Back in the fall of 2020 I hatched a plan to head south the first of February in 2021.  The plan was to get away from the Pacific Northwest cold and wet weather.  I would drive south on I-5 to Bakersfield and then head eastward towards Death Valley and explore. Then covid hit California hard.  Driving through California didn’t seem responsible with the ICUs full and I didn’t want to drive down the east side of the sierras pulling a trailer with the potential of icy roads. Surprisingly, California started recovering from covid in February.  I made the decision to go south.  

I started driving from Seattle and it took me five days to get to what I thought of as the beginning of the trip – Red Rock Canyon, California. This included an extra day waiting on the north side of the Siskiyous for the road conditions to improve.  When I read the Oregon DOT site at 1:00 pm; it was 30 degrees at the pass, snowing hard, bumper to bumper traffic with a 60 minute delay. It was not a hard decision to check into the Valley of the Rogue Campground to wait the weather out.  The next day was much better.  

It was a long slog south, but I made it to Red Rock Canyon.