Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Our Snowflower Adventure

Hi Friends,

How exciting are getting to explore new places and seeing new sights?

A Snowflower
So began our adventure to the Thousand Trails Snowflower Preserve in Emigrant Gap, CA. This would be the first time visiting this campground that seems to be just around the corner from home. How could we have waited so long to get here? Just about an hour and half from our driveway to the campsite, it seems like a logical choice for camping close to home. And compared to the campground at Stampede Dam, it is like night and day. Stampede was nice our first few trips out, but the lake is nearly gone now due to the drought and there is no power or water hook ups.


Tucked very neatly in the hills right off of Interstate 80, Snowflower was beautiful. Water and power hook ups with 2 dump stations available if needed and plenty of things to see and do. Once you get settled into the campground you have no idea that there is a busy interstate just a couple miles away. A couple times we could hear a distant train horn in the evening.
Our Home For The Week

Vacations are always better when you have good friends to share the experience with and this time we were joined by friends Patty and Steve for the week. We set up just steps from the beach and amazing 23 acre Snowflower Lake. What a view we had right outside our camper! Snowflower Lake is another no wake lake and that means no loud boats or jet skis. It also means smooth waters for kayaking and relaxing.

The View From Our Campsite
I decided to take a walk one day as the rest of the group relaxed at the campers. Just a short distance from the main road and a short walk down the Cisco trail I saw a beautiful big bear. It was gnawing on a old log and making quite a bit of noise. I quickly turned around and started walking the other way. I glanced back to see the bear walking across the road towards the lake. Stupid me, I was so excited to see the bear, I forgot to take any pictures. Oh well, that was cool and i won't forget the experience. The next day I talked the rest of our group into hiking the loop trail with me, but no bear sightings. Just as a note to others hiking the trail around the lake .... It is not a really easy or smooth trail. It had plenty of climbing and not too many views of the lake. It did have plenty of trees and it was a good workout.

One thing we are learning about camping is that we love camping during the week, but weekends can
Peaceful
be a mess. We arrived on Sunday after the weekend crowd had left and had a wonderful week. Then all hell broke loose when we neared the weekend again. What a crazy turn around it was. Our peaceful days and quiet evenings were now full of loud voices and games of washers. We listened to so many games of washers, I don't think we will ever take up that game.

We ate way too much and had so much fun that when we left we needed a vacation from our vacation just to get some rest. We played
Snowflower Lake Spillway.
shuffle board (our first time) and played pool. We even played a little ping pong in the wonderful and clean lodge (fun). The pool looked really refreshing but we ran out of time for that. We celebrated Brenda's Birthday (her 29th again) but didn't have any cake because I forgot to pack the cake pans. Ug!

Can't wait to get back to Snowflower for some more R & R soon. And with it so close to home it will be easy to make it happen.

Until Next Time...

Don & Brenda and The Critters!