On Friday, October 3, we spun out the back door of Yosemite when she wasn’t looking, determined to find warmer weather, sunshine, and beaches (MJ-directed) down south.  We ended up about midway to Santa Barbara before we pulled off and headed toward Kernville.  Why Kernville, I have no idea, it just looked cool on a two-dimensional, old-school roadmap and it seemed like there might be a back entrance into Sequoia National Park (this turned out to be totally false, not a Sequoia to be found, anywhere).  Beyond that, there appeared to be at least a few options for camping, and there seemed to be a small brewery in town that sounded nice.  After all, it had been over a week since we had seen a brewery, and MJ began to get a little ornery.  After a longer than expected drive off the highway to Kernville, we arrived, only to find our free camping spot on the shores of Lake Isabella was not so great.  Most of the lake was dry, and as reported by others, it was crazy-windy.  We pushed further into town, and even east of town, and we were able to find a few free options on the way up the Kern River Canyon.  With that in mind, we spun the entire rig around and headed back to Kernville Brewing Company.  What a cool little spot with above-average beer, AND blue cheese garlic waffle fries.  MJ was in heaven!  We also picked the brain of our waitress for some local knowledge…it wasn’t quite clear what all these people were doing in such a small little town in the middle of nowhere.  As it turns out, the Kern River is a very popular draw for kayakers and river rats.  She also told us that the town did a good job with event planning to draw the city slickers up to town for the weekend.  And as luck would have it, this weekend was “biker campout weekend”.  Great timing, bikers and Black Thunder just love Euro hippies like us.  After a couple beers and a growler to go, we managed to avoid any conflict with Black Thunder by simply “not looking at them”, and we eventually pulled the rig into the canyon and found a spot reasonably close to the river that wasn’t too over-run with bikers or rats.  It wasn’t glamorous, but it worked, and it was a good warmup for the upcoming California combat camping.  All things said, we kind of liked this little town in the middle of nowhere.  We’re still not sure what people are doing there, but it had a pretty good vibe.  Apparently, it wasn’t all that picture-worthy, as evidenced by the single picture of the brewery.  Next stop will be San Bernadino, at least that’s what we think.  Over and out.