Our July event was held at the Grover Hot Springs State Park just West
of the little town of Markleeville Ca, 38 miles south of Lake Tahoe, and
22 miles from Minden Nevada.
This event had some mixed company. Several members from the Golden
State Riders Club out of Fresno went with us on this one, from the NCVC
we had Dale Bird & Pam Wright, Frank Boyer, and myself. From the GSR
we had Ken Farmer, Doctors Leroy & Esme Lebeuf. And from no club we
had George Donnely & his son, I'm sorry I can't remember the sons name,
but I can remember that he was a very well behaved & intelligent young
man.
Ken Farmer and I rode up from Fresno on Wednesday and picked out two
choice camp sites that were back to back, we must have had about half an
acre of camping space, plus we were just across the road from the bath
rooms & hot showers, (all very nice shape). Ken and I set up our camps
and than made a little shopping trip into Minden, had dinner & did
some grocery shopping.
Ken wanted to buy ice while in Minden, so he buys a Styrofoam cooler
and we proceeded to tie it on the back of his Beemer, I don't know how
we got back to camp without loosing it, but we made it back safely and
with his ice intact.
When we returned to camp we found Frank Boyer had come in and set up
his tent, later on George & his son came rolling in. Our first night
was spent without a fire, I think it was because of all the hot air that
was being expelled around the camp site, that made us decide we didn't
need a fire.
Our second day dawned bright & beautiful, we had coffee and a small
breakfast of our own choice. Later in the day Dale Bird & Pam Wright
came rolling in with their new Alpine classic trailer (very nice too).
Later on we went for a short ride in the nearby countryside, George and
his son did some serious hiking while there, The rest of us did some serious
lazing around while there too, Dale & Pam visited the hot springs a
couple times while there, they said it was nice and warm.
Friday dawned nice & bright, everyone crawled out of the sack when
they felt like it we just sat around drinking coffee & had our bowl
of raisin brand, (keeps us regular U know) Friday we didn't do much of
anything, I think Frank got bored, because he packed up and went home,
he used the excuse, his plants were missing him and he needed to go home
& water them so they wouldn't die. We sat around & watched him
pack up and offered to help him with some self taught instructions of our
own, I guess he didn't feel as though he needed our help, since he turned
us down.
Saturday morning came upon us just as nice as all the other mornings
had, but there was a hint of rain clouds in the sky over to the East of
us. We did our usual sitting around and BS'ing, but this time we went into
town for breakfast, had a nice one too. Later on in the evening Doc &
Esme came rolling in and we as usual offered our expertise in setting up
tent trailers, even though we had never seen this one set up before. Doc
was very nice about it and said he could handle it and suggested we find
something else to occupy our time with, so we just sat back and watched
the expert set it up, I don't think he broke any setup records, but he
did do it in a pretty short time.
Oh yes we did have a fire every night except for Wednesday, we figured
it out the wood cost us about $1.25 a stick, and one stick would burn for
about 15 minutes, needless to say we didn't burn a whole lot of wood. Thank
God John wasn't there, we had what you call an Indian fire, and you build
a small fire and sit close to keep warm. John likes a white man's fire,
you build it real big and sit back about 15 ft to keep from burning up.
Sunday morning found Dale and Pam packing up, they said they had to
get back home to the kids. But I really think they had all of my snoring
they could stand and used the kids as an excuse to leave. Nice polite folks
those two, everyone else just tell me to put a plug in it.
When Dale had everything all packed up, he pulled his bike around to
hook up the trailer, Pam noticed there was something missing and asked
Dale where his thing was. No one knew what she was talking about and we
were afraid to ask what Dales thing was, that was missing.
Dale asked he what the hell she was talking about, and she said the
thing you hook your trailer to, to pull it. Everyone relaxed than and went
over to see just what she was talking about, what it was, is the ball had
come off the hitch, he had lost it somewhere along the way, on one of the
rides I took them on.
No one had a spare ball, but since I wasn't leaving until Monday, Doc
decided I should give him mine, so he could be on his way, and I could
go into town later on and pick up a new one.
After going all over the campgrounds looking for a wrench large enough
to remove the ball from mine and install it onto his, about 45 minutes,
we finally got him & Pam ready to go.
No one had had breakfast and it was almost lunch time, so we invited
Pam & Dale to have brunch with us, and they accepted our invitation,
we all had brunch than Pam -Dale -George & junior all left town about
the same time. Ken -Doc & Esme went for a ride and I stayed in camp
for about three hours, than decided I had better head into town and pick
up a ball for my bike. I found one at Cragens auto parts and they even
loaned me a wrench large enough to install it with, nice guys there.
When I returned to camp I hung around for about an hour when Ken and
the others came in. Doc wanted to take a ride over Monitor pass, so we
all saddled up and headed up & over the pass, got down to US395 turned
around and went right back over it again. Doc really likes to go over passes
and feel the wind blow through his ears. Doc & Esme are both Veterinarians
and Esme is about 71 and I think Doc is 73 or 74. They both ride about
13,000 a year or more. Esme retired about a year and a half ago and Doc
is hanging in there trying to sell the business, and has said he may retire
at the end of this year.
We also did a couple of little local rides, I even won a gold star,
I took Doc & Esme on two roads they had never been on before. Man I
was really proud of those stars, but come Monday morning when we were packing
up getting ready to leave I lost both of them.
Doc had lost the pin out of his trailer hitch, I had found it and hid
it in a bear box, I told Esme what I had done, just in case I happened
to forget about it. Doc got all ready to hook up when he noticed his pin
was missing, and on his trailer you need a pin to hook up the trailer,
it's a real weird hitch set up. I was all set to sit back and let Doc look
for the pin for a little while. But ole dumb bunny Ken saw me put it up
and ran over and grabbed it and gave it to Doc, this spoiled Esmes fun
& mine. Doc didn't see any humor in this little joke, so he took back
my two gold stars. Now this hurt deeply, I had looked for a road neither
one of them had ever been on for over four years, I finely find two of
them in one day, get my two gold stars and than wind up loosing them both
in only one day. Man what a bummer.
We packed it all up and had lunch on the way out of town, we decided
to go through Yosemite where we could stay high up for a longer period
of time and hopefully stay cool. This worked very well until we got to
Oakhurst, there the temp was around 97deg and believe it or not, it actually
got a little cooler when we hit the valley floor.
I guess I can speak for everyone that attended the camp out, and just
say that a good time was had by all in attendance, and I can honestly say
that Ken & I spent a very relaxed 6 days there, the temp was nice in
the day time and it was cool enough at night for comfortable sleeping.
And we never saw one bear all the time we were there.
Our next camp out will be at the Columbia State Park Rock Quarry campgrounds
on August the 23 through the 25th.
The Scavenger run has been cancelled, due to lack of participation;
not one member was willing to participate in this event. So it's cancelled.
That's about all I have for this month, hopefully I can fill a page
for next month for you. Cheers.
Uncle Ray