Kayaking Lk of the Springs 6/9/11

We've gone up in temp about 25 deg. in two days! Bright, sunny and very warm this afternoon. We took the kayaks down to the beach this morning about 10.30 a.m. This lake is about 3 times the size of Lake Minden and is fed by 7 springs. I found wild yellow iris along the river inlet. We traveled up one little river to where the inflow was small rapids. It was a perfect day, almost no one on the lake. This is a 'no wake" lake so only electric motors allowed. The park has kayaks, canoes, and funny red round boats that were out when we first were on the water. They also have three party barges available. It has been awhile since we've done any serious kayaking and my arms sure could feel the workout. The wind came up on our way back in (doesn't it always come from the wrong direction?) but we took our time and it was fine. There are many kinds of birds here and to hear them singing was great. This is a large park and not a whole lot of folks here except for the deer that visit every day. Roger saw a fox yesterday; the quail visit along the road too. We are going out to the culinary school/cafe for dinner tonight. My sister Nancy and hubby Lon will be back in the park this weekend. Means more dominoes! Sunshine is wonderful. Remember you can click on any photo to see a larger shot. Happy Trails...

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.

6/1/11 In California TT parks

Well, we left AZ and headed west, thinking we would still be in warm sunshine. Well,maybe so, maybe not! The first two photos are of the Lake of the Springs park near Oregon House, CA. We have even a better view of the lake than the top photo shows. You can see Roger and our "toys" at our site. We arrived after getting lost for a couple of hours on a one hour drive... ah, life on the road... After we got settled, we were watching the tv to see tornado warnings near the Lake Minden park we had just left. While being lost, we were caught in the big hail, lightening, rain, and winds... black clouds were amazing. The last two photos are of Lake Minden and us kayaking. Who knew old folks could have so much fun! My sister Nancy and her husband Lon joined us for 4 days. We played "Spinner" dominos, had dinners together, and got Nancy into the kayak. Think we have a convert, folks. They have their 5th wheel here at Lake of the Springs year round and will join us on the next two weekends. I am hoping for more sunshine; weather here has been very unusual - should be in the 80s at least some of the time by now. Guess we will just enjoy what comes around. We saw wild turkeys today and were greeted at our site here by two deer. Life on the road... Happy Trails...