Welcome Back,
What a refreshing soak in Shepherds Hot Springs, near Mammoth Lake California. After that beautiful sunrise, we take our time packing up, we let our bathing suits dry, make a hot breakfast and sit in the sun reading our current book; John Does at the End, by David Wong. We are enthralled with the adventure and madness of the story, quirky and off-kilter, we just laugh at all of the goings on. The plan is to head over to Benton Hot Springs Campground, where, you get your own Hot Spring tub with each site. Yes, that is right, your own private Hot Spring, check in is at 3pm and check out is 11am. Doing that math, you can soak and soak and soak until you cannot get anymore pruny. I am super excited about it, and Kyle is very happy that the Hot Spring is private.
Benton Hot Springs is only a 45 minute drive from Shepherd Hot Springs, so we have lots of sunshine time to kill. Plus, bonus we have cell service. I haven’t touched on the access to/or lack there of, but with all travel there are dead spots. We are venturing more into those dead zones and have up to this point been pleasantly surprised at how much service we have access to. I check email, talk to my parents, post on Instagram, catch-up on texts, the usual phone stuff. We are packed up, and heading on our way to the next Hot Springs, joy in our hearts and as we roll back across the graded gravel road, we think, man, this doesn’t look the same, I think that spur right there was our turn. We stop, turn around and take the right onto the spur road, just a little down this track, we are confronted with a Dodge Ram pick-up in the middle of the road, looking to hook-up his 5th Wheel RV hitch. (In Val speak, that is the one in the bed of the truck, I call it the horsey hitch, as most Horse Trailers I know are secured by the hitch in the center of the truck bed, not the ball hitch off the back bumper.)
We are like, whoops, this isn’t right either, guess we really are supposed to be on the first road. As we turnaround, my backpack falls out of it’s secured location and we stop to put it back in place, silly backpack, you ride on the top of the drawer system, not behind the passenger seat. While we are getting re-situated the Dodge driver saunters up to Kyle and asks “can you give me a push?”
Kyle: I can see if I can help, but I may end up messing up your bumper.
Dodge Dude: I don’t care about my bumper, I cannot get my truck to hitch the trailer.
Kyle: Okay, we will see what we can do.
We swing back around, let me set the scene.
Dirt road, Dodge 2 wheel drive pick-up blocking the whole road, large boulders up the right embankment (the exact place we would need to be to position ourselves to “push” the truck anywhere). As fate would have it, there were large enough spaces between two sets of boulders for us to 1. Get up the embankment and 2. To push the truck
As Kyle is swinging the Jeep around, so he can back us up the embankment, a Rav4 arrives, parks right in-between us and the trailer, we are trying to line up with to thread ourselves between the boulders, out of the drivers seat bobs a chick who doesn’t even take a glance in our direction, we start backing up, she just walks right behind us, not thinking a thing about it, towards the stuck truck. Kyle slams on the breaks, not to hit her, the Dodge Dude starts to tell the chick (whom I guess is his girlfriend) that we are going to help him get hooked up. Oh, she looks up and then says Okay, again, walks behind us, then goes into the RV and closes the door. While that is happening, 3 other cars arrive, since we are now blocking the road, trying to back-up the embankment, they all park next to the girlfriend, like a parking lot and get out of their cars. Kyle and I are now positioned to start to descend the embankment and try to make gentle contact with Dodge Dudes bumper, the carloads of people, walk between us and the truck, looking around talking to each other, but not saying a word to us or Dodge Dude. Once the gaggle of people have cleared, we are set to kiss his front bumper, but because of our higher angle of approach, we are riding a bit above the actual bumper. Dodge Dude gives the thumbs-up, Kyle in gear, Rorie begins to push. Dodge’s hood, does a little tweak, but all is moving, we hear a loud click, we stop. Thinking, we have secured the hitch, nope. Signal from Dodge Dude, give it one more heave ho. Okay. Kyle sets Rorie back in gear and gives her the gas. Crunch, pop. I think we killed something and Dodge Due is all smiles, giving the thumbs up and yells we are good. Whew. Now the dismount, because we are not on his bumper, Kyle places Rorie in reverse and gently eases backwards, with a slide and a clink, we are released. Dodge Dude jumps out and is all grins, thanks us so much for our help.
Me: did we hurt your bumper, that didn’t sound good.
Dodge Dude: I don’t care, it could be hanging on the ground and I would be grateful, there was no way I was ever going to get that hitched without you.
Kyle: Okay, glad we could help.
Dodge Dude: You guys are awesome, thanks again.
Tires headed back to the road and we are off, thinking how cool is that, we got to help someone and our Rorie girl did great.
All the way to Benton Hot Springs we chat about how cool that was and wondered how long he would have been there is no one else offered to help.
After checking in, we find our camp spot. We lucked out and got a group spot, so our Hot Spring Tub is huge, like party tub – eww la la.
We make dinner and wait for the sun to go down before we sink into the tub. Watch the sunset and the stars emerge as we float and chat while dusk turns to night. Tomorrow we are getting up again and soaking before we have to leave, because, if you have it, what else should you do but soak.
Since our plans have changed a little, basically not the plans but the timing of the plans, we are heading our way to Tahoe, where we secured a Hotel for several days. Which we are going to fix our water pump (still not working), do laundry and other housekeeping items. Plus, we will explore Tahoe a little. We drive in, hit the Carson City Walmart, then make our way to Tahoe. I don’t remember Tahoe, but my parents say (Hi Mom, Hi Dad) that we had been there before. As Kyle and I drive in, we climb up hill to wrap down around the mountain into Tahoe, as we turn, there is still snow in the shady areas, along the roadsides and covering the mountain tops. We are early for Tahoe too. But, we have a warm place to sleep, out of the wind and will be able to get many items taken care of. Here are some shots of Lake Tahoe from our room. We have one day to explore and drive around the lake. We are off, we want to see Vikingsholm and the surrounding park, stop at the parking area, closed: opens Early April. We snap a few photos, here we are.
Back on the scenic drive, we circle into southern Lake Tahoe, a beach: closed. State park with great views: open but $20 for day pass (which we are not going to be there all day). We continue on and getting hungry. We find this gem of a pizza place called Blue Dog Gourmet Pizza and boy are we happy. They have Gluten Free crusts and Vegan Cheese, plus all kinds of choices for toppings. We get there right when it opens and are ready for pizza. Yay!
After lunch we rejoin the lake loop road and head back north towards the hotel and on the way we are going to drive through the Lake Tahoe tunnel – aka. Cave Rock Tunnel. I love tunnels and this shouldn’t be such a thrill, but it is. Here are some photos of the tunnel. Wha Hoo.
After the tunnel we make it back to our Hotel, where there is a sandy beach with epic lake views, so we park, cross the street and go for a little walk around where we have stayed for the past 3 days.
We scamper across rocks and wet sand, check out the boat pier and park. Views are amazing, and we are lucky to have caught this place in off season. As we leave to begin our two day drive to Utah we cannot believe the beauty encompassed in the greater 48.
Our path to Sandy Utah, is a direct one, Tahoe is to get more snow tomorrow, we have to be off the mountain and nearing Southern Utah quickly. We drive the 80 east out of Tahoe through Reno, through most of Nevada on the 50 east stopping only for gas. Plans on seeing the Great Basin National Park, foiled as they don’t open for the season until mid-April.
We keep driving, it is open and flat, lots of dust storms, some so bad that we cannot even see the road, but we make it, to our wild camp destination Ely, Nevada. Just outside of town, across the road from a Mine, we find a nice spot in Juniper Pines, with some protection from the wind and not too chilly at night.
Here we will rest, tomorrow we will drive into Sandy Utah and visit with family. Talk next week, when we are refreshed and back on the road, starting our Utah adventures.
See you then.