Last Blog!

I'm discontinuing this blog of our adventures in the forest -- it's not allowing me to spend enough time in the forest :-)

I'll be sending links to my photos --well-captioned, as a sort of mini-blog-- to family & friends!

Off to hike in the woods!

Jeanne

Wagon Train!

Calm, clear, 42 degrees at 7am.  This morning, we're going down to Pollock Pines to see the Wagon Train and have a pancake breakfast in Pollock, and then check out a “spot” we know about on a creek to see if we could get the trailer in there, and if it has cell reception.  It's near where we saw two mountain lions a few years back.  That makes me a little nervous but, as Cary pointed out, there are mountain lions, bears, etc. all through the mountains and we rarely see any critters.  (Although the other evening as we were coming home, a young mountain lion loped across the road ... !)

Still Cold!

Breezy, increasing cloudiness, a chilly 57 degrees at 9:45am.  All nine or so campsites are filled now – I guess summer has officially arrived at Ice House, even though you couldn’t tell it by the temperature.

Calm, partly cloudy, 50 degrees at 9pm.  It never even got to 60 degrees today, and now it’s back down to 50. It’ll be in the 40s by bedtime – brrr!  We went down to Pollock Pines, about a half hour away (the panoramic mountain view pictured is what we enjoy on Ice House Road on the way to Highway 50), and met Donna & Gene for dinner at Los Hermanos. A gal from church was there singing with a country western band -- we just heard a couple songs, but they were good!

A Fun Day In Placerville

We hopped out of bed yesterday at 6am to get ready for a day in Placerville. We left Northwind at 7; at 8 I dropped Cary off at tennis and then drove over to my dear friend Delma’s. We caught up with each other’s lives over coffee -- and coffeecake! Thank you, Delma!

She toured me through her lush and beautiful back- and side-yard gardens. Even her oleanders are stunning! We hugged and parted at 9:45, but when I got to the tennis courts at 10:04, Cary had already started walking to Papa & Meme’s. I drove on to their house (didn't see Cary on the way!), put Jack in the backyard, put a load of wash in, and sat down to chat with my wonderful in-laws.  Cary showed up shortly thereafter -- said it was a longer walk than he thought :-)

We had told them we wanted to take them to lunch – we decided to try an old favorite of the four of us, the Apple Café (now called the Red Apple Café). It’s got a beautiful mountain view out the back, and we used to love their California Benedict. On the way down the hill,Cary and I had noticed that their sign said, “Under New Management,” which was a good thing, since the four of us had had several less-than-satisfactory experiences there in recent years. Well, three or four strikes and you’re out. It took a long time to get menus (we grabbed them and looked for the California Benedict, but they don’t have them anymore); it took a long time to get coffee; it took a long time to get our food. The food was good, and the delays gave us more time to chat, but we won’t be going there again. A sad day in our family culinary history  :-)

Back at their house, I folded my last load out of the dryer, Cary turned a mattress for them, we loaded Jack and the laundry into the car, and dropped by our P.O. box before heading back up the hill. We watched the temperature gauge in the car drop as our altitude increased. Arriving at Northwind by late afternoon, it was 61 degrees, but it quickly dropped into the mid-fifties, so we heated up a few leftovers and stayed in the cozy trailer. Late in the evening the breeze calmed, so Cary built a campfire which we enjoyed for about half an hour, until the chill chased us back into the trailer.

We’re so blessed to be able to take this “working sabbatical” adventure in the mountains. At some point, of course, we’ll return to a more traditional lifestyle, but here’s something to think about that I came across in yesterday’s One-Year Bible reading. It’s written by Solomon, a very wise man (Psalm 127):  “It is useless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night, anxiously working for food to eat; for God gives rest to his loved ones.”

Our Sunday Drive In The Mountains

Sunday, after we watched the French Open and ate our delicious leftovers from Vee & Mark, we headed out in the Prius to see if we could find any other places to camp in this area. We were hopeful of finding some disbursed camping with good cell reception – on water, if possible! 

We took a forest road past the dam on the west end of Ice House Reservoir. We found a beautiful creek below the dam, but the short road to the creek was blocked by a gate. We then drove south on Ice House Road and turned west on Peavine Rd. It’s fun having the Prius on these drives, because the nav system is really helpful, showing us where creeks and lakes are. And the 50 mpg makes for a pretty inexpensive outing! The ridges in this area afford panoramic views of the Crystal Range to the north, and sweeping views of the High Sierra to the east. The Peavine area has suffered forest fires in the 70s, I believe, and then in the 90s. There’s been a lot of replantation, but we found a barren ridge with amazing views on both sides, and lots of wildflowers that I haven’t seen anywhere else. It’s Sierra Pacific property, not National Forest, so I picked a small bouquet.

We followed Forest Road 32 down to a broad, flowing river below the dam at Union Valley Reservoir, a huge, sprawling lake northwest of Ice House Reservoir, where we’re camped. We found a beautiful campsite at the end of a forest road which dead-ended into a bend in the river. Jack wasn’t impressed with the beauty. His amazing nose led him straight to a discarded pork chop bone buried in the thick shrubs on the shore. He loves his bones! The campsite is very secluded but the road is steep, and I’m afraid for us to attempt it with the trailer. Great spot, though!

We headed north over the dam at the west end of Union Valley, stopping to take a picture of the snow-covered mountains to the east. We found Camino Cove, a 33-unit campground on a spit of land jutting out into the lake. There’s no fee at this campground, but it was really packed with people, even at the end of the weekend. It’s a nice place for families to take a very inexpensive camping vacation, though.

We proceeded on the forest road around the north side of the lake. It got rough in a few areas, but we made it back out to Ice House Road and turned south back to our campground. Once there, we decided it was more perfect than anything we'd seen on our drive. Can’t believe we will have been able to camp here for 19 days, hopefully for 22 days, leaving on the 16th to meet up with our friends the Callaways at Fallen Leaf Lake near Tahoe. We are blessed!

Saturday: Cloudy, Cold, Rainy at 5,400 ft; Sunny, Mild At 1,900 ft!

9:15am, 50 degrees, mostly sunny.  We got up at 6am to watch the finals of the French Open.  Roger Federer beat Robin Soderling to finally get his first French Open championship, the only Grand Slam event he had never won.  It was great!  We were surprised to wake up to sunny skies.  It's still chilly, but we hope to spend a lot more time outside today.  

Yesterday, we said that when the outside temp hit 50 degrees, we'd go for a walk.  Well, that didn't happen until about 9:30, and it only stayed there briefly.  We hiked up to the east end of the lake -- it started misting, then sprinkling, and by the time we got back we were pretty wet.  

Late yesterday afternoon we went down to Placerville to have dinner with our friends Vee & Mark.  As we went down the hill, the roads got drier and drier, and the temperature kept rising.  It was a beautiful 72 degrees at their place.  Mark grilleded halibut and Vee introduced us to horseradish cheese, which was delicious.  The luscious dinner was topped off with cheesecake and freshly picked blueberries.  And then Vee sent us home with another complete meal of leftovers, thoughtfully packaged into individual baggies so it would fit in our packed fridge.  I can't wait until lunch time -- mmm!

Wireless -- But Not Cable-less!

Overcast, breezy, 52 degrees at 9am. We love the great cell reception we get here, which enables Cary to conduct business seamlessly with his laptop, a wireless router and an internet card, a wireless printer/scanner/fax, and his cell phone. We're totally wireless, but we're drowning in cables! We have to make sure everything get's charged up while we have the generator on -- computers, phones, cameras, etc.

Oops -- change that current weather description to foggy. I just witnessed it rolling across the lake and totally socking in. This morning at 6am it was only 39 degrees, at least 10 degrees colder than previous mornings. We're warm and toasty in the trailer, but we're not spending a lot of time outside. Our "floaties" are still anchored down at the lake, but it's been way too cold and overcast to get back in the water. Papa & Meme and Donna were going to come up for a picnic today, but now we're going to try for next week -- they haven't seen our trailer yet. This is very unusual weather for early June, even in the Sierra. Ironic -- before we left AZ, we had a record-breaking (for mid-May) 2 weeks of temperatures above 100 degrees.  

We're still loving it though. On the public radio station every day, we hear this ad for Kit Carson Lodge on Silver Lake, up a little higher in the Sierra. The pricey cabins have lake views, but nothing like the view we wake up to every day, for only $10 a day!

"You send rain on the mountains from your heavenly home,

and you fill the earth with the fruit of your labor."

Psalm 104:13