Scenes from the road

My vacation is almost complete, but I wanted to post a few photos that I took over the weekend. I'll resume posting full time on Tuesday and I'm excited -- there's lots in the transposphere to discuss.

The above photo was taken Sunday night from U.S. 395 of the Clover Fire that is burning in the backcountry of the Sequoia National Forest -- it's north of Kennedy Meadows, if you're familiar with the area. The fire has burned about 4,000 acres and grew big enough that the U.S. Forest Service had to divert hikers from the Pacific Crest Trail over the weekend.

As for the continuing story about gas prices, the second photo shows what they were charging Sunday at the Shell station at the intersection of 395 and the June Lake Loop. Ouch. I'm proud to say that my Subaru Outback and I made it 440 miles from Meyers (just south of South Lake Tahoe) to Pasadena on one tank of gas yesterday by using a lot of cruise control and forgoing the air conditioning.

Will gas prices put a dent in traveling this summer? Obviously, it's too early to tell. But anecdotally, it seemed to me that traffic at Lake Tahoe the last few days was typical of what I've seen in recent summers.

Here's some good news for long-distance travelers: The Jolly Kone in Bridgeport is no longer just a great place to get a large zebra cone dipped -- the ice cream and burger stand now offers massages.

And, finally, I wanted to quickly touch on an issue that I plan to write more about this summer: recreational vehicles and camping. In recent summers, I've seen more and more RVs at Sierra campgrounds -- to the point that sometimes the RVs outnumber tents.

I think that -- as newspapers like to say -- raises some interesting issues. The first is the very fact that RVs that can measure as long as 40 feet are even allowed in a campground. If you have a full kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and satellite dish at your disposal and your vehicle weighs more than 10,000 pounds, I'm pretty sure you're not camping, no matter where you've managed to park your RV. The photo below shows how it took one group two RVs to conquer a campsite at Fallen Leaf Lake near Lake Tahoe.

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary, by the way, defines camping this way: "to live temporarily in a camp or outdoors -- often used with out." So, perhaps the exact meaning of "camping" is open to interpretation.

Look. It's not that I'm without my sympathies for the creature comforts and those who need them to access the outdoors. But is it really necessary to run the generator all day and make such an awful racket? And is there perhaps a way to better separate tents and RVs in campgrounds to serve everyone's interests? Should the Forest Service or Park Service be promoting or tolerating vehicles that can get single-digit fuel mileage?

Finally, I direct your attention to a chart on the "Go RVing" website that shows the cost of taking a vacation in an RV. A three-day camping vacation in a motor home costs $647, so says the chart, which doesn't detail the distance driving.

My two cents: If you're spending $647 for a three-day camping trip within 500 miles of your home, you're spending way too much, no matter what kind of vehicle you're driving.