May 21-22: North to Chico

May 22, 2012
Elks Lodge, Chico, CA

We had a nice two-night stop in Chico, CA, taking advantage of the hospitality at the local Elks Lodge. We have part of our strategy for this summer's travels working well, but not everything.

Specifically, we'd resolved to shorten our driving days and extend our stops this summer. We've definitely done the former; it's the duration we need to work on.

The drive from Sacramento to Chico was short and uneventful. We opted to use the freeway rather than cut across surface streets, and were soon looping south on the Capitol Freeway to US-50 and then to I-5 heading North. It wasn't too long before we made the switch to CA-70/99 and were listening to the GPS repeat "Off route; recalculating" because the mapping software hasn't kept up with road improvements (it always reminds me of the Allstate commercial where "Mischief" pretends to be a GPS). I'm getting pretty tired of upgrading the software and getting ripped off.




Anyway, we followed that route, doing the little in-town close-quarter driving in Marysville, and reconnecting with CA-99 via CA-149 just before getting to Chico. Having checked the map against Google Earth, we were able to get to the Elks Lodge with no trouble. It's a fairly large facility and an active Lodge with a lot going on. We were glad to find the RV parking almost empty; we'd delayed our arrival several days because they were full over the weekend. We were soon parked in one of the three 50 Amp sites, and we're even able to aim the TV dish through the trees.

Our visit was short but we'll be back if our travels take us this way in the future. We had drinks in the bar after arrival and dinner tonight, which they call "Tightwad Tuesday". The kitchen staff figures out a menu using various things left in the larder from weekend activities, and puts on a dinner for $7. How can you go wrong? Well, overeating, I suppose. I tried to walk off the calories, putting in 5+ mile walks each day, but still gained weight.

Today for lunch, we treated ourselves at the Sierra Nevada Taproom. Yes, this is the home of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and we each did a 4-beer sampler with lunch. I had a Turkey Melt (OK) and Geri had Steamed Clams with micro-fries (excellent). We stopped at the Gift Shop afterwards, but only bought beer.

Tonight, we've done our night-before-travel chores and we'll hit the road heading North in the morning.


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