Souvenirs From The Road: So. Lake Tahoe, Lassen Volcanic NP and Redwoods NP

Day 15 - May 15 find us heading north to South Lake Tahoe. It was an interesting drive and as you will find in California, especially pulling a RV, it is never quick. The upper elevations on Hwy. 88 had a lot of snow and we ran into some light flurries on our drive.

Snow cloud bank is looming

We got settled into the Campground by the Lake, a city park one block from the lake. It's nice but the utilities are backwards. Good and close to a Safeway and a good laundry. Our friends from LBJ, Jim and Randa, are coming for dinner. We are so excited to see them! After we left the LBJ park last spring, they stopped to see us when we were in Capitol Reef. They live in Oregon, so it's been almost a year. As always, they are so kind and interesting to visit with. Enjoyed huddling around the campfire!

Ron, ,Greg, me, Jim and Randa enjoying chicken fried steak and gravy!

Campfire stories!

Day 16 - May 16 gave us a really cold forecast for the day. Temps in the low 40s, rain and wind. We got up and went to Tallac Historical Park where Jim and Randa are volunteering for the Forest Service. Really cold but we got a personal tour despite the fact that they and a lot of other volunteers are still working to get the place open by May 27. This could be a fun place to volunteer down the road. There are 3 estates here located on the lake - the Baldwin Estate, the Pope Estate and Valhalla. There are gardens, a museum, vintage clothing exhibit and a blacksmith shop. A tour here helps you to see and experience how the wealthy from years ago lived here. Enjoyable! Myself, Donna and Greg ended the evening by going to Harrah's Casino, right down the road. Sad to report that no one won any gas money.

View from the front porch.

One of their guest houses

Curious about the stick in the tub? It was for the mice to crawl out. Ugh!

Cool closet doors

The kitchen

View from the boat house. So wintry looking!

Lake Tahoe is still beautiful even all clouded in.

Paddle boat at Inspiration Point

Day 17 – May 17 is a beautiful, chilly, clear blue sky morning. Our destination today is Lassen Volcanic National Park in northern California. We will be staying at the Shingletown Mount Lassen KOA, 14 miles from the park entrance. A very nice park. The drive took us through Carson City and the valley we drove through from there to Susanville CA was so very windy. Once we got on Hwy. 44 the drive was really beautiful – lots of blue lakes, snow topped mountains and several varieties of pine trees.

Lassen Mt. at a distance

The national park highway through the park from the north is closed at the Devastation Area. From the south it is closed at Bumpass Hell. So there was no way for us to see anything but the scenery at the top north, which was spectacular. The southern end has the larger visitor center (not able to get our passports stamped here) and more of the volcanic scenery. The drive to get there is really far and there is road construction. Lots of road construction.

And there's the snow covered road!

Greg and Donna by the snow bank on the road.

Me and Ron

Give a south Texan a little snow and they just gotta make a snowball!

Just beautiful!

Reflection lake.

The snow arrives early here and stays late. Due to such heavy snows this year they anticipate having the road cleared early July. We would have enjoyed seeing the steam vents in this dramatic scenery, so still going to keep this on our bucket list.

Day 18 of our trip found us as far west in the lower 48 that we will go - the Pacific Ocean! We landed today at Azalea Glen RV Park in Trinidad right by Patrick's Point State Park. Really cool campground - flowers everywhere. Our site has a deck that overlooks a little pond. We are able to walk over to the state park and got our first good look at the ocean with sea lions on the rocks below us. We took a drive up the road to elk meadow where we found lots of Roosevelt elk. Then we had to stop at the Lady Bird Johnson Grove. She was very instrumental in creating the Redwood NP in 1968, which is jointly managed by the California State Parks and the National Park Service. Oh! Almost forgot! We had our first black bear sighting!

Views along Hwy. 44

Lots of wildflowers

Our first sea lion sighting. Patrick's Point State Park

Can you see the sea lion swimming?

More sea lions

It was kinda cool walking through the forest with these tall, thick trees.

A very large population of Roosevelt elk.

Donna and Greg at the Big Lagoon

Big Lagoon

Lady Bird Johnson was instrumental in forming the Redwoods National Park.

One of the biggest trees in this grove.

My cousin Sue likes it when I include these history shots.

And here's our first black bear sighting!

Our next few days here found us day tripping to Eureka and then a little deeper into the National Park. The sea fog made things pretty interesting from time to time. This has been a great stop and we want to come back and spend a lot more time exploring here.