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Published: September 15th 2012
Day 7 - Lake Isabella to Yosemite Lakes, Distance Travelled 305 miles.
Ouch! Probably the longest and most tiring day of the trip is finally out of the way, and thank God! We knew this day was going to be a killer when we started planning the trip but chose to get it out of the way in one go rather than spread it over 2 days.In retrospect we might have made a different decision knowing what we know now, but hindsight is a wonderful thing!
After a slightly later than planned start ( hair and makeup has to be perfect for these long drives!) we hit the road about 9-30 a.m. Knowing we had previously picked the 'scenic' and slightly challenging route into Lake Isabella, we thought the route out would be a lot easier as it was marked as a highway ( the 178). The first five miles lulled us into a false sense of security as we followed the track of the Kern river again, out of Lake Isabella on a pristine dual carriageway, but then just as we had settled in and broken out the murray mints we saw the mountains again!
All of
a sudden the road transformed back into a single carriageway winding road, clinging to the side of the river canyon, Sharan adopted her usual white knuckle, foetal position in the passenger seat as at times her only view out of the side passenger window was a sheer 200 ft drop into the Kern river canyon below. After 15 miles of ankle killing accelerating and braking and pulling over onto tiny gravelled 'passing laybys' as cars, vans and even the odd petrol tanker thundered past we made it out of the canyon and onto 'terra firma' , I remember saying, " we'll thank god we won't have to do that again".... Silly, silly boy!
The next stage of the journey was about 150 miles of mind numbing, boring driving on the 'highways of California' firstly on the 178 into Bakersfield and then onto the I99 heading North towards our destination. The I99 is a horrible road, in severe need of resurfacing and it was a miracle that all of our stuff didn't end up strewn across the back of the van as we bounced along the horrendously cracked and bumpy surface. It did look like it is being resurfaced in
places and so we had the joys of contra flows to deal with in the 9 foot wide van, in what felt like 8 foot wide contraflow lanes.
Eventually it was Shas's turn to take the wheel for the first time, just to alleviate the boredom of mile after mile of highway driving. After I initially considered adopting a defensive position (like hiding under the bed in the back of the van), I settled in and watched the world go by as she drove us on North.. Unfortunately at this stage of the journey 'the world' consisted of huge citrus farms, huge cattle farms, RV sales sites, Tractor and Lorry sales sites and not a lot else. Lunch was taken with the first $140 petrol stop of the day in a traditional all American setting, Burger King! and then it was back to the I99 with me at the wheel.
A small map reading error as we left the I99 after 150 miles of tedium lead to a detour around the town of Merced as we searched for our exit to Yosemite, and it also lead to the first three point turn being required in our 30 foot
beast on a residential road. This was (of course) executed perfectly !?! with only minor disruption to local traffic flows for 10 minutes.
With 220 miles completed and only 2-30 in the afternoon, it looked like the remaining 80 ish miles was going to be easy, but how wrong can you be. Again, lulled into a false sense of security we set off across the grass plains of California on the CA140 passing places like Gold rush creek, Bullion hill and miners creek...we were like Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman heading over the plains in Far and Away to stake our claim....well it felt like that, actually we were two knackered tourists vaguely hoping the maps were wrong and our destination would magically appear in front of us.
What I hadn't noticed was that throughout this dreaming, we had been climbing all the time, albeit on a fairly dead straight road, and the next turn was onto the innocently named CA49 which on the map looked like a fairly straightforward 32 miles of road. After only a couple of miles we suddenly found ourselves at what looked like the top of the Sierra Nevada mountain range with some
of the scariest driving I have ever encountered ahead!
For pretty much 30 miles we travelled through some absolutely fantastic mountain scenery appearing to climb and descend thousands of feet several times throughout. The roads were immaculate, but very similar to the mountain roads into Monaco, winding, twisting and many hairpin turns to negotiate...as a driver it's very difficult to appreciate the views but they were spectacular and the best we have seen. As a passenger who is scared of heights I would guess this wouldn't be your favourite 30 mile stretch of road!
It took us two stops and two hours to make it to the end and our next turning point in the town of Mocaasin, it's difficult to balance the sheer beauty of what we saw, with the sheer terror of what we felt. During the stops we saw logging lorries, petrol tankers and even a school bus shooting round the corners like F1 drivers, if you're local, I guess you get used to it, but the thought of my kids on that school bus run every day would worry me... Especially as I failed to mention that none of these roads have any form
of crash barrier or guard rail in place...one or two foot off the road you could be going down more than 1000 feet very quickly!
Mocassin signalled the final turn and technically (according to the map) the final 25 mile 'straight' into Yosemite...but it was not straight at all (we really need to get a better scaled map with contours marked) good old ordnance survey would have been a godsend out here.
Again the first five miles we're back into a scary climb on scary roads up to about 4500 feet, still no crash barriers, still no guard rails and Shas still hanging out over the drop on her side of the van at each hairpin...then it really was the final few miles through some lovely Yosemite forests, old mining villages and a petrol stop (the second 140 dollar fill up of the day) into our destination Yosemite Lakes Campground.
First impressions of the site were a little disappointing, the setting is superb, on the side of the river in amongst a pine forest but it is huge...five to ten times the size the branded KOA campgrounds we have used to date. Due to the size, the
facilities are not nice and central like we have been used to. The shop is half a mile away, showers and toilets are just small huts dotted around the place, there is no wifi (so god knows how or when I will upload this blog) and there are warning signs up everywhere prohibiting everything...dogs off leads, roller skates, skateboards, cycling, music, alcohol only in moderation! rubbish (you must only use the bear proof rubbish bins that are half a mile away). The toilet door says 'please ensure I am firmly shut behind you as you don't want the next visitor to find a bear or rattlesnake in here!' so does the shower! I think Shas and I will be using the RV facilities for the next 2 days!
Being by a river, we have also met the local mosquito population for the first time this trip and they seem to love the smell of Deet rather than being repelled by it!
Dinner for the night was a sumptuous fried steak, sweetcorn and salad, cooked and eaten inside the vehicle as barbys and fires are forbidden due to fire risk in this area. Smoking was taken in pairs standing
bacl to back with all outside lights on, dressed in full mosquito proof body armour. Doors then had to be firmly locked and even the coke can ashtray we used had to be taken in so the poor black bear doesn't hurt his paws! God knows what precautions those in tents at the other end of the campground have to take!
So our 8 and a half hour, 300 mile day finally came to an end, the crickets are chirping, the ducks are quacking, mossies are nibbling and it's time for a very cold beer, I think I've earned it. Tomorrow Yosemite!
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Dave
non-member comment
Fun!
Sounds as though that was an interesting drive. Thoroughly enjoyed reading ab