West Coast Members??

Maybe I'm just paying more attention these days, but there seems to be an increase in TM owners in California (particularly Northern/Bay Area). There may not be enough of us to form a Chapter, and perhaps we should just band together to plan an outing somewhere in our neck of the woods?
I remember how excited we were to come across other TM travelers on our Yellowstone/Teton trip last fall. The only TM folks we actually talked to had only had theirs a short time and it was brand new. No real opportunity for the "gee, what mods have you made" or "we are looking to do such and such...what do you think?".
I'm not saying I will hop on the bandwagon to be the one to organize such an outing, I'm just curious if anyone in the area would be interested in a casual gathering somewhere relatively close, say for a weekend. We feel like we already know some of you (PopBeavers, B and D - to name a couple) from your admirable dedication in sharing your wealth of knowledge here.
We are full-time worker bees and other than our big outing to Wyoming, we haven't taken the TM very many places for short stays. Yosemite, Sugar Barge, Del Valle, Anthony Chabot and Brannan Island are the extent of our local excursions.
DH is still nervous about not having full hook-ups. Although I think the Yosemite trip in December helped him to realize that propane can go a v-e-r-y long way! The battery consumption on the other hand is another story.

Anyway, just thought I would toss it out there! We are not as dedicated to checking the forum as some. Keep that in mind if you respond to the posting and wonder why someone would put something on here and then apparently drop what they had started.

We would be open to getting together one weekend with some of our "neighbors". Keep in mind however, that many camping facilities book up early, especially the nicer ones, so you'd probably have to plan something for fall.

This is our camping schedule so far for this year:

April - Sycamore Ranch RV Park & Campground, Browns Valley, CA
Collins Lake, Oregon House, CA (great private fishing lake)

May - Nevada County Fairgrounds (JRTCA Dog Show & Trials)
Clear Lake State Park

June - Merrill Campground (Nat'l Forest Svc CG at Eagle Lake - 1 week camping)

July - PiPi Campground (El Dorado Nat'l Forest)

August - Giant Gap Campground (Sugar Pine Reservoir, El Dorado Nat'l Forest)

Sept - Sunset Campground (Union Valley Reservoir, El Dorado Nat'l Forest)
Giant Gap Campground (Sugar Pine Reservoir, El Dorado Nat'l Forest)

All are weekend trips except for Eagle Lake which is a week long over the July 4th Holiday. Much of our camping will be without hookups this year which is something new for us in our TM - of course we've done lots of tent camping without hookups in a previous life! ;-) Feel free to join us or say HI if you're in the area... email me if you want specific dates.

Well, here is our schedule. We try to go out once a month:

February Brannan Island and the Surf and Turf RV show at Cal Expo - done
March Big Sur State Park - done
April 4 days at Laguna Seca for the Sea Otter Classic mountain bike race
May Bass Lake
June undecided
July DW will stay with the TM as base camp while my brother and I backpack 60 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail

Thats all the plans so far.

Even if it never happens, I really liked seeing where people are going or have gone in Northern California. I saw PiPi. I haven't been there in almost 20 years. It is definitely on or list.

Places we have been:

Lake Nacimiento (central coast)
Clarks Fork and Pinecrest Lake (above Sonora)
Marble Quarry at Columbia
Yosemite (private RV park in Groveland)
Emigrant/Yuba Gap on I80

I want to go back to Lake Pillsbury, but it is 18 miles of dirt road to get to it and I think I will wait until the TM is a little less new.

Also on my list of places to go:
Alpine Lake
Highland Lakes
Collins Lake
Lake McClure

[B_and_D]

We're booked for Refugio in June, and then Seacliff in July.

We used to take the kids to PiPi when they were little, they loved that place.

The fairgrounds in Santa Cruz will rent out the facilities for trailer rallies.
http://www.santacruzcountyfair.com

What would be a central location for everyone? Any suggestions to where we could book something that wouldn't be completely filled up? It seems that group campsites are mostly for tent camping. We don't need hookups but other people may want them.

We've been to Colombia (49er RV) and that was a neat place. We've also been to Olema Ranch (Pt Reyes), but they have new owners and say that they won't make reservations unless you buy a membership. How about Cassini Ranch on the Russian River? Mt. Madonna? Big Sur? Morro Bay? Clear Lake? Bodega Bay?

I have not discussed this with DW yet so I can not commit.

However, it seems that there are at least a few TMs in NorCal that are uncomfortable boondocking. This could perhaps be an opportunity to introduce some TMers to boondocking if we went somewhere that did not have hookups.

Some National Forest Service campgrounds have group areas that may be suitable. Some State and County Parks also have group areas.

Though places like Big Basin might be centrally located for many of us, it is so close to home it is hardly worth towing the TM there.

Brannan Island has a section called the Recreational Vehicle Rallye Site, whatever that is. It sounds like a group area for TMs to me.

First we need to get some sort of list of where everyone is. Rather than we all keep making this thread longer how about I volunteer to produce a list from what ever info someone sends to me as a private message. I will collect the data and offer a few ideas of places to go to get things rolling.

I might have to go empty some old messages to make sure I have room.

All your plans sound great for this year! I agree, Olema does require membership now and personally I think they lost their "charm" when the new owners took over... but they did say they were remodeling so maybe it's different but I don't like that they went to a membership based camping facility. I like Bodega Dunes SP for no-hookup camping, but their reservations are not site specific. I also liked Casini Ranch CG... they have a wide variety of sites, from full hookups to partial to none. We'd be open to join TMO's probably in Oct, Nov or Dec, or beyond that. Up til the end of Sept we are pretty booked though.

Oh... PopBeavers, I just sent you an email. Thanks for doing this! :-)

[rickst29]

places like Sorensen's/Hope Valley, June Lake to the South, or North to Graeagle. (Hope Valley is really nice, but has only a coupe of sites big enough to handle both a TM trailer and a separate TV.) We're booked into New Brighton Beach in early May. But of course, for San Jose people like Wayne, that wouldn't be a "get-away" at all. And of course, finding dates for a GROUP at a with-hookups at such a popular State Beach would need to be one far, far ahead. My DW needs electric hookups, in order to run 120V air cleaners continuously.

Plymouth/49-er is a little bit too low in altitude, the air would be a problem down there. And we've OD'd on the Russian River valley in the past. But our needs are weird, please don't worry about trying to make otherwise good plans compatible with us. (Very likely, work commitments wouldn't fit the date anyway, we have to plan many months ahead.)

But I'll keep an eye on the thread to see if the destination(s) and dates turn out to be compatible, it would be great to see some of you in person. Thanks!

I have been collecting responses, and since I haven't gotten any more in about a week, then I guess I pretty much have the complete list.

We are off camping this Wednesday through Sunday, so when I get back I will post a summary of the replies that I have received.

In the mean time, if anyone else is interested PM me. So far most of use are either south bay or Sacramento.

I'd be interested in being in the loop for this although it's hard to find another weekend left in our schedule and we'd have to bring the dogs if we were to do it.
Cheri

[cali camping]

Sounds excellent! We are in Vacaville, just southwest of Sacramento. We have only boondocked so far, as we try to get away when we go out, but looking to expand our horizons. Our schedule is hard to fit into as I'm an airline pilot and don't have regular days off, but we're game to give it a try. The only other kink is the 3 dogs "have" to go, so that may be an issue as some places have a 2 dog or no dog limit!
Look forward to meeting some of the group!