October 9-14, 2015 – Bass Lake, CA

Friday morning we continued south to Bass Lake which is south of Yosemite and northeast of Fresno.  We are staying for six days at Bass Lake Recreational Resort – a nice resort just outside the small town of Bass Lake and a short distance from the lake.   We have a nice spot in the shade with plenty of room for both vehicles.  We thought it would be cooler here but it is in the high 80’s so we are glad we have shade.

It is extremely dry here and they are on severe water restrictions – no outside watering of any kind.  We were hoping to wash the vehicles while we are here but it will have to wait.  Besides the drought we were dismayed to see the vast number of pine trees that are dead from Pine Bark Beetle.   One whole loop of the resort is closed off and we assume it is because most of the trees in that loop are dead and there is the danger of trees falling on RVs.

We discovered that one of the front side bars on the roof rack for the Jeep broke in two and the frame around the windshield is cracked.  We will have to get this repaired before we leave this area as we will not be able to carry the kayaks on the broken rack.

Saturday we spent at the resort relaxing and walking the dogs.  Rex talked to the resort manager and got the phone numbers of a couple of welding places that might be able to fix the rack on the Jeep - neither one of them was open today so we will call them on Monday.

Sunday we walked the dogs to the town of Bass Lake.  This is a very small resort town consisting of a resort on the lake, a few stores and a couple of restaurants.  It looks like there are some people who live here year round but it mostly vacation homes.  This afternoon a crew came into the park and started cutting down trees in the closed off loop.

Monday morning Rex was able to get ahold of a welding shop and made an appointment for Tuesday morning to get the Jeep roof rack bar welded.  The tree crew continued to cut down trees and one of the work campers told us that by next summer they will not have any pine trees left in the park.  Luckily they do have cedar and oak trees so it will not be totally bare like some of the campgrounds in Colorado.

Tuesday we got the Jeep roof rack bar welded and Rex painted it so it almost looks as good as new.  The welder could not do anything about the crack in the frame so we will have to get that repaired when we get back to Apache Junction.

We did not do any sightseeing while we were here – we guess after the busy summer we had and then the cruise we are tired and just want to relax.  We stayed here at Bass Lake RV about 4 years ago when we toured Yosemite and other sites in the area.  

As we prepared to leave Thursday morning it started to rain lightly – we love breaking camp in the rain!  We headed south to Bakersfield and then headed west on Highway 58 to I-40 with rain clouds all around but we did not have any more rain until we got to Newberry Springs which is west of Barstow.  After we got set up we were watching the news while we ate dinner and learned that flooding and mudslides closed Highway 58 outside of Mojave.  The rains must have been just behind us – we are so lucky that we did not get caught in that mess.  We saw pictures of cars, trucks and RVs stuck in mud that was to the tops of their wheels.   Our original plans were to stop and spend the night at Mojave but it was early yet so we decided to drive a little farther – we are certainly glad we made that decision or we would have been stuck in Mojave for a day or two – maybe even on the highway in the mud!  It rained off and on all night but no flooding here thank goodness.