Rancho Seco, California

April 7, 2022

We rode our trusty steed from Washington to California and back again. Some 3000 miles, give or take. We saw giant redwood groves and magical fern canyons, surfers in SoCal and snowboarders on Stephens Pass. We stood on the shores of man-made lakes and also the Pacific Ocean, drove on unpaved backroads and 16-lane freeways, sometimes on the same day. I am reminded again of how big and beautiful and diverse this country is.

On one of our last nights on the road, we detoured off the interstate to Rancho Seco Recreational Park in central California. It was probably just another public park that we found off Campendium and reserved without too much research. It was therefore a surprise when two tall nuclear reactors appeared on the horizon, and we found ourselves pulling into a campground in their shadows. It turns out that the Rancho Seco Nuclear Generating Station is a decommissioned nuclear power plant, the site of the third most serious nuclear power accident in the USA in the 1980s. Luckily, the safety mechanisms did as designed and triggered an automatic reactor shutdown. Presumably though, this incident (along with whatever is considered to be the first and second most serious nuclear power mishaps) contributed to the fall in popularity of nuclear power, and Rancho Seco was closed by public vote in 1989. The lake was man-made, to serve as an emergency backup water supply for the nuclear station. It is now stocked with trout, and surrounded by idyllic grazing land and vineyards. There are several dozen campsites around the lake, which we had mostly to ourselves.

RV life is in many ways a daily exercise in resource management: electric power, fresh water, gasoline, propane, tank capacity. The calculations are even more tricky when the RV is small, campervan size. I like it because it’s a moment-by-moment appreciation of human ingenuity and the abundance of resources, which we are lucky enough to enjoy. Nothing like being limited on fresh water for 2 weeks to appreciate modern plumbing at home. It seemed an appropriate metaphor to watch the sun set behind the decommissioned nuclear reactors, a monument both to our cleverness as well as to our fallibility.

We returned the Pleasure Way Ontour to her owners in Bellingham yesterday, and headed back to Wenatchee. Spring had arrived in our absence, and the daffodils are in full bloom. It’s good to be back again.

April 8, 2022