Skip to main content

Joseph Grant Park Camping Trip

As I mentioned in the previous post, our maiden voyage was to Grant Park near Morgan Hill (Lick Observatory sits about the park). A one night trip to test out the equipment, we picked a place close to home that also had availability.  The drive up Mount Hamilton was steep, narrow and curved. As you reach the top, you drop in the valley behind and you find golden rolling hills spotted with oaks. We arrived before the 3pm check in and took a nice stroll in the valley bottom because there is no early check in.  Our walk was flat and easy. The woodpeckers were very busy storing acorns in the giant oaks.  

The van and our build worked great but where we lacked in “equipment” was in warm clothing. It was cold and windy and we did not bring the right clothing. The rechargeable hand warmers that Dennis bought were a warm blessing. The park and campground itself was very nice. We had a great spot with no immediate neighbors. The bathroom was a quick walk down the hill and was very clean with flushing toilets. 

In the morning, we made a cup of coffee and went for a walk before breakfast to warm up.  The nearby campsites were closed for the winter season but we were able to check them out as well as the other sites where we were located. We are now on the lookout for flat parking sites! Dennis cooked a fabulous breakfast on the Blackstone but the wind chill was insane.  When we finally left the site at 11am it was 47 degrees with serious wind. We will be purchasing some winter active clothing before our next trip.




















Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gualala Point Campground

Armed with warm clothing and our new Carsule, Dennis and I were ready for another adventure. Dennis’s coworker, Cheryl, recommended  Gualala Point Campground  (part of Sonoma County Regional Parks). Dennis found a spot available for Friday and Saturday night. Gualala Point is next to Sea Ranch on the Pacific Coast off of Hwy 1. Figuring it will be about a 3.5 hour drive, we scooted out the driveway about 1pm.  Sunset is about 4:30pm and we are trying not to setup in complete darkness. We stopped at a bakery on the way up for some cookies and then continued to our spot. The campground is located right before you cross the bridge into Gualala. It is tucked back in the redwoods next to the Gualala River. The sites are close together but situated in a way that you don’t feel you are on top of your neighbor. A ranger came over shortly after our arrival to give us the lowdown on the facilities...the host is on vacay, firewood is self serve and our campground pass gives us free ...
Post a Comment
Read more
Welcome to WonderVan Adventures!   I'm Sophie and this blog is about my husband, Dennis, and my adventures in converting a cargo van into a camper van. It will also be about our adventures on the open road when our camper van is ready to go.  Why the name WonderVan? Well, Dennis worked for Wonderbread for over 30 years and it seemed like a sweet nod to his first career. Dennis now works as a school bus driver for the local school district and I work for a book publisher that specialized in sewing and craft titles.  What made us want to take on this project? There are lots of reasons we decided to take on this DIY but the whole COVID situation has made us pretty stir crazy. I now work at home, which I'm very grateful about, but it feels like I NEVER leave the house. In many ways, I don't. We have been talking about getting a trailer, a teardrop, a used RV or other mobile "vacay" on wheels for a while and to be honest, I pretty much lost it. I started to stress tha...
1 comment
Read more

Let’s build an internal structure

So it is time to start building. There as been a lot of discussing and planning and at some point you just got to build and problem solve along the way. This is our official pandemic project and Dennis definitely needs a project. He has pretty much finished every home improvement project we had. Dennis is a really good woodworker and with a a chop saw, our neighbor’s table saw and a pocket hole jig we are ready to start.  We started with the outside structure.  Each framing side has to take into account the 4.5 degree angle of the floor.  The two sides are braced together near the front seats. With these three sides in place it is time to scrape off all of the contact paper.  Now we have a very shiny floor!  Next the framing for the pull out elements needed to be built.  There are two pullouts.  The first pullout is on a 48” full extension. This is part serves two purposes.  The first it is a hatch to access the storage area below. The second will...
Post a Comment
Read more