Camping Life!

We've taken Stardust out a couple of times this fall, now that we have the interior feeling like home.  Dale and I drove up to the Chico area to visit Lindsay and Andrea over the Labor Day weekend, staying at Woodson Bridge SRA.  No hookups, so we used our water tanks and solar, and instead of using the fridge, we brought our cooler and it was just fine.

We had our pop up shade over the picnic table, and had a nice campfire in the fire pit!  We had a lot of visitors who wanted to stop by and check out our place!  On our last morning, we were laying in bed and all of a sudden we could hear someone outside taking pictures - we had to really stifle a giggle!

The park was super nice, and although Dale was hoping to go camping, we just enjoyed hanging out and going on walks with the dog.  Just great to get away. 

On our drive back, we stopped at a rest stop and got into a conversation with a couple who had their bus conversion, and chatted with them about some electrical questions - they gave Dale some ideas on how to get our inverter working better.  He took their advice and fashioned some new hookups with a heavier gage wire, and now it seems to be working just fine ---

Last weekend, we took another trip and went to Silverwood Lake - a lot closer to home, only about 2 hours away.  Dale was still determined to get out and go fishing, so he chose a lake site this time.  Also this time, we got a site with hookups, so we had water and electrical hookups.  We probably could have done without them, because it seems that the fridge is working just fine with the batteries and the solar, but we decided it wouldn't hurt to have it all.

This was really a pretty place to go.  We were able to totally get relaxed with no agenda and we slept in, cooked on our portable stove, and just enjoyed our camper.  Gave a ton of tours! Every park ranger came by and loved the camper.

Dale got to go fishing!  bad news, he never got a single bite!  But at least he had a chance to try!
 





Silverwood Lake is right along the Pacific Crest Trail.  We didn't get as much hiking/walking in as we would have liked, I would have liked to go along the trail a bit, but since we plan to go out at least once a month, I know we'll get our chances.



We already have found our camp ground for next weekend -- we want to try out a lot of the southern California state parks - one nice thing is that due to Dale's disability status, we get 1/2 price on campsites, so trying all kinds of new places is an easy and inexpensive.  I am looking forward to going some of the places that are winter only - Death Valley, the Mojave, and Joshua Tree will be great in December and January!  There are also a number of campsites directly on the ocean, and I need to get those spots reserved early.  So far, we've done everything kind of last minute, which is fine, but we need to look a little further on and make our plans early!