Brite Lake (2) & San Luis Creek (3)

Thus endeth our spring break. Aaaaaannnnnd cue emotional breakdowns in 3…2…1… This happens every time we start to track home at the end of longer trips. At least we recognize the symptoms now so we don’t read more into it than is really there. The typical pattern plays out this way: 1) low levels of tension begin to increase as we get to our final days, 2) many miles of towing have to be covered to get back home on schedule, 3) Richard starts verbalizing impractical ideas that would result in not getting back on schedule, 4) Alissa becomes exasperated at having to explain why said ideas are crazy. It has become standard operating procedure to pass through this end-of-vacation ritual, but that does not make it any more fun.

We really like being on the road, and we both realize that having had so many planned trips get cancelled this past year has caused us to be more eager than normal to be out there. Plus, we can now plan for our Dory2 pickup for this summer and we’ve got the jitters. Psychologically, I think we’re feeling like any chance we have to go adventuring could be our last. It makes route planning challenging, when just getting reservations anywhere is a hard enough job. The whole world seems to have discovered camping once plane travel became more difficult, so campgrounds are solidly booked far in advance. And all the while, we are just hoping things don’t shut down again.

So we had to process through all of that on our last two stops, which were necessary journeying days to make tracks back home. It didn’t help that the route we tried on 395 from Lucerne Valley to highway 58 was not so fun. There were about thirty miles of one lane no passing zones, populated by tons of huge trucks wanting to go fast on the straight, and mostly flat, highway. I hereby state, for the record, that I far preferred taking 247 from Barstow and hope to remember that next time.

When we arrived at Brite Lake, there were large groups of campers on either side of our site (I thought that still wasn’t allowed?), making it less relaxing than it had been the first time. But it could also have been our own tension making things seem more crowded. Anyway, we had a lot to discuss, so staying inside was not that bad.

Tehachapi is a fun little place, I must say. We drove in through the historical district and there are lot of cute old timey buildings. There is a bicycle century that takes place there and Richard rode out along part of it as we left. It’s a significant descent along Woodford-Tehachapi Road, with steep dropoffs and tight curves. It’s not my favorite towing situation but I was sure glad I had an Alto. Everything handled it just fine, except maybe my nerves. I met Richard at the bottom and we had a nice sandwich before throwing his bike in the back of the car and getting back on 58.

Then it was just two hundred miles of straight, flat interstate to traverse the central valley and get back to San Luis. The wind really kicked up there at the end too, but we made it into the site just on time.

Can you read the mood? Yeah. Vacation is hella fun and this one was awesome. And so, so needed. We are kids wanting more ice cream for dinner, shouting “You’re not the boss of me!” to the world. And we recognize how lucky we are, considering that Canada just went into another lock down.

We’re ok. It’s all ok. Adulting won in the end, but not without a good old pout.

Total miles to Brite Lake from Salton Sea: 243.8, 13.9 mpg, 6 hours 9 min. Site 40 no hookups. LTE for both. You have to punch in a key code at the entrance that they have entered into their system or the gate won’t open. If you have hookups, you will need to get a piece of paper at the entrance with your name.

Total miles to San Luis from Brite Lake: 227.2, 16.0 mpg, 5 hours 52 min. Site 4 hookups. Double site. Water views. LTE for ATT, iffy for Verizon for some reason. Terrible experience at the dump. Worst ever. There is a bar going across the opening of the dump to prevent…?? This keeps dump hoses from going into the dump hole. This was not fun and that’s all I will say about that.