AguaDream

Just got back from the 2012 Fall Strawberry Music Festival.  Gorgeous weather and the exceptional line up more than made up for the much more crowded camping scene.  Below is the "road"  the first line of Strawberry that begins before dawn on the First Day of the Festival as 4-5 miles of vehicles await entry and then an orderly but urgent scramble to obtain their cherished campsite.  The line:  We were about a mile back even though we pulled onto the road well before the stated 6 am line up time.  That's us in the middle, and then a miles long line behind us. We ended up with a fairly nice campsite, nearby our usual spot.  We did have a fairly cozy relationship with a rather large tree branch.  The new door and screen door worked out brilliantly! Ben wasted no time hopping on his bike with all of his climbing gear to find a suitable spot to set up an anchor and rappel.  He spent hours scrambling on the big granite outcro...

Fallen Leaf Lake near Tahoe  is a wonderful campground, and the site of an informal annual gathering of vintage campers organized by Kathy Lebs.  All in all about 30 folks and 20 trailers and numerous four legged friends of various vintages sizes and states of restoration showed up for a few days of relaxing, hiking, and potlucks.  Unlike trailer rallies, this was much more casual...no schedule...no organized tours or clinics...just a bunch of friends enjoying the natural surroundings and each others company and common interest in aluminum homes on wheels.  My son Ben was off on an adventure of his own for the weekend, so Lucy my Lab and I enjoyed a grown up weekend.  A couple of firsts: 1.  Hike to Cathedral Lake in Desolation Wilderness...stunning, and an 1800 ft gain in elevation. 2.  Wahdingers-- a campfire treat of biscuit dough baked on sticks (dowels) and then stuffed with goodies, yum! Wahdingers! banana boats Potl...

Another successful trip up to Camp Mather for the Strawberry Music Festival  up near Yosemite for 5 days of camping, great music and festival friends.  Weather promised to be nice, but was quite cold and did rain (and even hail/snow for a few minutes) for one day.  the music was superb and our little Shasta was quite a gathering place.

I got to combine two of my favorite activities over this weekend.  Camping and Kayaking!  Each May I coordinate the Cache Creek Slalom and Downriver Races on Cache Creek (between Clear Lake and Woodland on hwy 16) in California.  You can learn more about the races on my other blog http://tinyurl.com/cachecreekraces .  We had a great time with more than 30 folks participating in the races and another dozen guests enjoying the camp and helping out.  The only thing missing was my son, Ben, who had a big bat mitzvah to attend and couldn't join the fun. I also got to put up my awning and set up camp for the first time with everything (except, paint and upholstery) done, and could really show off.  I really enjoyed having folks come and poke their heads in and oooh and awe.  The flowers were given to all the moms in attendance.   I had a couple of young friends who thought the trailer was a perfect magic place for them. What a great place for ...