#11-21 Death Valley and Meadowcliff, CA

After we left Boulder City, NV we headed through Death Valley towards Hwy 395. We stopped at Stovepipe Wells. There is a campground there, but it was closed for upgrading to 50 amps, so we went across the street to an empty campground. For a while we were the only RV there. Only one other camper pulled in. The day was dry and hot. It was 108 degrees!

Thank goodness for the generator. We ran the air conditioner all evening then it cooled off to the 80 degree level for sleeping at night.

Once we pulled out of Death Valley and the heat, we started seeing snow capped mountains of the Sierra Nevada. That’s about as close as we wanted to get to the snow. It was still on the side of the road as you can see in the picture below.

This is a picture of the Walker river we drove beside. It is full of melting snow and running at full force.

The first stop was at Bishop, CA and we only stopped for one night and then on to a little town of Coleville at a campground called Medowcliff. The campground is a Passport America campground, but even at half price it still costs us $25.00 a night. Camping prices have really increased in the last couple of years. It had a big cliff in back of it and on the other side of the road there is a big meadow. Thus the name Meadowcliff! We stayed a couple of nights.

Below is the reason we stayed the second night! We watched the weather channel and knew there was a storm coming in, but didn’t expect the amount of snow that we received. Christmas in May!! The snow only lasted a few hours, but it got cold! Just two days ago it was 108!!

We attended church in the little town of Coleville (Population 400), Sunday morning. A very nice bunch of people. Then hibernated inside the RV while the weather did it’s worst! By Monday our mail had arrived and we headed up the road 77 miles to Reno. At Meadowcliff we did not have phone service and had to use the WiFi at the campground and the cable TV. So it is nice to get to a bigger town. We stayed in Reno for a couple of nights as there is another storm coming in on Tuesday. We also purchased diesel in Reno—Nevada prices are a lot less then CA! Diesel was $3.99.9 at a Texaco station near where we parked the RV. Wednesday, May 18 is supposed to be only cloudy and warming up to the 60’s. We’ve been hearing about freezing nights for the past couple of storms. We head to Sacramento on Wednesday, May 18th.