Epic Riverfront Property?! | Cozy Winter Camping Living in a Travel Trailer | Van Life

January 1st, 2024. The beginning of a whole new year of life on the road. There have definitely been twists and turns and sometimes doubts that this is still the life for me, but one thing I learned this past year is I'm not ready to quit just yet. Today we're heading to Kernville, California. Someplace I've never spent any time. This trip has me wondering why. After arriving in town, we made a stop at the local brewery for lunch. The food was amazing. I decided on a zesty Caesar salad with a side of tater tots. Yum, it was incredible. We set up camp, which I will show you in the morning, and spent the rest of It is gorgeous. It was supposed to be cloudy this morning according to the weather forecast. However, we woke up to sun, which was awesome. The clouds are starting to move in, so it might be a little bit overcast for the remainder of the day. Snow and rain are on the way tomorrow, so it's going to change quite a bit weather-wise. As you might notice, I'm wearing a new chapeau. It is a vintage Stetson hat, which I found here in Kernville. There are lots of little antique shops. It's a very charming village, and my mom and my sister and I came up and explored during Christmas. I hadn't ever really spent time here. I've driven through on my way to backpacking trips up in the Golden Trout Wilderness. We're near the Sequoia National Forest, or in the Sequoia National Forest, but I never actually explored the town, and it's really charming. It gives me the vibe of Gardner, Montana, which is at the north entrance of Yellowstone. The geography is a little bit different. However, it kind of has the same vibe. It has a river running through it, like the Yellowstone River runs through that town, and it's just a neat, neat little place. Can't believe I've never been here, and this campsite is phenomenal. The view from here is spectacular. This campsite is called the Kern River Sequoia Resort. It's an RV resort. My sister Jill and her dog, Birdie, are here with me. They camped a few sites down, and she wanted to be somewhere where she could be plugged in. This is probably one of my last adventures with them before I take off from California, but before that, I have another big adventure planned. It's exciting. I've been on the break, on the holiday hiatus, and thank you so much for your patience during that time. I did take a little bit of a break. I have been planning some upcoming adventures. One of them is coming up fairly soon, and I've also been taking care of a lot of issues with the truck and the trailer. I've made big to-do lists, and I'm checking them off one by one. I wanted to really dial everything in before I hit the road for the season after visiting home for the holidays. I also spent time with my family. We did, again, some exploring, some traveling, and just enjoying each other's company. So it's been really, really awesome, and a much-deserved break. However, I wasn't really doing nothing. I was pretty busy. I still have some projects to do on the trailer, but that's going to be for another video. I'm going to share everything that I've done and that I'm doing and show you some of what I'm doing here and the projects that are going to be taking place. It definitely feels good to be back. I have missed you all, and Happy New Year. Happy New Year, everyone. I can't wait for what 2024 has in store. Today, we're going to be doing some exploring in the area. I'm going to show you this beautiful area, but before that, I'm going to go ahead and get some breakfast going for myself and my sis. One of the things that we did is we visited an estate sale, and I found this awesome Revereware pan, and I don't think they make these anymore. I looked it up, and I paid $10 for it at the estate sale. The ones that I saw online, they're all vintage, I guess, and they are about $80 or maybe even more, $90 to $100 for a pan like this, is going to be a breakfast sandwich. I'm so used to using non-stick pans, so this is definitely an experiment. Before we go out exploring, priorities. I need to take my AG1, my healthy habit, to start the new year off right. This is the time of year that a lot of folks are reevaluating their health, and it is the perfect time to start a healthy habit like AG1. AG1 is designed to replace multiple supplements by covering nutritional gaps with a comprehensive blend of nutrients. Just one tasty scoop each day helps meet your foundational health needs. It is my two-year anniversary of taking AG1, and I am a huge fan. I couldn't recommend it more highly. Packed with 75 vitamins and minerals, it is good for gut health, stress, recovery, all sorts of great things. Even with the best diet, some nutrients can be hard to get. That's why AG1 delivers optimal amounts of nutrients in forms that help your body thrive. Simply put, it's a way to invest in your health now and in the long run, providing whole body benefits in one scoop. I'm no nutritionist, but what I can tell you is I feel better when I take AG1. My skin looks better. It helps with immune defense, gut health, stress and mood balance. That's just to name a few things. If you'd like to start the year off right with an awesome healthy habit, go ahead and click that link below and AG1 will give you a year's supply of vitamin D3, K2, and 5 travel packs for free with your first purchase. You will not regret it, trust me. Thank you once again to AG1 for sponsoring this video. Now back to the show. All right, now it's time to get exploring. We're all finished up with breakfast, belly's full. Let's hit it. Kernville is located in the Southern Sierra Nevada in Kern County. The Kern River was named after artist and topographer Edward Kern, who accompanied John Fremont on his 1845 expedition. They camped at what was a fork in two rivers, now the middle of Lake Isabella. In 1858, Gold Rush led to the formation of a town briefly called Rogersville, then Williamsburg, which was in 1863 renamed Whiskey Flat after a bar opened. In 1864, the town was renamed Kernville. Downtown visibly retains Kernville's Gold Rush and Old West roots, attracting tourists along with the area's natural scenery and outdoor activities. Even with its annual summer influx of tourists, Kernville remains one of the most quaint conservative relics of early California. Kernville has a large tourist industry centered on the Whitewater Rapids of the Kern River, while whitewater rafting and kayaking are the main attractions, one can also enjoy mountain biking, rock climbing, and other outdoor activities. Fly fishing is also popular. In particular, the golden trout is highly sought after for catch and release fishing. Downtown Kernville has an Old West look and contains a number of restaurants, antique shops, and motels. The Kern Valley Museum houses a collection of historical items and displays. The town is so charming. I could definitely see myself when I do put down roots living in a town similar to this, similar size, small town. It's so quaint. We stopped here at the Kern Valley Ranger Station slash Visitor Center because I want to check on one of the forest roads that leads up to Peppermint Creek Falls and also I think it's the George Bush Sequoia Tree. Same road, so I want to see if that road's open and has not been closed for the winter. So let's pop in here real quick. We headed north out of town following alongside the Kern River, making a pit stop to let Birdie down the road exploring and we saw a little trail off to the side and we have no idea what kind of Peppermint Creek trailhead nor the George Bush tree. However, we did not lack any beauty on our exploratory mission. We made a quick pit stop at the local market for a few supplies for dinner before heading back to camp. Well that was an awesome little outing. So beautiful. We are sitting currently here at camp, I think at around just under 3,000 feet, somewhere around there, and we drove up to almost 5,000 feet. It's not super high elevation up there, but they are expecting snow or we are expecting snow in this area overnight. I don't know if it's going to stick down here, but they are saying snow flurries and rain. We'll see what happens. The sun decided to come out now. It's absolutely gorgeous out there. It's glistening off the river. Just beautiful. We wanted to come back to camp to have some time just to enjoy this beautiful campsite. I was on breakfast duty and my sister is on dinner duty, so she is in her trailer fixing up some kind of pasta, which I'm excited to eat. Sounds absolutely amazing, so I will show it to you and that's what's next for the day, I think. This is what Jill has made and it looks fantastic. I cannot wait to eat it. My stomach's grumbling. You might have even heard it. It's like dining at a fine restaurant. It is chicken, gnocchi type pasta, spinach and sun-dried tomatoes, lemon and cream sauce, right? Like cream. It's so good. We had an incredible day in a beautiful place and decided to just spend the evening chilling at this amazing camp down by the river with some hot cocoa and a nice fire. This is definitely a place I knew would be hard to leave. Riverfront property is hard to beat. Good morning. It's the moment of truth. Did it snow last night? It did. It has been a stunning morning and continues to be. The sun is shining, the clouds are moving out. That was the extent of the front apparently, so it was just a very light dusting, at least here where we are, but made for just an absolutely gorgeous morning. I am looking at that heron on a rock right across the river. It snow-capped peaks. It's just absolutely beautiful. We're going to be getting packed up this morning and taking off. It's tough to leave this place, but I have a lot of things that I still need to take care of before I get back on the road, so I do need to get back on it. I really want to try to get everything taken care of while I'm at a place where I can receive mail, where I can actually do the work, and right now I have both of those things, so I really have to hustle. And also once I get out there and start adventuring, I really don't want to have to think about doing projects and repairs and all that sort of stuff, so now is the time. I'm very excited about what 2024 has in store, and I think that this year I will actually hit 100,000 subscribers. I'm only about 6,500 subscribers away from the 100,000 mark, and that's a really pretty epic milestone. I've been doing this now for eight years, so it has been a long time coming. It's nothing that's happened overnight to be sure, but yeah, I'm really excited about that, and I normally do not ask you to subscribe on the channel, but I thought that I would go ahead and just put a little call to action out there. If you haven't subscribed, please hit that subscribe button. Over 60% of my viewers are not subscribed to the channel. That's a lot. I think there are some YouTube-type perks that come along with 100,000 subscribers, like maybe your channel gets recommended more, things like that, so your help would be really appreciated, y'all. Thank you so much. I'm gonna go ahead and wrap up this video here so we can enjoy the peacefulness of this spot for a little bit longer before we have to leave, and yeah, I'm really excited about 2024. I've got already some adventures planned. One is coming up fairly soon that I'm very excited about. I'm always excited. I don't make too many plans ahead of time, but I've got ideas brewing in my mind. There's gonna be lots of travel, lots of adventures, lots of beauty, which I love to bring to you all, and peacefulness, and it's gonna be a great one, and thank you so much for coming along in 2023. I hope that you continue to travel with me vicariously in 2024. I appreciate you all so much. I hope that you all have a fantastic new year in 2024, and I will see you on the next adventure. See you soon, everybody. Bye-bye. Wondering when we'll be departing from here Anyone else would go back inside But we set out to walk a thousand good miles from our hometown Leaving everyone behind as their slow fires die down Once we left we found it harder and harder to slow down Cause we set out to walk a thousand good miles from our hometown A thousand good miles The years have come