We left San Jose last Saturday, heading south in search of warmer temperatures. It was a 2-day trek with two wildly different segments. The first day was a bucolic trip down the central valley, a mostly-flat and fairly boring trip. There were a lot of orchards and vegetable fields lining I-5. The only hilly and scenic part was the short hop over the small ridge to the east of Gilroy, just a few miles south of San Jose. There was a very striking reservoir on that 35-mile trip on CA 152.
San Luis Reservoir from CA 152
The overnight destination was the Bakersfield RV Resort in – yes, you guessed it – Bakersfield. This is a great RV park. It has lots of pull-through sites (which figures, as it seems to get a lot of overnight business from RVers traveling between LA and San Francisco), a very nice pool and a very pleasant and courteous office staff. It was also right across the street from a GMC dealer and within a quarter mile of a Camping World, so if I had needed any quick repairs I would have been all set. Fortunately, the rig was doing fine.
The most surprising part of the resort, however, was The Crest Bar and Grill – a very nice cafe, serving excellent margaritas, right on the premises. And the most surprising part of the cafe was live music from a first-rate folk singer, Jim Robinson. He sang Billy Joel, the Eagles and even the Beatles (ok, a little more than “folk”) with the best of them. The food was good, too. I would recommend this resort to anyone who happens to find themselves in need of a place to park an RV in Bakersfield.
Arrival at the Bakersfield RV Resort
Neighbors walking the dogs
The pool
Putting green
Restaurant patio
Leaving Bakersfield
The second day of the trek was the opposite of the first: rather than being flat,rural and mostly serene, it was mountainous, urban and very, very bumpy. So bumpy that the contents of every cabinet got scrambled and the toaster walked off its perch on the lower bunk, scratching the bunkhouse closet door. So bumpy that the gooseneck lamp on the edge of the dining room table dipped down and made repeated contact with the surface, digging a shallow trench in the table top. We will call that the “Temecula Trench”. Bumpy.
It’s not like we were traveling country roads; the route was down CA 99 out of Bakersfield, then I-5 over the mountains to the outskirts of LA, then zig-zagging southeast to Temecula on I-210, CA 57, 71 and 91, I-15 and, finally, CA 79 to the RV park in Aguanga (pronounced “a-wanda”). Total distance: 437 miles, pretty evenly split between the two days. These were major roads and well-maintained. But California likes concrete and concrete needs frequent patching, particularly in the mountains where it drops below freezing and particularly on I-5, the major north/south truck route in southern California. Countless 18-wheelers have taken their toll on that road and our spines (and dining room table) paid that toll.
The Temecula Trek route
But the route was indisputably scenic. Starting with a very flat and very straight 20-mile stretch on CA 99 out of Bakersfield, it merges with I-5 and then dramatically swoops up into the mountains.
I-5 swooping into the mountains
Climbing
The pass topped out at nearly 4,200 ft. There was even a little snow at the pass.
Approaching the pass
The pass
After an abrupt 15-mile drop down the other side, we entered the vast urban area that is metropolitan LA. We traveled through the newer suburbs, so it was wall-to-wall Walmarts, Targets, Home Depots and Carl’s Jr. No pictures are necessary – it was just like the urban sprawl you see everywhere. The route became rural again, briefly, as we dropped from Corona to Temecula.
The final stretch was the 20 miles from Temecula to Aguanga. This is now my daily commute as I have an office in Temecula. It is arguably the most interesting portion of the trek, but I will describe it later, along with Temecula and our new home, the Rancho California RV Resort. Both the town and the RV park deserve their own posts.
As we were in search of warmer temperatures, our initial impression was a huge disappointment: the temperature when we left Bakersfield was around 60, but had dropped to 49 by the time we got to the resort. It has warmed up since (the forecast high for today is 81 in Temecula), but, as elsewhere in California, everyone is complaining about how cold the winter has been. The normal high in late February in Temecula is 70 and the forecast for the coming week has highs around 60, so it will be running about 10 degrees below normal.
But I don’t expect a lot of sympathy from those of you who are still digging out from the blizzard.