Posted by Karen on 14-Mar-2010
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Lori and I went to Capay Valley to check out the Almond Blossom Festival, but when we got to the first little town and saw the tons of cars and bikes and no place to park, we decided to just skip the festival and go for a cruise around the Capay Valley to see what there was to see. We cruised Highway 16, stopping along the flowing Cache Creek to enjoy the view, and when we reached the end of Highway 16, we took Bear Valley Road. Bear Valley Road is a less traveled graded dirt road that traverses through the hills and offers nice views and occasionally views of cows that are closer than you expect. As we meandered down the back roads, the signs for Lodoga and Stonyford caught our attention, so that’s the way we went. We stopped for a late lunch at the Timberland Bar & Grill in Stonyford, which is a small town of about two blocks at the crossroads. While lunching and chatting with the locals, they recommended that we check out East Park Reservoir before we headed home, so we did, and it’s a pretty and fairly large reservoir. After checking out the reservoir, it was time to find our way back one valley over to the east, back to our own Sacramento Valley and head home.
Posted by Karen on 06-Mar-2010
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Lori and I headed to the coast for the maiden voyage of my new-to-me Aliner trailer. We camped at Half Moon Bay State Beach, which is camping right next to the ocean. Setting up the trailer was a breeze, even in the ocean breeze. After relaxing a bit, we headed north a few miles to enjoy sunset at the Point Montara Light Station, which was established in 1900. Back at camp, we just hung out and enjoyed a lovely spring weather evening and sounds of the ocean next to us. After breaking down the trailer Sunday morning, we did some tidepooling at the James Fitzgerald Marine Reserve in Moss Beach. Tidepooling is fun because you’ll never know what the ocean will reveal trapped in the rocks during low tide; I found one large starfish, several anemones, and pretty rocks. We enjoyed fresh fish and chips over at Princeton Seafood Company on Pillar Point Harbor and then we headed home feeling rested and refreshed.
Posted by Karen on 04-Dec-2009
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Lori and I headed up to Grass Valley to enjoy their Cornish Christmas Fair, and we arrived a bit early so we decided to see what the the little historic town of Washington looks like. Washington is a old gold mining town that I thought might be a ghost town, but it’s alive and kicking. There are a couple hundred residents, but main street only consists of a few buildings. We spent some time at the Yuba River photographing it from the bridge and as the sun went down, we headed back to Grass Valley and enjoyed the festivities of the street fair. There were lots of vendors selling hand-made gifts, the most delicious smelling food being cooked and delightful music being played by young musicians. We grabbed some freshly roasted chestnuts and listened to the carolers and had a relaxing stroll through the fair.
Posted by Karen on 09-Aug-2009
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Today, I headed east towards Susanville and Highway 395, thinking I’d check out Honey Lake on the way home. In Susanville, I stopped at the Historic Rail Depot and checked out their little museum and chatted with a very nice docent. And even though Susanville is home to a large state prison, it’s a few miles outside of town, so I didn’t see it at all. Next on the agenda was Honey Lake, which shows up on Google maps as a huge lake right next to the highway. Well, it turns out that Honey Lake is a dry lakebed (at least during this time of year) and has no blue whatsoever, regardless of what Google shows! So then I decide to go check out Pyramid Lake in Nevada and start following the GPS to get there. After a few miles on a dirt road, I see that someone painted “Highway to Hell” (it’s okay to start singing now, I did) with an arrow on a rock pointing in the direction I was heading, I double checked my GPS and it really does say “2 miles to Highway 445″, okay I can go 2 more miles before I hit a “paved” highway for the last 30 miles. Well silly me *smacks forehead* this is Nevada and “highways” aren’t necessarily paved!! What the heck, I’ve come this far, I’m at the halfway point, so might as well keep going. I cross into the Indian Reservation and eventually arrive at Pyramid Lake and it is gorgeous! It’s huge and this very beautiful green-blue color with tufa’s on one end of it. I don’t venture down to the lake side because you need recreation permits (it’s on the Paiute Indian reservation) and since I don’t have one, I stick to the “highway”. At the southern end of the lake, the “highway” is paved and it is only about 30 miles to Reno from there. Pyramid Lake gets it’s name from a large pyramid shaped rock in the lake, very cool looking. Definately need to come back another time.
