Thursday, March 17

TRAVEL DAY

From: Flag City RV Resort, Lodi, CA – Cosumnes River Preserve & Staten Island Preserve.

To: Ironhorse Campground in Glory Hole Recreation Area at New Melones Lake, Tuttletown, CA – Soulsbyville.

Day 157 – The campground cleared out this morning as usual, and we were one of those RV’s that left. Our journey was to be fairly short, so we didn’t hurry out. The girls didn’t appear too upset to be hitting the road; they prefer trees to other RV’s as neighbors when we’re camping.

We departed at 11 a.m. It was cloudy and 58 degrees. While Rob got in line for gas in the RV, I went to Subway and got sandwiches for lunch. The place was a zoo; so many people waiting in line to pay expensive prices for gasoline.

The entire drive was on two-lane highways, and once we passed through Lodi, there wasn’t much traffic. Traveling on country roads is so much more interesting than driving on a major highway! In Lodi we passed Michael David Winery, maker of a favorite wine, and passed many other vineyards and wineries on the way to our destination. We were starting to see new, vibrant, green growth on the tips of the branches in the vineyards. Very pretty. About one hour into the trip, the terrain began to change to rolling hills with cows, sheep, and horses dotting their sides. It was greener, like spring had come a week or two earlier than where we just were. There were lots of beautiful trees, many were old Oaks. In the distance the rolling hills were taller, more mountainous terrain. We drove through the town of San Andreas. San Andreas Fault, California and the big earthquake they’ve been saying was going to come any day for the past 50 years. There was a store we passed called “Faultless Art Gallery”. We passed by a couple of turn-offs to lakes and reservoirs and drove through a couple of small towns that appeared to have stopped in time. One of them was Angels Camp, famous for two things: its history as a busy, old gold rush town, and a short story by Mark Twain, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”, 1865. It was his first great success as a writer. Even today they have frog jumping contests here that attract large crowds.

We arrived at our campground at Glory Hole Recreation Area by New Melones Lake. Ironhorse Campground was one of four campgrounds located in two recreation areas that surround the lake. We drove around and picked a campsite, #59. The large campground was beautiful with sites spaced a good distance apart. The campground road curved up and down the hills overlooking the lake. We had checked availability online before arriving and knew that about half the sites would be available over the weekend. There were no hook-ups, but drinking water was available throughout the campground. The dump station was out of order, but occupants could use the dumping stations at another campground. When looking for our perfect campsite, we were turning at the end of a loop and the trees there had a large Osprey standing watch over the female Osprey on her nest. We took the closest campsite to those birds. We arrived at 1 p.m. It was 63 degrees and still cloudy.

It wasn’t just the Osprey. While having our Subway sandwiches in the RV and the subsequent unpacking, we noticed there were pairs of birds everywhere – Blue Jays, Acorn Woodpeckers, Turkey Vultures, Crows, and little birds darting about – all of them in pairs; it’s that time of year. Love is in the air. We are certain that we’ll have plenty of pictures by the time we leave here.

Rob put up the screened tent and we went out until dinner time. We were reading our books, not paying any attention to what was going on around us, when we heard something and looked up at the same time to see: a group of female Turkeys had passed by with a large male Turkey proudly showing off his male breeding plumage strutting behind them. When Rob jumped up, grabbed his camera, exited the tent and followed behind them, they didn’t even pay any attention to him. It was quite a sight, at least five female turkeys scurrying away from the male as fast as they could, followed by this very colorful, almost obnoxious, male turkey all puffed up & showing his dominance, followed by Rob and the camera lens that is almost as big as he is, stalking them. LOL. Too bad I didn’t have MY camera in the tent; I could’ve gotten a picture of all of them! The high today was 74 degrees.