Hooray for Winter Break! This year, we tentatively broached the subject of being fully absentee parents with our offspring. There was one pensive moment from our daughter, when I was thinking she might be feeling sad about our potential absence on Christmas, and I was ready to abandon the idea. Turns out, all she was concerned about was how to get groceries. Online account set up, problem solved, and we’re outta here for two solid weeks!
Having the gift of time allows us to venture farther from home and into territories unexplored. We decided on south California desert lands and even set up some dates in Joshua Tree with awesome Altoistes amigas.
Friday was a half day at school, so we got to hit the road early. We really only knew we were heading south. I had a couple of ideas of places to stay along the way and Richard did some searching as I drove. We landed on San Luis Reservoir SRA because we’d never tried it before and it was right off I-5. Traffic was what you’d expect on the Friday before Christmas, but we did have a fun and unexpected wave along the road from a work friend on her way to Ojai.
We pulled in to the campground with light left on this Solstice day, and chose a site. The Basalt campground has no hookups, but is quite pretty, tucked away in a little grove of Eucalyptus trees. Our site had a far off view of the reservoir and a close up view of a whole herd of Elk. That was a surprise. Apparently this herd was introduced into the area with only a couple of adults and has now grown into a few hundred strong.
We headed out earlyish on Saturday and continued on south. This place is not too far from home and could make a sweet weekend destination. There is another campground by the water with hookups but we didn’t check that one out. That might be an option when it’s hotter.
Total miles: 106.9, 18.3 mpg, 3 hours 3 min with traffic. Site 24 Basalt Campground. Dump, nice bathrooms, no electric, but spigots and potable water at the dump station. LTE for both of us.
