Road trip in the Sunshine 6/7/11

Sun was out today and we made the most of it. At the little town of Brownsville we picked up a picnic lunch and headed up the highway, hoping to get to Little Grass Valley reservoir. We had heard about the Little Grass Valley lake and campground from locals and it is about 30 miles from Lake of the Springs TT park. The "road closed" sign is almost to the entrance of the campground but as you can see from the photos, the area was still snow bound. It is at about the 5200 ft level. We were able to drive into the Strawberry campground which was empty except for the camp host. The small reservoir there is shown in my photos. Very pretty and has a 'car-top' boat launch for day use only. Would be a beautiful place to kayak. We enjoyed our lunch parked off road by a large meadow in the pines. Has been a long time since we have seen either big fir trees and especially SNOW! One thing I noticed is the strange feeling of being closed in as we drove up the highway. The tall firs and overhanging oaks and madronas as well as blooming dogwood were like walls along the road. After the deserts of Arizona and Baja which are such open expanses of view and land, the closed in walls of the trees were a little daunting at first. All the green was beautiful and the dogwood were a surprise; we loved it. And after 2-1/2 weeks of rain and cold (to us anyway) weather, the sunshine and 70+ was a perfect day to get and enjoy nature and a great drive. I also took some photos of local sights. This area was originally settled by miners I think in the 1850s. There are several little communities along the highway up to (and beyond) Little Grass Valley. We have a really great site here at LOTS park. After the drive, we enjoyed our latte and mocha sitting outside reading and enjoying the sunshine and lake view. Pretty darned nice life, I gotta say. It's amazing what a day of sunshine will do for me! whoohoo.. Happy Trails.