These last several weeks have been incredible. I am actually splitting the time since I have been back in California into two long posts,because I managed to pack an incredible amount of activity into several short weeks. Honestly, I could write a book just about the three-hour historic food tour we took in downtown Sacramento. Since I last posted, I have seen *almost* all that California has to offer … the beach, the big city, the farmland, the wine country, the snow-topped mountains. (The desert is next month.)

But, first things first.

First, I arrived back in San Diego for a bunch of tests and doctor’s appointments. In between a CT scan and an MRI, plus a bunch of meetings and blood draws, etc., I was camping at some cool sites: some street parking and some friends’ houses. There aren’t a lot of Harvest Hosts in the San Diego city area – they’re all to the north, south or east. So, as much as I could, I would park at the beach all day, enjoy the tasty food and gorgeous views I had enjoyed for 15+ years in San Diego, and then parking off-street at night.

And I checked out the state and regional parks.

I camped with my (now ex-) boyfriend at Sweetwater Canyon Regional Park, and instantly I knew it would become one of my favorites. Just look at all of this space!

It’s only $35 per night for a full hookup, nearby bathrooms and showers, a free dump site and a gorgeous view of the canyon. It’s close to the border and to a major highway, but it’s still very peaceful and close to stores and whatnot.

I will definitely be returning to this place. It’s a beautiful view, day or night.

A couple of nights later, I was at Silver Strand State Beach. For the uninitiated, Silver Strand is a literal a strip of land connecting the southern tip of Coronado Island to Imperial Beach. It’s barely wide enough for a four-lane highway and a bit of beach on either side.

I have to be honest; when I arrived, it didn’t seem like this state beach was as good as it looked on the website. Sweetwater was $35 for a huge lot with all of the amenities. This place had closed all bathrooms and showers, and it was more expensive. There was no picnic table, no fire pit, no BBQ grill, not even really a view from most of the spots (unless you paid extra for the premium site).

Don’t get me wrong, I lived in San Diego for almost 20 years, I get what it’s like to pay for a view. But I was still a little bummed for like five minutes, until I had a shower and a rest and enjoyed a walk on the beach. Also, when I arrived on a Saturday, every spot was taken – and every camper had taken full advantage of every inch of their lot – and by Sunday afternoon, when most of them had gone back home, it was downright peaceful.

I took a nice long walk to Coronado as well, something I haven’t done for nearly a year due to my broken back and cancer diagnosis. It was definitely more than my body was used to, especially since my back … but it actually felt good to stretch my legs a little bit.

Speaking of cancer diagnosis, I had really good scan results that next week. I had a CT scan of my chest and abdomen and an MRI of my brain, and they showed that my tumors are continuing to shrink. The one they’re really worried about is on my skull, and it has stayed away from my brain so far, and shows a “continued interval decrease in size and enhancement.” The tumors on my spine, while they are still there, have basically shriveled down to scar tissue. I need to stay on my current course of treatment as long as it’s working. It’s the best I could hope for!

After I got my test results, I hit the road with one of my oldest and dearest friends. Belinda used to be my neighbor in OB. We met about 15 years (and many boyfriends) ago, and we instantly bonded over a mutual love of all food, drink, sarcasm and double entendres.

She’s the perfect person to take with you to all of the foodie spots.

We left early (-ish) Saturday morning, after checking all of Dolly’s fluids, supplies and tire pressures. We only drove about 4 hours, to a lovely Harvest Host winery just about 20 minutes from my brother’s house. So he got to join us briefly when we sampled the wines at Giessinger Winery. (Stay tuned for my next post … we actually stopped there on our way home again, and I will tell you even more about it.)

Our sommolier was super knowledgeable about the wines, of course but also told us about a famous bakery right down the street, where they grow all of their own organic ancient grains, and everything is so delicious. We bought a lot of munchies for the road .. and, of course, then we went out for sushi.

The area of downtown Fillmore was super cute; they have a railroad that in normal times did fun train excursions (zombie hunting from a train for Halloween, a Christmas tree train around the holidays, that sort of thing), and an easily walkable shopping and eating area. We really enjoyed it there.

The next morning I got on the Reserve California website to see about state park camping for the next couple of days. There are a few Harvest Hosts in the farmland area of central California, but the majority of them are around Lodi and Sacramento – which is where we were headed, so we were trying to find a park. I was pleasantly surprised to see open sites for Camp Edison, a campground in Shaver Lake, which is inside the Shasta National Forest. It was only $40 per night, had all the amenities (including a picnic table and BBQ grill, unlike that state beach), and was only about 4 hours away, so we booked it and headed out.

I generally prefer to only drove 3-5 hours per day. I don’t care to drive Dolly at night at all if I can help it, and I didn’t want to drive her in inclement weather, even though she has new tires and I am good at driving in Weather. Which is why I got a chill up my spine when we were about an hour from our destination and started heading up a mountain, and all the people coming down, the opposite way, were covered with snow. The weather report had said it would be around 44 most of the day, which seemed cold, but we were going to have all of the hookups and a heater, so it didn’t matter.

But then I saw the signs about snowy conditions year-round. And tire chains required year-round. And it’s February. And I don’t have tire chains. And I really, really don’t want to drive in the snow at all, but I already booked it and I am already halfway up this mountain. So, like a dumbass, I keep going.

We drive through the snowy picturesque town of Shaver Lake, with snow a foot high. We pull into Camp Edison and inform them that we have a reservation. They hand over a parking placard and direct us to our campsite … without ever even asking our names. I guess we were the only ones crazy enough to be up there in a damn RV.

They had scraped a hole in the snow big enough – barely – for Dolly, and we spent a very long, but not exactly cold, night at Camp Edison. We had a good heater going, and it wasn’t that freezing cold (especially compared to the polar vortex enveloping most of the rest of the country this week!).

However, I did have an unusually (for me) high amount of anxiety about getting back down that hill. I scoured every map looking for another way off of that damn mountain, but there were none. I could barely sleep thinking about how I was going to get this RV down a steep (there was an 11% grade in some places), windy, precarious, snowy, icy mountain road, with no chains and no guardrails.

There was a storm coming that next afternoon, so we got the hell out of there by 8 a.m. I luckily was not far behind the snowplow, and the road was as clear as it could have been, given the circumstances. Once I was finally at the bottom, it didn’t seem as scary, but wow … that was intense. And altogether not a very restful night or fun time, but that wasn’t the fault of anyone but me for not bothering to see why no one else was booked at this joint.

So, Belinda and I made a deal – no more state parks without proper research.

For the next nearly two weeks, we had a blast sampling wines and visiting friends and family. We took a historic food tour of downtown Sacramento. We hung out in hot natural mineral baths. We had impossibly decadent dinners in wine country. We had a small accident, but nothing that can’t be fixed. My new post on all of those awesome details is coming soon!

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