LOCATION: Lake Shasta, in north central California.
We bade farewell to the homeowners. They were happy to be back. They were so pleased with everything we did that they gave us a gift box of wine and some gourmet foods from Paris. We hooked up and were on the road by 10.00.
We decided to take a shortcut. I saw the road on the map but google maps did not give this as an option. That should have been a hint, but we marched on. After about 20 miles of increasingly narrow road, we encountered the dreaded "Pavement Ends" sign. We drove about 2 miles down a gravel road and decided we had missed a turn. George made a u-turn on this narrow road, with no shoulder, and a sheer drop to the forest below. I was petrified. He did it, though, and we retraced our route 2 miles. We stopped at a house and asked directions. Turns out that we were on the right road after all. She said the road "probably doesn't have snow yet" and "shouldn't be too muddy to get through". Not ringing words of encouragement. We really didn't have any option, so we headed back to the gravel road. It isn't even a regular road, just a forest service road. We climbed up and up, on a one-way wash-boardy road. Lots of deer jumping in front of us. Not a single other car. We averaged about 20 mph for 40 miles. What a short-cut! At the peak, the temperature dropped to 39. Did I mention that it rained all day, and we drove through pea-soup fog. What an adventure!
When we stopped for a picnic lunch, George discovered that the cable between the truck and trailer was cut, severed when we made that sharp u-turn. That means there is no battery working in the trailer, and no traffic lights on the trailer. Uh-oh.
We finally returned to civilization, and drove through a valley full of orchards....peach trees, walnut trees, olive trees. We stopped in Redding to buy a new cable.
It rained all day. No one is complaining, as California needs. water so badly. Hopefully this will drown the forest fires.
We stopped at this national forest campground. It was raining hard, so we just pulled in without unhooking. 
Inside, the trailer was a mess, the closet door had sprung open from the winding, bumby road, and clothes were strewn everywhere. The refrigerator is off, due to the battery situation. No water, so we filled jugs from a nearby spigot.
Then, to add insult to injury, the roof sprung a leak. It is around our fan again. Oh well! None of this fazed us. We had drinks and dinner around candlelight, and went to bed early.
DINNER: Heirloom tomato salad with Pinot Noir vinegar and olive oil drizzled over it,sprinkled with a little Parmesan. Main course was leftover Nepalese rice and vegetable dish with extra zucchini and peppers. We are Glamping again......sort of!
With your sense of direction, why are you in charge of maps anyway?
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