Our first real trip in the Caravan was supposed to run Thursday to Saturday. We were home by Friday afternoon. Just Monica, Asher, and me this time, out to Isabella Lake, a little over an hour from the house. I’ll tell you up front: this one was not exceptional, and I’m not going to dress it up like it was. But there was one minute in a camp chair that made the whole drive worth it, and I’ll get to that at the end.

The Route

Short and close to home. About 65 miles from Bakersfield, call it an hour and 20 minutes of seat time, east on CA-178 up through the Kern River Canyon to the lake. The canyon is the interesting part. It’s a narrow two-lane that hugs the Kern River for a good stretch, sharp turns around the rock and real drop-offs down to the water below. You climb off the valley floor and finish up around 2,500 feet at the lake. This was the first time I’d hauled the Caravan through there, and that road is no place to learn that your trailer is a handful.

The Campsite

We posted up at Hanning Flat, the free dispersed area on the east shore of the lake. It’s big, flat, and wide open, the kind of spot that swallows a trailer without much fuss and lets you put some distance between you and your neighbors. Vault toilets sit along the road and that’s about the extent of the amenities. No water, no trash, so pack in and pack out. Cell service is decent for a spot this far out, better on Verizon than the other carriers by most accounts.

The one thing to know before you haul anything heavy in: it’s sandy. A lot of Hanning Flat is old lakebed, soft enough in places that people have had to dig themselves out. Pick your line, keep a little momentum, and don’t go nosing a loaded rig into the soft stuff without walking it first. There’s also a rule against camping or fires within 25 feet of the water on the Upper Kern dispersed sites, worth knowing if you’re chasing a shoreline spot.

The BLM land was a short hop from camp. We left the Caravan where it sat and took the truck up a trail to a cell phone tower (35.681144, -118.411777). Easy run, nothing technical about it, anyone with a 4x4 could do it without a second thought. A low-key way to get the truck dirty and stretch the afternoon out.

As for what to know before you go, the wind is the headline, and it earns its own warning down in What Didn’t.

What Worked

A first shakedown an hour from home. Whatever else this trip turned into, it was a smart place to take a brand-new rig out for the first time. If something had gone sideways with the Caravan, home was 65 miles away, not halfway across the country. There’s a lot to be said for learning a new thing close to the driveway.

We took advantage of what was available. Last trip, the big regret was driving past a bunch of trails to get home early. This time we ran the BLM trail up to the cell tower just because it was there. Easy, sure, but we did it anyways instead of looking at it in the rearview. There was no way I was about to make the same mistake again.

Backups for a toddler. The RC truck and the lake kept us busy and entertained. Asher was leery of the seaweed at first. That faded quickly with a simple distraction in the form of an inflatable tube. These two things were cheap, low-effort ways to fill an afternoon with an 18-month-old and are worth their weight in gold!

What Didn’t

We walked straight into Isabella’s worst combination without checking for it. The wind was relentless, kicking dust up into the air and right into our eyes, to the point that being outside stopped being any fun at all. Turns out that’s not bad luck. This lake is one of the most popular windsurfing spots in the state precisely because the afternoon wind reliably howls, and it can run 35 to 50 mph from late morning into the evening. Stack the heat on top of that, summer temps run past 100 degrees, and you’ve got a place that does not want you sitting outside in the afternoon. A two-minute look at the forecast, or just going in a cooler month, would have changed the whole trip. That one’s on me.

There wasn’t much pulling us to stay. We could have ridden it out inside the Caravan, but sitting indoors at a lake we drove to defeats the entire purpose. And once outside was miserable, there wasn’t a single anchor reason holding us there, so leaving was easy. I’m not saying every trip needs a packed itinerary. I’m saying that when conditions go bad, it helps to have one good reason to tough it out, and this time we didn’t have one.

What we filmed

There’s a video for this one, embedded up top. I’ll be straight: it’s already up and it isn’t doing much, which I figured going in. The trip was just okay and the footage reflects that. If you want a low-key look at our first outing in the Caravan, a mild BLM trail, and a toddler pretending to be Steve Irwin hunting wild inflatable tubes, it’s all there.

Off the Trail

Here’s the part that made the drive worth it. At some point I ended up in a camp chair with nothing in front of me to do. The week before this trip had been a grind, the kind where you don’t really sit down until you fall into bed, and suddenly there I was with no task and nowhere to be. I noticed I was bored. Then I noticed I was grateful for it. That’s not a feeling I land on often. Boredom usually reads to me as a problem to go fix. This time it read as rest, and I had enough sense to stay in the chair instead of getting up to go do something about it.

It didn’t last long. It never does with an 18-month-old loose in the area. But that’s about the whole point of what we’re doing out here. It might seem simple and even obvious to some, but that small moment of boredom was enough to make every moment after one of presence. The trip was just okay. The video’s a dud. Overall it was worth those few short minutes where I actually stopped moving and just existed.

Notes for next time

  • Check the Isabella wind forecast before committing. The afternoon wind can be brutal. Mornings are the calmer window.
  • Go in shoulder season. Spring or fall beats a 100-degree summer weekend at this lake.
  • Keep the RC truck and a lake plan on the itinerary. Both earned their spot.
  • That cell-tower BLM trail is an easy, no-stress 4x4 run worth keeping in the back pocket.
  • Hanning Flat is sandy in spots. Walk your line or air down before pulling the loaded Caravan off the firm ground.