Milepost 265:  Fillmore to Salinas, CA

Yay!  We have finally re-started our epic road trip to Alaska! We left Michigan last December to get away from the harsh winter, and for five months we work-camped at Kenney Grove Park,  a private campground at Fillmore, California.

Finishing our duties there and leaving in the afternoon, we decided on a short jaunt to the sea coast where we found a campsite right by the ocean.  There are a few places in the world where RV camping is allowed virtually on the beach, and Seacliff, California, is one of them.  We set up in the middle of a 2-mile stretch of seashore lined with more than a hundred RV’s parked for the night in a sort of linear campground, if you will.  This is classic boon-docking, as there are no services, no hookups, so only self-contained rigs can do it.

We clambered down the rocks to the beach for a long walk before sunset, then went to bed early.

This morning we did a U-turn and headed north over the pass to spend much of the day crossing another dessert and through the vineyards at Solvang to end up at Salinas by mid-afternoon.  We moved into a site at the KOA campground at Prunedale just north of town.  Salinas was the home of John Steinbeck, who inspired us with his American road trip epic, Travels with Charley.  We are planning to see his home place tomorrow and visit the Steinbeck museum before we break camp and continue north toward San Francisco.

It looks as though our route will need to be kept rather fluid, since we keep discovering changes that need to be made.  One of the latest is the news that our route north of the Redwoods requires a white-knuckle climb through a dangerous mountain pass that has travelers leaving fingernail marks in the upholstery.  We might have to skip the Redwoods this time around.  Maybe we’ll come back some other time and do that one in the red convertible (we’ll rent one somewhere).

We are trying to keep the main thing the main thing here.  Getting to visit our kids in Alaska at Denali is the main thing, and having an enjoyable time doing it is the next main thing.  A route that delivers too much stress may result in a change of direction.

I’m not sure where we’ll be the next time I post.  Our mobile internet has been quite dependable so far, but we may be boon-docking some more, and that means no electricity to run the computer.  We can still post from the iPhone or the iPad like we did last night on the Facebook page (“Like” it in the right sidebar to join the Facebook group or click here) but I prefer the photo editing programs on my Mac, so my posts from the other devices are short and not very aesthetic.

Tomorrow we’ll take the next step and see where we end up by evening.

Thanks for reading!