Monthly Archives: September 2021

Reminiscing in Redding

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We made it to Redding and stayed at the Premier RV Resorts, asking for a shady spot for a week. We got a surprisingly shady one across the creek and near the back. Some of you know the history of this location but for those of you who don’t, I will enlighten you. If this is old news, just skim through it.

My history, with my family, of Airstream travel, has been documented on this blog. However, with a love of RVing, comes a love of camping whether it is in a government campground or private RV park. In 1970 we were living in Thousand Oaks CA, my father working for Westinghouse and we were camping whenever we could. Westinghouse decided to close the office where my father was employed. They gave him the choice of moving to Baltimore MD or leaving Westinghouse. Growing up in the Pittsburgh PA area, he chose to leave. His next move was to purchase a KOA in Redding CA!

I was 10 years old when we moved there in January, and I was ‘privileged’ to change schools in mid-year! We were now owners of a campground and we got to see the other side of RV’ing.

It was interesting growing up on a campground during my ‘teenish’ years. During the non-school days, I had a built-in job, working all summer at the campground. My job usually involved cleaning the bathrooms!

My parents did a lot of improvements to the campground over the 10 years they owned it. One addition was the expansion of sites on the other side of our creek. We added about 40 extra sites and had to build a bathroom there (I am standing by the door of it above). Since they were on the other side of the creek, a bridge needed to be built.

I don’t have a picture of the original bridge, which was just a set of culverts covered by dirt and asphalt. I do have a picture of the current version of the original bridge:

Ironically, it still looks basically the same. A level of concrete, and asphalt egress, has been added but it still will flood just like it used to. It happened to us many times, the heavy rains came, the creek swelled and we would have about a foot or two of water rushing over the top (like the washes in Texas)! This made it very difficult for RVs on the other side of the creek to get out. We needed a second bridge.

My dad, being a frugal person, found a different solution than a fully engineered and commercially constructed bridge. He decided to use a railroad boxcar. Now, this might have been taking his love of trains a bit too far! He purchased a boxcar, had the top portion cut off, leaving just the floor and frame underneath. Concrete supports were placed at each end and they placed the boxcar:

My dad thought there might be some trepidation from people that needed to use it so he took some promo shots showing it was safe:

He drove our trailer on the bridge to show the strength. We ended up using it a lot during flooding and even when the creek was dry. It took some very precise alignment when crossing the bridge and straight-line accuracy. Flash-forward to now:

The bridge is still standing! Some enhancements have been made and it is no longer in regular use for RVs, but you can bike or walk across it whenever you want. At the behest of some neighbors in the park, I asked if we could pull our current Airstream on the bridge to recreate my dad’s shot. My request was not received favorably, so this is all you get.

We have visited the old KOA (as we call it) numerous times in the past few years. It is very strange to call them as they still have the same phone number (albeit with a different area code): 246-0101. Since we were a KOA, in the phone book we were listed along with radio and TV stations (young people, Google ‘phonebook’). We would get phone calls from people and they would request a specific song to play. After many times, explaining we were not a radio station, but a campground, we came across a better response. We would tell them we would try to get that song on the air and hang up.

The staff at the current campground have learned who I am during this time (we still have not received any free nights – wink) and I have sent them many old pictures in the past:

They even have taken some of the photos and made a collage they have in their Rec room:

You can never really go back to the way things were but you can always relive memories. That is what happens whenever we go camping here.

Change of plans

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Time to catch up on what has been happening. The last blog entry, before the 4-year recap, talked about where we were going next. Well, at least that was what we thought would happen next. Not quite, but changes in plans are something that we have become used to.

The plan was to wait around a bit, head to our friends in SoCal to help them install Solar on their Airstream, and then head to Visalia for a medical procedure that was 5 months in the waiting. However, the medical procedure got moved up by 2 weeks! That changes things!

We decided to change things around a bit. Go from the Vegas area to my sister’s for just under a week, to Visalia for the procedure, down to SoCal for a week, back to Visalia before heading to see our daughter and family in San Francisco. Good plan.

We had a good visit at my sister’s but the road from Vegas is always fun. The long way is down I-15 to Barstow and up 395. Another way is going through Death Valley and up the Panamints. Either way is long or difficult. I asked what route they take? They told me they take US95 out of Vegas, turn west on NV226 which turns into CA168 to Big Pine. Sounds plausible. But… I don’t think I want to take it again. It is a lot of climbing on steep, tight corners and a one-lane portion thrown in but we did make it!

While we were in Bishop, we all took a day’s drive to Mono Lake to the South Tufas. One place I had never been to before:

After our visit to Bishop, we headed toward Visalia. We know how long that trip is and we broke it up by staying in Tehachapi with a quick stop at Red Rock State Park:

The previous time we spent the night in Tehachapi, we were going to stay at the Flying J but ended up opting for the KMart parking lot (yes it was a while ago). This time we stayed at the Mountain Valley RV Park. This park is right by the airplane glider airport and we were able to watch the gliders for a bit in the AM:

We made it to Visalia in the middle of May and had all the necessary procedures done. I did a quick repair on the trailer, replacing an old stove vent:

I also saw this sign while in Visalia. Not quite sure what to make about it. Where’s the love?

We now headed down to our friends in SoCal to help with their trailer. It was a week’s worth of work but we were able to get two solar panels installed, with room for a third, replace batteries with Lithium, add a power protection system, and various other upgrades. Here is a shot of the panels:

Right before we got there, our friends did something that ultimately changed our plans again. They purchased another Airstream, a Bambi:

Their older Airstream is unusable due to the upgrades so they have the new one to take trips in. They wanted to take it out, naturally. Being retired, changes of plans are not too much of a deal so we took another in stride. We knew we were heading to see our daughter so we set up a meeting with them on the cool coast afterward.

Back to Visalia for a bit then off to San Francisco. We got to see our daughter, her boyfriend, and our grandson for the first time since the pandemic took off. It was a long time and very welcome to see them. We took a day trip to the Chinese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park one day:

Next stop Oceano. We were going down there to meet the Chen’s and their new Airstream’s maiden voyage. We stayed there a bit over a week and it was so nice and cool! They could only stay the weekend. We went back to the heat after that for a few more appointments in Visalia and then we headed off. My thoughts were to head to Montana, North Dakota, somewhere that might be cooler. However, while in Oceano we discussed an alternate plan with the Chen’s.

Being recently retired, they wanted to get out in their new trailer some more. They were planning a trip cross-country to visit a lot of friends along the way. They asked us if we wanted to join them. We thought we might as well, at least for a little bit. We wanted to be back for our grandson’s 5th birthday at the end of August.

We planned on meeting the Chen’s in AZ on a specific date, this gave us about 2 1/2 weeks to get there. We decided to head up to Redding to see Roxie’s sister. We stopped in Stockton on the Delta for a few nights en route. Here is the view from the trailer:

Next stop was Redding, during a lot of heat and smoke. Oh joy!