Tuesday, May 22, through Tuesday, May 29, 2012:  Starting North (in California):
The first stop on our way North was Lone Pine, California, an easy 156 miles away from Soledad Canyon, located on US 395, 40 miles South of Bishop.  We stayed at the Boulder Creek RV Resort, a nice place. 

It was beastly hot when we got there (around 97 degrees), and just a little cooler on Wednesday.  The big event on Wednesday was visiting the Lone Pine Film Museum, which celebrates the more than 100 movies, mostly westerns, that were filmed there, mainly in the '40s and '50s. 

Otherwise, it was a restful two days. 

The next stop---on Thursday---was the Meadowcliff Lodge & RV Resort, in Coleville, California (Population 400; obviously not an exciting city), 186 miles from Lone Pine, all the way on US 395.  On the way there, we went through Bridgeport, the seat of Mono County and a delightful little town, and drove along the Walker River for several miles.  There was lovely scenery the whole way.  


The RV park is very nice. 

The property was bought about 20 years ago, and then had just a 10-room motel building and a small restaurant.  Since then, the owners (Tim and Mary Fesko) have added another 10-room motel building and, recently, the 34-space RV park.  Tim, who seems like a very squared-away guy, is running for one of the County Supervisor slots in the June 5 election in Mono County.


On Friday, we ventured up US 395 about ten miles---into Nevada---to have lunch at the Topaz Lodge, located on Topaz Lake, a large reservoir located on the border.  The lodge is nice. 

The weather wasn't.  We woke up to falling snow, later turned to hail, then a little rain, and all the while a bit of nasty wind.  And the whole time the temperature was in the 40s.  Isn't it late May? 

Before we left for the border, Becky went on the Internet to locate the nearest Red Box.  It was on what appeared to be a Marine base only two miles North of our RV park.  It turned to be exactly that.  The guard explained that this location was only the residential area for the Marines who were stationed at the actual base 29 miles to the South.  It's a nice-looking village, not at all like a typical military base.  He let us enter so we could get to the Red Box that was located at the Base Exchange.  

We rented New Year's Eve, which we just started watching as I write this.  It does not look promising.

It turned out to be a better movie than I thought but still not so good.   

Saturday was a lazy day.  We had a nice lunch at the restaurant here at the RV park, then went to nearby Walker and rented two movies---Rampart (with Woody Harrelson) and Contraband (with Mark Wahlberg).  Rampart was the typical anti-LAPD screed, and interesting only in how screwed up Harrelson's character was.  Contraband was not academy award level, but had good special effects.

Saturday, we made a 122-mile side trip to Lake Tahoe.  It's been a long time since we were there, but it doesn't seem to have changed much.  It's still a magnificent lake. 

We went there via Monitor Pass through Alpine County and returned via the Kingsbury Grade and Gardnerville.  The scenery getting to the lake was very nice; the scenery coming back was not so hot once we had finished the Kingsbury Grade, although Gardnerville is kind of a pretty town.  We had lunch again at the Topaz Lodge on the way back.

There was a wildfire near here a few years ago.  It threatened a strip of homes between the hillside and the highway.  An air tanker flew very low over the hill to successfully drop retardant right behind the homes and, in pulling out of the dive, had both wings snap off.  The plane crashed in the field across the road, killing all three aboard.  Firefighters from across the country visit the site from time to time and hang identifying T-shirts on the fence facing the saved houses

---in tribute to their fallen comrades.  The people living in the houses periodically wash and repair the shirts, which get quite weathered, and otherwise maintain the memorial,   It's a nice story.

On Monday, Memorial Day, we were slated to head for Honey Lake, 141 miles further up US 395. According to RV Park Reviews, the RV version of Trip Advisor, the place we intended to stay was a bit sub-par.  So we decided to go a little further.  The choice was the Eagle Lake RV Park at, not surprisingly, Eagle Lake, the second largest natural lake in California. 

(The largest is Clear Lake.)  Eagle Lake is North of Susanville, and our RV park is on the West side of the lake, but the advice was to go counter-clockwise around the lake to avoid very winding roads.  So it turned out to be more than 40 miles from Susanville to the RV park, making the trip 208 miles overall. Naturally, being experts at this stuff, we made the trip without incident.


The RV park, which is very rural and very casual, is right on the lake, and, after struggling to locate a space without tree cover to block our satellite reception, we ended up in a great site facing the lake.  

The owners are very helpful, by the way.  This place caters to fishing aficionados, which we definitely are not. But we cope well with not fitting into the crowd. 

We celebrated the holiday with hamburgers from our barbecue, washed down with a nice California cabernet sauvignon.  How traditional! Then we settled in to watch two of the free DVDs they offer here: Twisted, an Ashley Judd thriller I had seen a few years ago, and Lions For Lambs, a Robert Redford/Meryl Streep/Tom Cruise political statement (from the left, of course), both of which were awful.

Tuesday, we simply recovered from Monday, prepared to leave the area, and watched one movie---Absolute Power, a Clint Eastwood flick from the '90s.  It was good.