Coarsegold Miracle

Jean and I, helped start a mobile home co-op park back in the 80's.  We were living in a grungy park, beside busy Santa Fe Drive in Denver, when the highway department decided they wanted to widen the highway, and give us each $200 or $300 to find new homes.  Only problem was, there were no spaces available in the metro area, much less ones affordable places that would accept older units, and trailer moving costs were in the thousands, and not hundreds.  Also, most of the park residents were either older and retired or struggling working class folks.

So I decided to do a Social Work Independent Study course in community organizing around this issue.  We got the organization up and running, and then handed it over to other residents when we moved a year later.  You can still see these resident owned parks on South Santa Fe Drive and Oxford street in Englewood.

Well, full circle, 30 years later, Jean and I encountered a classy, RV retirement community in Coarsegold, Ca that was started about the same time.  We stopped into this park for a one day stop after touring Yosemite Park.  We were so entranced with this place that we have now been here for 2 months (with a 2 week time out to see our son and daughter in San Francisco).

Entrance Gate

An "Edge" site we like, overlooking now dry Coarsegold Creek

A typical site

We haven't travelled a lot in our RV yet, but enough to recognize a special place when we found it.  Most RV parks are little more than a rectangular grid of gravel or asphalt with utilities to each space.  Utterly Unaesthetic.  If you're lucky, the park may be landscaped nicely with a clubhouse, but almost always, the layouts of the park are predictable and boring.

Park of the Sierras in Coarsegold is a happy exception.  200+ sites, and not two that are identical.  Set in the foothills south of Yosemite at about 2000 foot elevation, the weather is mostly mild.  The park sits on 120 acres of rolling desert forest - red barked Manzanita trees, bluebirds, woodpeckers, squirrels, coyotes serenading from the 40 undeveloped acres surrounding the park.  The park is actually located on the Old Stage Coach road to Yosemite, which makes for nice easy day walks through the rolling hills.

Burgundy barked Manzanita trees - groves throughout the park

Old Stage Coach Road to Yosemite National Monument - goes through Park Sierra

The beauty and originality of this place, alone, would have caught our attention.  But what is even more amazing is that Park Sierra Co-op was almost entirely built by the original retired co-op members - electricians, plumbers, engineers, teachers, and housewives.  They have never had ANY debt on the park, relying on member contributions to first buy the land, zone it, build roads, landscape  it (preserving all of the natural flora except poison oak), digging large wells and constructing water tanks and plumbing systems, building a large clubhouse, and so on.

How do they do it?   Everyone helps, everyone serves in a volunteer capacity of some sort.  The park has 2 paid employees, and 2 "workcampers" who get free rent, utilities and a couple hundred bucks monthly.  They handle daily administration and operations.  Every thing else is handled by residents.  You want to buy a pop or ice cream treat at the clubhouse?  Pop is 50 cents and ice cream a $.  Stocked by a volunteer committee, sold on the honor system from a cooler, and all the profits going to local projects.  The same is true of the frequent potlucks and parties - which happen every time a committee of any sort completes a project.

We are here for our second month of "rental" (renting spaces empty from travelling members - the money goes back to the co-op), working on our fifth wheel using the Polebarn - the large fully equipped workshop, free to all residents, in which most of the park structures have been built and maintained.

We have also joined the Waiting List for membership.  As we're planning to travel for some years, we won't join at this time, but will stay on the list till we are more geared to settling down.

This feels full circle from Santa Fe Drive, and better in every way.  We're delighted to have found this it.   Feels like a gift from God.  :-D