We weren’t exactly in the middle of a big city, but last night was the noisiest night we’ve experienced. Well, Long Beach was noisy but ok. Staying right by the ocean was noisy, but again, it was ok, but last night we had to have the windows open but there sirens throughout the night, people revving engines and driving like idiots, the guy in the RV next to us letting his dog out at 3am, garbage trucks collecting garbage at 5am…. I could go on, but those were the biggest disturbances! Needless to say, I didn’t sleep much as I’m a very light sleeper, and Müfit didn’t have the best night either, nor did the kids.
We left Sparks and continued to head north. Today was going to be basically a driving day as we had a fairly long distance to cover. We were planning to park up for the night somewhere within the Modoc National Forest, but weren’t sure exactly where. The road took us back into California, but all highways were pretty minor – usually one lane each way with passing lanes every now and then, so it was a fairly long drive as we couldn’t go too fast.
We stopped in Susanville for lunch and made it through to the Modoc National Forest in quite good time. We had pin-pointed a rough area to head for, where a dirt road goes into the ‘forest’. I say ‘forest’ because it was quite lacking in trees – it reminded me of the New Forest as there were some clumps of trees, but mostly it was quite open. So we drove along one of these for a bit and decided to turn back around and try another. We headed down for a few miles but just couldn’t find any bits where we could actually pull off the road and be out of the way. So I had to do a three-point turn on what was essentially a one lane road, but I managed!
We headed back towards the highway, and settled for a spot which was just off the highway plus there was a railway track just on the other side of the highway, so we really weren’t sure what kind of a night we were going have.
But it was quite a nice spot, and the highway was very quiet. It’s a minor highway that connects Susanville with Klamath Falls, so there’s not a lot of traffic. We took the dogs for a walk and discovered a nicer spot to stay by some trees, but got attacked by mosquitos so walked back to the RV and settled for where we were as there were far fewer mosquitos there! This is what they call ‘dispersed camping’ by the way, and it seems to be allowed in most national forests. You can park off the road, as long as you’re self contained, but if you want a fire or even to use an outside BBQ, you have o buy a permit for it, otherwise it’s free to camp. In Canada, one of the terms used for this is boondocking!
Bolgil Family Adventures 