We’re staying just a couple of miles from Shasta Lake this week, so we spent some time at the lake. It’s quite inaccessible except in a few places because the hills surrounding it are very VERY steep.
Shasta Lake was only formed about 60 years ago when they built a huge dam to create the lake and provide drinking water for the area. A few small towns are now underwater because of the dam!
Here are some pictures of the lake, the surrounding hills and the dam:
Yesterday we travelled north to Shasta Lake where we’ll stay for a week. We’re at the Fawndale Lodge and RV Resort, a small place but very pleasant. It should get to the 70s and possibly low 80s during the week, and it rained last night. I’m glad it rained, we got a huge amount of pollen and dust on everything while in Gold Run and this cleaned it up real good!
There isn’t a fenced area for dogs, but there’s a large lawn area surrounded by trees and when Jeff and Laddy saw another resident with a Lab off-leash there Jeff decided to take a chance and let Laddy off-leash. He was very good, playing with the Lab, chasing a ball, and never once going away from the area. We’re glad to see that so we’ll let him off-leash every day here and do some training with a whistle to better ensure that he won’t stray and will come back when called (with the promise of a treat of course!)
While here we plan to visit Mt. Shasta and Shasta Lake and also see what else might be in this area.
It was Jeff’s birthday yesterday and I took him to dinner. We checked online to find nearby restaurants, and other than one just across from the freeway from our RV park we would have to drive 30 minutes to get to a restaurant.
We’d walked by this restaurant called the Monte Vista Inn a couple of times in the morning and weren’t sure if it was closed up or what. It looked deserted although the flower bed was sort of tended to.
But, we found a website for it online and it looked like good food so we thought we’d take a chance. WOW! This was a really great restaurant! The food was outstanding and the service was great!
I put a review on Yelp, here’s a link to it.
We’ve taken Laddy a couple of times to a dog park in Grass Valley – it’s about 30 minutes from where we’re staying, but is the closest dog park. It’s at Condon Park and it’s GREAT.
Here’s a link to my review of it.
Since we’re in gold country, Jeff wanted to try his hand at panning for gold. We visited a gold mine in Grass Valley which is nearby, and Jeff bought a pan made specifically for gold panning.
There’s a small creek near the RV park where we’re staying so we made our way down the fairly steep bank and Jeff spent a few hours trying to collect some gold. Well, no luck which wasn’t too surprising, but we had a good time trying. Here are some pictures:
We’re still heading north, and are now at the Dutch Flat RV Resort in Gold Run, CA. It’s a very rustic and pretty area nestled in large trees.
Not sure if we’ll be able to ride our bikes as the road around the RV resort is not real well tended. We’ll give it a try. At least we’ll get some good walks in this week.
When we arrived in Coarsegold we decided to see what the little town had to offer for restaurants. We stopped at a Mexican place called Alfonso’s Hideaway.
The atmosphere in the restaurant was “small town”, with a counter near the door containing lots of fudge!
They had great food, and Jeff ordered flan which came in a glass usually used for ice cream sundaes instead of in a bowl. He said it was really good!
The floor wasn’t very clean, but the tables and other surfaces were fine.
This place doesn’t have a website, but here are the reviews that were put on Yelp: http://www.yelp.com/biz/alfonsos-hideaway-mexican-restaurant-coarsegold
After the tight space in our Pismo Beach RV site, we headed up to Coarsegold where there is an Escapee Club Co-op RV park. What a change! The sites are spacious and separated so there’s quite a bit of privacy at each site.
But, as with all the Escapee Club parks, everyone is very friendly! The park itself is in the foothills of Yosemite, so all our walks are up and down hills. Good workout!
And, there’s a small dog park where Laddy can go off leash and run around. It’s quite hilly as well. It’s open 7/24 but around 4pm a lot of people show up with their dogs so Laddy can socialize…although almost all are little guys! Laddy is definitely the biggest dog in the park!
Here are a few pictures of our site and the park:
The sites were SO TINY! It’s basically a parking lot for RVs. Our site had enough room to park our trailer and when the slides were out we were RIGHT on the line to the next site. In order to park the truck within our site we had to put the mirrors in and back in right next to the trailer. We barely had enough room to open the door and step out.
We didn’t have neighbors on the door side so we started parking the truck in the site next door. But, there was a next door neighbor on the other side and their truck was literally a couple of inches outside our window. They had to squeeze between their truck and their trailer to get to their door that was at the rear of their trailer. Ugh!
Other than that it was a nice enough park. Nice and level, a pool, clubhouse, laundry facility. The staff was pleasant and the grounds were well taken care of. And, we got a 15% discount for being Escapee Club members. But, I don’t think we’ll stop at this RV park again just because of the size of the site.
We’ve been in Pismo Beach for over a week now and will be here till this Saturday. While here we’ve had fun seeing the area here, up to Morro Bay and San Luis Obispo and down to Grover Beach. It’s a great area, gets windy though!
The only negative is that the sites here at our RV Park are very tight!! The space allotted to us is just barely enough to set up our trailer and put out the slides and park next to it. Our neighbor has his truck just inches from our living room window and his picnic table is right under our bedroom window. Ugh!
We were told about a dog beach up in Avila Beach where dogs can go off-leash. It’s bordered by rocky cliffs – not too high but high enough that he won’t attempt to climb, so we’re comfortable letting him rur around! Laddy just loves running up and down the beach with the other dogs that are there, and he also loves running into the water to fetch balls and sticks. He’s afraid of the little waves though, so if we throw the ball too far we have to hope another dog will go out to fetch it!
Here are a couple of pictures of the dog beach area:
