, empty and highly recommended if you do find yourself up there.
So, a really quiet couple of weeks. We recharged, relaxed, cleaned, ran errands and did a little exploring. Off to Boise next.
