As is our normal way of beginning a road trip, we left an hour later than we had planned. We did a pretty good job getting the camper loaded up in the days preceding the trip, but this Daylight Savings Time thing always throws Laurie for a loop. Half a week was not an adequate amount of time to get readjusted to the one-hour difference....
We decided to travel down Highway 101 instead of Interstate 5 for the majority of the trip today. We love the Salinas Valley, especially at this time of year when everything is so green and beautiful. Mustard dots the hills and the beauty of the alluvial plains west of all of the agricultural fields is even more rich when it is deep green. We cut across to I-5 at Paso Robles, and once again enjoyed that winding road through the hills east of this wine country. It is also green this time of year and starting to show early wildflowers that will be spectacular in three to four weeks' time.
No major events today other than filling up our gas tank ($88.99 @ $3.899/gallon) and trying to find our RV campground this evening. When we finally found it (two wrong exits and a phone call later), we were deeply apprehensive. The Pyramid Lake RV Resort sounded very nice and actually got some pretty good reviews online. But when we finally found it, we weren't so sure....
It is definitely not on Pyramid Lake. That is a state recreation area, across the other side of the freeway and nestled down in a hole away from I-5. This place is right on I-5. The office is sort of scary looking, all blinds drawn, minimal signage, and nothing but painted letters on the front door saying "Clubhouse -- Front Desk". Yikes. Art bravely entered and was in there a very long time. Pep and I started Googling nearby emergency services, but Art finally emerged with the owner's son in tow and a smile on his face.The campground developed behind this scary Clubhouse/Office. Although it was nothing fancy, it was not as loud as I feared it would be (sitting there waiting for Art listening to the jake brakes of trucks barreling down that stretch of I-5), and it was nearly empty. As we got set up, a huge, nearly full moon rose over the hills to our right, and although it was chilly, it was crystal clear and the canyon was full of wildlife. We watched a covey of quail jet around, heard the calls of many birds, and much to Pepé's delight, watched bunny rabbits dash all over the joint.
This place is owned by a Japanese American family and is quite an interesting spot. It features a swimming pool, putt putt golf course, and a clubhouse that advertises all kinds of activities in the busy months. Now, however, it is almost vacant. There were maybe two or three other vacationers in the campground. The other residents looked to be permanent or long-term transient, maybe with local construction crews or something. Maintenance was interesting. Very do-it-yourself like, although clean and pretty well kept. The bathrooms were clean and showers free with good hot water. But you could see it was on a very slow decline. They were making some efforts to grow some new trees along the edge of the park, maybe even add some RV spots along there, but it all seemed a little half-assed. But, they were out there on a Friday morning in off-season, tooling around the place on the maintenance cart, picking up odd twigs in the road, etc. Definitely an interesting spot. We can imagine it gets pretty busy there in the high season with lake goers, but we would probably stay there again in the off season if our path made it through their zone. There are a very limited number of RV parks from here through the whole Los Angeles basin, so finding one that is decent is good.
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