Showing posts with label Camping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Camping. Show all posts

03 May 2010

Monday, May 03, 2010 - , 6 comments

Picture perfect weekend!

We had an amazing weekend with absolutely beautiful weather!  Leaving the campground behind was hard but at least it's close to us and we know we'll be back.


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The Pinnacles National Monument is a fantastic camping adventure if you're in the Bay Area. Be prepared though for lots of folks in the spring and summer time as the hiking here is fantastic and the rock climbing is loved by lots of locals. There's a cute store, a nightly ranger program, full moon guided hikes, shuttles that take you to the trail head at the caves and a pool which opens Memorial Day weekend. The park is also a great place for star gazing and can often be full of college astronomy classes from all over the state along with serious bird watchers. The park is an area which is filled with California Condors and bald eagles. We're are so looking forward to our next trip to explore more of the hiking trails and see what adventure we can find!

08 August 2009

Saturday, August 08, 2009 - , 4 comments

Huntington Lake 2009

It's hard to believe that a week ago tomorrow we were sitting at the lake just getting ready to enjoy some much needed shut down time. Although four days was not nearly enough time, it was good and well spent. In going through our pictures we obviously didn't take very many, instead we spend those four days napping, reading, hiking, swimming and reading some more. Ahhhh pure bliss!

Click to play this Smilebox photobook: Huntington Lake 2009
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Next year can not come fast enough!

02 July 2008

Wednesday, July 02, 2008 - ,,, 8 comments

Camping conclusions

Well we have returned from yet another trip to the edge of the world. I do have to say though that it was a bit different this time in Big Sur and will be completely different the next time we travel down there. The area will be like the moon next time we are there as it is burning pretty badly and there is no end to the fire in sight. Anyway, we made it to our spot and spent 2 days in nothing but fog and a little smoke only to wake up Sunday morning in the thickest smoke I've ever been in, so we packed it up and left to camp in San Simeon. If you ever make it to the West Coast, do make it to Cambria, it is a really cute little town and lots of shopping and of course there is always Hearst Castle.

Anyway during this trip I made several camping observations and thought that they needed to be discussed.

**Campgrounds are really open houses surrounded by other open houses. When you camp you kinda forget that you are not surrounded by your four walls of your house and you continue to do the things you would normally do behind closed doors. For instance, we got to see a gentleman get a "tick check", (this is what we came up with) by his wife. The area of the possible tick was below the belt on the back side. Um yeah, just picture that folks! Spread em!

**When you pull into your site to settle in for a nice relaxing weekend and the first thing you hear from your new neighbors who are no less then 10 feet away from you, is "Well lets hope that have some little girls with them." This coming from a man who was sitting with what looked like his mom and another man and a woman who I'm thinking was his wife and they were all at least 65 or older. Needless to say we disappointed them and stayed as far away from their "area". Can you say creepy pervert in a 1973 airstream!!

**While on our out of the way journey we discovered that the media is (once again) far from hitting the mark regarding people not traveling or camping this summer. We literally watched 10's of thousands of dollars driving down the freeways and spending upwards of $5.00 a gallon on gas for their rented or owned RV's or rental cars. There were at least 2 rented RV's in BS and those folks were from Europe, so they not only flew over, but then rented a motorhome and are spending hundreds filling it up every few miles. We also have had a HORRIBLE time trying to get reservations ANYWHERE in California for our next journey. There is absolutely no openings from the Oregon boarder to the Mexican boarder. NO joke folks. So what ever smack the media is on, they got a bad deal.

**Speaking of gas, no not that kind, we did a little test and plan on putting our findings to a full blown experiment on our next trip. Our car is one of those SUV's that takes so much money to fill it up you practically need a second job to pay for the gas bill and only gets 2 miles to the gallon when you're towing your vacation behind you. So were am I going with this...okay we decided to drive 55 instead of 65 to see how much MPG difference it made (my car tells you this on it's little screen). Well holy shit it is a HUGE difference. While it seems we are traveling at 5 miles an hour, we discovered that if we complete an entire trip driving 55 we would save upwards of $50 bucks! FIFTY FRICKIN BUCKS! That is half a tank of gas for me! Yes you would think that our trip would then be an additional 7 hours, it was only 25 minutes longer. So our next trip we will following the speed limit on all roads and really see if this test is conclusive. I'll keep you posted.

**So back to the open houses while your camping...We were unfortunate enough to have a few very young adults pitch a tent next to us, so now we have creepy pervert on one side and two young girls and one guy on the other. The 3 kids had never camped before and it was quite fun watching them set up their tent, it took them close to an hour and much arguing ensued. Once "camp" was set up the left to go find the nearest fast food joint and possibly to have someone to buy them booze. The night went on to finally having to listen to the three of them playing drinking games and the guy trying to figure out what he was going to do with two girls and one tent. They (thankGod)finally got told to shut up or leave around 1am. ARGH!

Other than that, we had a fun trip and are planning to hook up this Sunday to head out again for another adventure in camping. Unfortunately I'm not sure where we will be putting up our feet as we will be heading to campgrounds that are first come, first served. But I can tell you that we will most likely have some interesting characters surrounding us. Sorry no pictures from this trip...was just enjoying being out. Oh and Summit LOVES camping!! LOVES it! YEAH!!!

AND on a side note...today marks my 29th year of being a diabetic. I was diagnosed at age 7, 29 years ago today. So much has changed and so much has been accomplished in my life that I was told I'd never be able to do. Damn! 29 years!!

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