On the weekend of October 19th, we decided to head up to Lake Concow Campground in Northern California for a meet up of people who are doing van builds. This was specifically a Sprinter van meet up, but they invited “similar” vehicles to join the crow. I’m glad they did, as it was a great chance to try out the van again. Scott has done a lot more work on it. Plus we got to meet a lot of people, several of whom Scott had corresponded with regarding van building. And we got to check out what various people had down with their vans, while also showing off ours š
The van now has a kitchen sink with a water pump and grey water disposal, and a working toilet – in addition to the bed and kitchen counters. Oh ya, and a new electrical system that gives us enough power to be off grid for several days without recharging (although we are hoping to have solar up soon, so that charging will be passive and happen whenever there is enough sunlight).
On Saturday afternoon, a bunch of us packed up and drove down the road to Belden for lunch.Ā I was struct by how beautiful that part of Northern California is. There is a familiarity in these mountains, as they have somewhat the same feel as the Coastal Mountains up in Northern BC. Except, it is exceptionally dry at this time of year.
At one point, we followed another van through a tunnel.
On the way back to the campsite, we stopped and took some pictures of the river. Again, it reminded me of the glacier fed rivers and creeks in Northern BC.
On Saturday night, Dale, the campout organizer, arranged for a local blue grass band to entertain us. Seeing the band on stage, with the sunset in the background was gorgeous. I was struck by the beauty of the scenery, but also really enjoyed dancing to the music surrounded by trees and under the stars.
The sad part of this post is that the meetup was at the Lake Concow Campground, which burned to the ground last night. In addition, the “Camp Fire” (that is the nameĀ CalFire has given this fire), burned through Concow town and the town of Paradise. The winds are still high and everything is tinder dry so the fire is spreading at an alarming rate and we are getting poor air quality down in San Jose, over 200 miles away. Outside here, the light is odd, as there is a layer of smoke between us and the sun, creating weird orange tinted shadows, and it smells like campfire. I cannot image how horrible it must be further north, closer to the fire.