#53 Mrs. Lovett's house right outside in the street , Visalia CA

India and Savannah always find themselves being quite social, playing cards or games with the folks. I usually stay back at the RV watching internet or something in the evenings while they’re gone, they got to talking about our next move and someone said you need to talk to Mrs. Lovett down near Fresno. We looked her up in the SKP book in a town called the Visalia California and all I can say is she's a hoot.

Here is an email I sent to get permission.

Hi Ms. Lovett, we are planning to visit Kings Canyon and Sequoia tomorrow. Me, my wife India and daughter Savannah are full time RV people this year. We are staying today at Coarsegold SKP a little north. We are India and Randall Cothren SKP # 129021. One of the guys in the clubhouse said maybe we could park our 5th wheel at your house for one day. I wanted to ask if this is okay.

Let me know. you can send us something back or our phone is 910 232 0455.

The girls had been playing farkle and Bunko when the lady named Shotski Lovett in Visalia came up. We would have no way of knowing this at this moment but she and her husband where the founders of the course Coarsegold Escapees resort.

The Escapees book gives her address her phone number and it just says you are more than welcome to park in my driveway or out on the street for two days at a time as you pass through.

When we were at this arrived in Visalia we just parked and what we thought was in front of her house and there was an older style Class C RV in her driveway so I kind of had a feeling we were at the right place. The roads in her neighborhood were huge like wide enough for three RVs to fit comfortably without touching so maybe that's what was attracted to her about this neighborhood 30 years ago or whatever so we called and left a message

We had not heard back from her as we left Coarsegold, but we just hoped for the best. As we got close to Visalia she called and said y'all just come on by.

On the phone she said when you get to the house I’ll come out and show you where to park. I parked out front and walked up and rang the doorbell. She said well y'all park right here like this and she said you need to put your right-side wheels up on the sidewalk so your RV will sit level. All I can say is funky cool little old lady with dark hair maybe about India's height and I had no idea how old she was.

I would have probably said 60 years old and before long she clarified and proudly announced she was 87. She must be doing something right because she is aging very gracefully.

She said I can’t give you very much power but if you want to just take a drop cord and plug up the side of my house you can watch TV and charge your battery.

She said when you get settled in, I want y’all to come in to the living room and talk so I can get to know you.

Man, she’s a hoot, she's about 87 years old and still drives and has a beer now and then. She is the most clear-headed 80-year-old person you'll ever know. She talked and talked and then she told us about her past how her husband and her had always enjoyed the RV life. He had passed on. About 20 or 30 years ago enough of her fellow RV friends trusted her judgment enough to look for some land to develop. They were at a RV gathering and thought about how nice it would be to create their own thing. They gave her collectively a pretty large amount of money to buy some land to create an RV park. It was obvious that she had earned their trust for the over the years. By the time everybody kept on contributing to the cause she had a better part of a million dollars to go and find land.

She said her first choice was up towards Mariposa but the city of didn't want a bunch of trailer trash in the area so that didn't work out. She commented on how wrong they were about it all. The little town called Coarsegold was completely on board, so she took her trunk full of money and bought the land at Coarsegold. They began to develop it into an RV Resort Park Escapee Park with almost entirely volunteers using sweat equity and a rented bulldozer. They were very careful to bulldoze their way into the hill rather than trying to level the whole thing. What they created are RV sites cut into the About 20 hills rather than trying to flatten out the land. The park resembles the natural terrain of the area rather than trying to make it a parking lot and she was very proud of that.

It just seemed to me like she was like a super woman with an S on your chest to go in there and take on the role that is usually male dominated. With just a big pipe wrench on her shoulders she created this RV part and it's very impressive. As she did this, I get the feeling that she was so powerful at planning that her husband just kind of quietly stayed back and baked cookies because she would be hard to hang onto like a tiger by the tail.

What a wonderful person to meet so we spent 2 days in her driveway. She told us about Kings Canyon and Sequoia and how to visit that area. I was determined to do Sequoia first and then Kings Canyon second going from south to north. She told me several times don't do it in that way and she never exactly could convince me why but now I think I do know why. Leaving Visalia, you go up a pretty normal road to Kings canyon and see the giant trees. Mrs. Lovett said to go North on 63 towards Highway 180 and enter the park that way at Kings Canyon. If you chose to keep going for 60 miles you would finally arrive in Sequoia but it’s a cat path and white knuckles the whole way. That’s what she was trying to convey, and she was right on with that advice and I’m glad I listened to her, finally.

The first day we kind of started the process late so we just talked and hung out in the RV.