Today is moving day. We move to Groveland, which is going to be our base for a week as we visit Yosemite National Park. Groveland is in the “foothills” of Yosemite, not too close to get the snow, and not too far.
It’s a rainy morning today, raining good right now at 7:30am and I’m hoping we’ll have a break so we can dry the top of the slide out and bring it back in without bringing a ton of water like we did once.
We had a slower start than usual, but we got it all packed and done in time to be out by 11ish. I worked on some post writing early morning while the girls watched some TV, then we all changed and ate breakfast… Carol was a talking to her sister in bed, and when she was up, we all started moving. She took care of the inside, and I went outside…. In the rain. It was just drizzling, so not too bad. When Carol was ready to pull the slide out in, I put the ladder outside and with a long handle car scrapper/brush/squeedgee type combo thing I pulled the water out from both sides, then Carol pulled it in, and we didn’t have water running all over. Later, at our lunch stop, we found a bit of water running under the slide out, and we’ll try to put some towels around the whole thing in the future, just so we don’t have any water flowing around.
I followed the usual process to get packed outside, but stuff was wet, so I tried to dry some, and put some paper towels in the storage compartment. It was also cold, so handling wet stuff was a little trickier. Once we were done and ready to go, I had to maneuver the trailer around to be able to leave as we were pointing away from the exit. Carol helped make sure I didn’t hit anything as I backed up to turn around, no problem. As we made our way out, I stopped at the gas station nearby to pee hahahah… I didn’t want to remove my waterproof boots, too much work, and they were muddy. I walked in there looking like I was going to rob the place. Hahahaha… I’m pretty sure a hoodie and a mask would have been a huge red flag before.
We had an easy drive most of the way, until we got close… We drove through some mountains, some lakes or reservoirs, and the scenery looked like it would be amazing to watch, but there was enough fog and we could only see what was right in front of us… then the bigger mountain drive came… and we drove up the mountain.. steep, zig zag… switchbacks… had to cross to the other lane a few times… most of the turns at 15mph. The truck had no problems with it, but I guarantee if we had a half ton it would have been a different story. Carol was a little anxious… but we just took our time and made it. Our campground is kind of in the middle of nowhere, with plenty of woods, likely plenty of wildlife around too. We are pretty close to Yosemite… but far enough to not have to worry about being in snow, or freezing temps. As we drove in, it did not look like there’s much around.. may be interesting to find groceries tomorrow. We also need to get propane and fill up the truck.. let’s see what we find tomorrow 🙂
As we drove in the campground it looked quite empty, and since it’s Sunday the front desk is closed, but our check in information was glued to the door, we are in site number B33… before we left the check in area, I told the girls to read the sign that was right in front os us… it said “Petting Farm”… they have a petting Zoo here too! They were very excited! Bella wants go there ASAP as she saw they have Llamas… I think those will get stinky when wet hahahah
We got all setup and settled in. I saw they had a connection for cable, but when we tried to find stations there were no TV channels found, not sure if it’s an issue with their wiring or not. Also, there’s no cell reception… and so far the wifi is ok for browsing… hope it holds for the girls to have school this week, or we’ll have some problems. I may need to get creative with my work calls as well.
Carol got the big camping mat out, cleaned up the inside, and we cozied up as the trailer warmed up with the space heaters. The rain continued and the forecast is that it will rain most of the night. There was no wind, so we left the awning open, which helps keep the mat dry and makes it easier to go outside if we have to… the outside fridge is where the beer is kept, so you know… we have to :).
The forecast for tomorrow is sunny, but in the 40s. It will be much colder at Yosemite, in the high 20s.
As we settled in, I got their internet working using the data offloading function on the hotspot again. It is $7.95 for unlimited wifi for a week, with 2Meg down and up, so not super fast, but enough for most browsing, and should be enough for video calls if the connection stays consistent. We got Netflix going and the connection held pretty good, so looking promising so far. With Netflix going we watched a Xmas comedy movie, which happened to be from Brazil, so we watched it in Portuguese. It was a pretty good movie, pretty funny. The girls liked it and asked to watch it again in English tonight. Hahahah.
After the movie, we got the girls to bed as it was almost 9pm already… way too late for a Sunday. I did some planning for our Yosemite visits, and went to bed after that.
It was a good moving day and I’d say the adventure for today was driving up the steep mountain with all the turns, small spaces, etc. I’m sure there’s more of that coming when we leave 🙂