Weve been camping and road tripping in our 4x4 76 G30 for the past 6 years and this year purchased a 2001 SMB. We've had it for 3 months now and finally got to take it camping. Ive beed really itching to get it out but the holidays and work has had me slammed until now.
I had MLK day off of work and with a 3 day weekend we decided to camp out at Remington hot springs on the kern river. Ive never been there before and really wanted to check it out. We loaded up the SMB with gas, wood, water and food n beer in the fridge and hit the road saturday around noon.
We took our time and drove from Los Angeles up to Mojave and stopped for some views in RedRock canyon. From There we hopped on 178 west to Lake Isabella. This was a really nice drive lots of good views.
We got to The trail head and after looking for camping in the area settled on camping in the parking lot for the hot springs. It wasn't an ideal location but it offered easy accessibility to the hot springs.
We dug a f firepit and made a fire ring, cooked, ate and had some beers then retired to the penthouse and watched a movie. we kept getting woken up by others camping in the lot at all hours of the night doors slamming etc.
We woke up around 8am, made a delicious breakfast in the van and then headed down to the springs. The springs already had a crowd that had already put down a few boxes of wine and smoked a few j's. Some dude was doing laundry, another washing his hair. Another was vomiting and passing out by noon. We decided to get outta there cause it was a gross scene unraveling quickly. We went and made some tacos and went for a hike
We hiked down to the river and chilled out a for a while and enjoyed the sounds of nature and watching the water flow. It was gonna get dark soon so we hiked back filling a backpack full of other peoples garbage left on the trail on our way back out.
We got a fire going and made dinner. While we were cooking the scene from down at the hot springs was erupting at the parking lot. People yelling, fighting, it would flare up then die down, luckily our fire drowned out most of the bullshit and we could pretend we were alone. Eventually we got tired and hit the sack. Woke up around 4am to a guy yelling he was gonna kill himself etc, then luckily a sheriff and ambulance came.
We woke up to rain monday. Packed up the van and headed out almost getting stuck on the muddy hillside we were now camped on. We drove into town (Kernville) there was an awesome rainbow. Ate at the brewery in town and then went for a short hike.
On our way home we detoured in california city and explored some of the sand roads and then headed home. Aside from the bad crowd it was a good trip, Had some nice hikes, ate well and got to test out our new rig. The SMB made camping so much easier and enjoyable. It drives really well im super stoked on it.
And heres a video edit I made on my phone
https://vimeo.com/152345732