Day 186 - Mommoth Mountain, CA to Navato, CA - 7th February,2005

We woke to a freezing cold RV, no water (they did not have it on in the winter due to freezing) and it was snowing, cold and windy.

We put on brave faces and dressed to ski. After breakfast we headed up the mountain. As we got nearer to top it became apparent that it would not really be a good day for us fairweather skiers. It was really nasty at the top with a wind that brought back memories of Brian Head the previous week. We all agreed to give it a miss and truck on to our next destination.

We were on the east side of the Sierra Nevadas mountains and wanted to go into Yosemite National Park. In the winter all the passes across the tops of the mountains are closed. So it was necessary to go North up to Lake Tahoe, around the lake on it's west shore and back down the other side. So we set off for Lake Tahoe and the Redwood forests.

We had a beautiful run and got some great photos but when we looked at the map to see how far back down the other side we would need to travel to get back into Yosemite we decided we had run out of time and needed to head towards San Francisco.

The journey down the mountain was done in blizzard conditions and towards the bottom, in driving rain. On top of this we were travelling on a classically badly maintained US highway. This almost shook the RV to pieces and drove us all nearly insane. It's the monotonous, clunk-clunk every 20 foot section of concrete that you drive over. No wonder they make US cars with such mushy suspension. It took us the rest of the day to get to Sacramento and then about 45 minutes to find the RV park. There are absolutely no signs in Sacramento of any use to man or beast.

It was a decent site run by KOA but 90% of the occupants were full timers. So you always think you are entering someone else's domain. I wonder if KOA meant to establish so many trailer parks when they set up their Kamping business. I guess they can't turn away the business especially in the winter off season.

We unhitched the bikes and the boys went cycling around the site for an hour before dinner.