We made it out! Hallelujah!

                        **** UPDATE*****
Just heard that they are finally going to allow people to pick up their rigs at Silent Valley tomorrow 'Sunday' morning between 6:00 and 9:00 am. They will need to be out by 11:00 am. They will also have to go up the much longer highway 74 route. This is almost 48 hours after we were blessed to be able to pick up our rig up the shorter highway 243. You can read our story below!
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Today started like yesterday, nobody knew anything! I told the motel manger that I wanted to stay another night IF there was hope we could pick the rig up on Saturday, but they are not telling us anything. We would check out at 10:00 but would like to stay again if we did not go stay at James and Crystal's house in Ventura.

He said just let him know by 3:00 and he would hold the room until then for us without charge. No problem if we cancelled, he did not take a deposit. That was very nice of him. They also had a free continental breakfast and he  made a mean waffle! :)

We called EOC, Riverside County Road services, 211, anyone that we could think of and nobody could tell us anything! Patty thought maybe we could come up the back way from Hemet through Idylwild, even though it was also closed. I thought why don't we go to the roadblock in Banning which is much shorter and see what they can tell us.

An extremely nice CHP officer said he didn't really understand why we couldn't go through because the road was fine. He thought we should be able to go get our rig. He was waiting for word from his boss which should come within the hour. He suggested I come back in about an hour. At least we were getting somewhere and had some hope!

We came back at 12:30. He said the word was not back yet, and he was thinking about just letting us go. He said he wanted to try and talk to someone up the hill and make sure it was safe. He asked us to give him one more hour.

We came back at about 1:25. He had a line but signaled us around the line. He said he still had not heard but told us to just go around and get our rig! Wahoo!!!!

We started up the road. Although the landscape was devastated the road was in good condition!

Highway 243

They should not be letting the general public in yet because there are still some smoldering spots, and there was some down lines that the electric company was working on, but the homeowners and people that could prove they had property up the road should be let in.

Road up the mountain

Although there were a lot of homes that were saved up here, the firefighters did an awesome job, there was also burnt homes. Very sad!

Burnt Homes

We got to the turnoff to Silent Valley. You can see that even the sign was burnt.

Silent Valley

The campground was burnt around it, the barn was burnt down and some of the sites were burnt, but overall the campsite and ALL the rigs were saved. Some of the rigs were covered with the red phos-chek. It is a liquid red slime! We were blessed and our rig was completely untouched!

Campground

The staff at the campground told us we were definitely the first ones in to pick up our rig. They were happy to see us. We told them how much we appreciated them!

On our way out we saw this water dropping helicopter. The fire is not out yet, it has just moved east towards Palm Springs.

Helicopter

Here we are going back down the 243 grade heading into Banning.

243 Grade

When we got to the bottom we thanked the CHP officer. We sure hope he was not in trouble for allowing us to go up. He is OUR hero! Thank you sir!

We went into Hemet to the Golden Village Palms RV Resort, It is a very nice place. We are going to relax here for a few days until we go to Wilderness Lakes in Menifee on Tuesday.

Again we thank you all for your thoughts and prayers! Obviously since it is not yet 5:00 and we are in our rig relaxing and the 243 is not yet open they really worked!!!! 

God Bless you!

Brian and Patty