Last day at San Luis SRA.  No water for the second day due to some issue that the State cannot fix over the holiday weekend.  I should get some money back since I only have electric!  Lot’s of other campers have left.  There are only 2 others in our loop of 29 spots.  Roxie feels a little spooked by all this.  It is kind of remote out here:

In the above picture, just to the right a bit (due east) and 4 miles away is Santa Nella.  This is the stop on I5 that has Andersen’s Split Pea Soup restaurant.  Just to the left a bit (due north) and 3 miles away is the San Joaquin Valley National Cemetery.  We have visited the cemetery in the past with the WBCCI group.  It is impressive and saddening to see the rows of headstones.  We did not visit on this trip.

We were slow to get out of the trailer but why did we have to be fast?  We didn’t!  I took off Tuesday also so we could have a full three day weekend albeit starting on Saturday.  We again consulted Yelp for a meal and found a nice little locally run diner, the Court House Diner.  A cute locally run diner with very good food.

We never thought that Los Banos had a movie theatre but found out that they did!  We decided to watch a movie in the afternoon and saw Jupiter Rising.  It was fun as Roxie and I both enjoy SciFi.  It was filmed as a 3D movie but we did not see it in 3D.  I think the film directors/producers tend to go overboard with the 3D effects in the movies.  This one was a bit over the top in that sense.  Also with the advent of high quality special effects, those effects tend to have too much going on in them and can be a bit of a distraction.  I know I am just getting to be an old codger that complains about everything.

That early evening we started another fire to enjoy the last evening.  Here is basically a warmer shot of the above photo:

The next day was the trudge back home.  This one was a bit more interesting as we had two vehicles to drive.  I tried to get my GoPro working so I could have Roxie film the trailer from the trailing position but alas I could not get it working.

Until the next trip…

Returning to our cliffhanger from the previous post.  I left you with this image:

The Northern California Airstreamers group on Facebook has many interesting posts.  I saw this one and the location looked like Toscano’s RV in Los Banos.  Heck I was just there on Saturday to get our trailer!  This picture was the day before.  He also mentioned Mercey Hot Springs.

I have known about Mercey Hot Springs for a while as I would see the signs whenever we would go past the exit on the I5 corridor, which we have done A LOT!  I remember researching that there are RV spots there also.  And you few readers know, hopefully, how much we like hot springs.  I had always wanted to go there and camp but never did think of it until the summer when it would be over 100 degrees!  We had already paid for 3 nights at San Luis Creek so what to do?

Road Trip!   It was only 45 miles from our campsite to Mercey Hot Springs so it was worth it.

Once you get off boring I5 the drive back to the hot springs is desolate but pretty also, especially in the spring.  We got to the springs and saw there was an airplane there as they have their own dirt landing strip.  We talked to the proprietors, got some information and looked around a bit.  We also saw there were 4 Airstreams there.  Roxie was bummed that no one told us about this mini-rally.  I knew that there were two there, one from the above post and one from another FB post that showed a vintage outside the window of Ken (from above post).  The other two Airstreams were there for people to rent.  That is nice.

We walked over by the new Airstream and proceeded to meet Ken.  We introduced ourselves and had a nice talk with he and Mike.  This is their first RV and decided on an Airstream after thinking about a truck camper.  I think they are happy with the decision.  We answered a few questions about their trailer.  I gave them a card and let them know to contact me anytime they might have a question.  It was nice to visit and see the enthusiasm and trepidation in their eyes:

After our excursion we headed back to Los Banos and consulted Yelp.  Since we had such good luck at the highest rated locale we thought we would try #2.  This was a place called Wool Growers:

Basque, family style.  We heard descriptions of lamb this and lamb that for the meals and I wasn’t so sure about that but we gave it a try anyway.  We have a limited history with basque style eating.  We went to one restaurant in Bakersfield together, Benji’s.  My parents used to take us to one in Susanville whenever we would go to Reno as a child.  Roxie and I have both been to the Samoa Cookhouse in Eureka which isn’t Basque but you eat communally like the Basque restaurants.

We went in and sat down at the end of a long table.  The choices for the main course were Lamb chop, pork chop, tri-tip or chicken.  Whew!  There was a choice.  I took tri-tip and Roxie did pork chop.  They brought water and a small bottle of wine.  We did the water.  Then bread, soup, salad, rice, french fries, and the main course.  Everything was served family style and the waiters were busting their butts because it was busy (Sunday around 1:30pm).  At the end were some cups of ice cream.  It was a very interesting experience.

We stopped off at WalMart to pickup some supplies and a RedBox movie.  In the early evening I started a campfire and we needed it as the sun began to set.  Later that evening we watched the Maze Runner in the Airstream.  This is the first time we ever watched a DVD (Blu-Ray was not available to rent) on the bedroom TV in the trailer.  It worked perfectly.

All in all a good day with one more to go since I made it a 4 day weekend!