We left the cool weather and coastal fog this morning and headed to the foothills of the Sierra. It was quite a transition. We were basically at sea level, 24 feet, and we are now sitting at about 2,700 feet, in Midpines, CA. We are not sorry to leave the Ventura RV Resort. It was the most expensive campground that we had stayed at and none of the remaining campgrounds are close in cost. Unfortunately, it didn't provide the services that would justify the expense. It had no cable TV, which is available at almost every campground that we have used. It provided free WiFi. If they had charged for it I would demand my money back. WiFi service was intermittent and we had difficulty getting into certain Web sites. The biggest complaint I had was the noise level. It turned out that the campground abuts US 101, one of the busiest highways in the area. While you could tolerate the noise during the day, it would keep you awake at night unless you closed the windows. This is part of the problem of traveling with an RV. There are two major campground directories that rate the campgrounds based on inspections. Both of these directories gave this campground a good rating, one that, in my opinion, it didn't deserve. I will provide feedback to both directories. It may not change the ratings, but I will feel better.

We picked this campground as our base for exploration of Yosemite National Park because it was one the closest private campgrounds to the park entrance. When we got here, we learned that there is just one small problem... you can't get there from here. In April, a series of rock slides blocked the road and nearly dammed the Merced River. It will take a long time to reopen the road and the result is that we will have to drive more than twice as far. It is now a two hour trip each way.

Getting to Midpines was an interesting trip that took us over the Tejon Pass into the Central Valley of California. The pass is not even close to being the highest we have encountered during this trip, but it had a long grade approaching it and a long one coming down. We struggled up to the pass dropping to 40 MPH and made me wish I had a big diesel engine in the truck. Coming down, I had to gear down and use the engine to keep the speed under control. If I rode the brakes like some other people did, I would have burned them out.

The Central Valley is flat and broad and is the major agricultural areas in California. We saw fields of corn, vineyards, citrus orchards, avocados, and nuts (almonds and pistachios). There were also numerous cattle feedlots and fields of hay to feed them. The hot weather that has been plaguing California (over 80 people have died in the past few weeks from heat related causes) made itself felt with temperatures hovering near 100. About 50 miles from our destination we left the flat valley and started up into the foothills. One would expect the temperatures to drop once you get into the pine covered pines, but it didn't.