Advertisement
Published: October 1st 2014
I am writing this blog from a diner with WiFI, waiting for the garage nextdoor to fix our blinkers (that is american for indicators). They are not able to fix the back door, which is impossible to open now, so to get at our 'kitchen' we have to reach over the back of the bed/seating area.
Our first snag was when we discovered the pick up place for our campervan. This was not 15 minutes away in Burbank as I am sure it had been when I first searched online, but over 20 miles away in a distant part of LA. Burbank would have been easy, as it is on the edge and easy to get out of town......but Gardina is right in the middle. Hence we took a long journey involving 1 train, 2 buses and 1 taxi to cross LA, before driving through rush hour traffic on 6 lane freeways to get out of the city. We passed through the most horrible bus stop I have ever seen. It is called Harbour Freeway. It is literally a bus stop in the central reservation of a freeway with 6 lanes of traffic roaring past on either side. Yuk! So
noisy you can't think. Then we got in a lift down from that bus stop to the smaller dual carriageway with local buses below. I have to say that all the people we encountered on the journey could not be more helpful when we asked what side of the road etc etc.
When we finally picked up the van after our long cross town trip it was almost rush hour. The guys at the depot set the gps for us to a place we could camp not far outside LA. We drove through the horrendous LA traffic remembering to stay on the right and attempting to follow the gps. This is not easy when it is asking you to turn across several lanes of traffic, driving an unfamiliar vehicle, and on an unfamiliar side of the road. The gps keeps having to reset itself everytime you miss your turning, and you get frustrated going around in seeming circles! Anyway, we got to a campsite after dark sometime....and the rest is history!
(At this point the van was going well, and the only problem was that the back door was difficult to open, but not impossible, so we were
able
to reach the kitchen equipment.)
From then on in we used the traditional map. We have found some great camping spots. We have made use of a website called free camping in California. That led us to Lake Isobella in the south of the Sequoa National Forest where we swam in the lake, chatted with a friendly ex military man , and parked overnight. The thing we noticed at night time was the amazing sky , which had far more visible stars than we have ever seen.
Next night we stayed a few miles away at another free camping site. This place is literally fantastic.... You park the van in a pull in off a minor road, and walk/scramble a short way down a path to the river. There, beside the river, there are hot springs! Some local people have built a series of 3 pools from the rocks, each slightly cooler than the last, and then for a cool off there is the river itself. It is quite beautiful and peaceful lying there in the hot spring bath beside the river. There are even trees to provide shade. A magical place. We met a lot of nice people stopping there, and made friends with a friendly hippy who parked next to us.
Our blinkers went wrong while we were in this area, and it was not too much trouble to stay an extra night in this idyllic spot so that they could be repaired. Wicked Campers agreed to pay the garage the costs of fixing blinkers.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.336s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0611s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
Sojourner1208
William
hot springs
I have boondocked all over the US and will make it a point of visiting the Lake Isabella hot springs campsite next time I go to California. Thanks for the heads up.