RVing web sites
Park Our House!
A column by Fran
Crawford
Published in The Territorial Dispatch
When Opportunity
knocked, I was out in the backyard looking for four leaf
clovers!
-- Rodney Dangerfield
Great things are happening in the Yuba Sutter area and Charlie is keeping track (no pun intended) of the progress at the new raceway and ampitheater.
These will bring in race fans and music fans. The Mudcats will bring in baseball fans. With all these 'fans' the community should get the reputation of being a really 'cool' place to be! (Eeeooh! Sorry about that!)
Ron Harmon, who grew up in the Oregon House area, is ready to seize the opportunity that will come with more people visiting the area and perhaps planning to stay for a while. He is refurbishing the Lake Francis village and campground areas and will be ready for a full summer of outdoor recreational fun this year.
The lake itself has been under 'reconstruction' for a couple of years and is scheduled to be completed by this fall. It will then be filled with water. However, it will not be available for water sports this season. When it is finished it will be a beautiful little lake again ...although somewhat larger than it was.
Ron is planning a Grand Opening March 17 - 19, complete with live music, BBQ's, corned beef meals, crafts, dancing under the stars, and lots more for the campground, RV park and village.
Other 'special events weekends' are to include Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Labor Day. But every day will be filled with lots of activities for all ages.
Some of the planned activities include winery tours, music, games, socials, and darts as well as swimming, volleyball, softball, nature walks and plenty of mountain bike trails to enjoy.
The village will feature a restaurant, camp store with ice cream cones, bar, large clubhouse, children's playground, pool and a friendly staff.
With hundreds of RV spaces, plenty of room for tent camping, lots of outdoor activities and a large clubhouse the Lake Francis Resort should be a great place for groups as well as individual recreation seekers.
The resort now has a website that has all the information you need about staying there, and a map to help you get there. Look up the website at <lakefrancisrv.com> and then drive on up and meet the friendly folks. It's a great ride and the Yuba foothills are beautiful, especially in the spring.
Fulltime RVers especially, will love the quiet, scenic front yard they will have while staying in the RV Park. When you live in a fifth wheel, motorhome or a travel trailer the living room never changes but the yard does!
We just changed our front yard from the stark, peaceful beauty of the desert south of Quartzsite, Arizona to a large RV Park along the Colorado River on the Arizona side.
We needed to have electricity and a phone line so we sacrificed the fantastic night skies that occur when there are no man-made lights to reduce their clarity. In exchange we have warmer nights and a peaceful river to work by. Life is trade-offs.
In Quartzsite we were 'one in a million' ...literally. And there was only one way to get to town from the desert where we stayed. Traffic would be backed up two or three miles out of town, bumper to bumper, on a two lane road. What slows the traffic down in town is two four way stops with vehicles coming from all four ways at each one. It takes two hours to go three miles.
We always wonder why we bother to stop by Quartzsite... the phenomenon draws us back. In the summertime the population of the hot, dry town is 2500 to 3000. In the wintertime the population of the warm, dry town is 500,000 to a million! Local merchants and seasonal vendors thrive on it. And RVers feel they don't qualify as RVers unless they pass through Quartzsite at least once during the late January phenomena.
Happy Valentines Day!
-- Fran C. Crawford - ©2000