Noni, living in a tent for a few days

This was my own personal space at Pinecrest Lake.

I don't remember the last time that I "camped" anywhere. I know I was younger and the bathrooms were closer. I did not remember the bathrooms being so far away... so dark... and creepy. After getting up twice the first night and groping around in the dark, without a flashlight, to find a place that would accommodate a middle of the night squat, near the tent, without breaking my neck, I decided that it wouldn't be a bad idea to invest in a porta potty. It wasn't that I didn't have a flashlight... I just didn't want anyone to see me... so I attempted a blind trip to the side of my tent...on a moonless night... twice. Not a good thing to do when you have guide wires and uneven ground to negotiate. I decided that I was lucky the first night, but didn't want to do it again.
So, my sweet daughter in law and I drove to Sonora on Tuesday and bought a shower/potty tent and a Porta potty. Forgot to take a picture of these lifesaving inventions, but they are the best thing since sliced bread and you can use a solar water bag (with the tent) to take a shower. We bought the solar water bag too. We bought some other things and got gas and ice. Then went to Starbucks (of course) before we drove back up to the lake.
 What a wonderful invention this porta potty and tent is. You not only have something to sit on but you have these bags that fold into themselves and seal up. You have convenience and privacy.  I can't explain it more than to say that someone (probably an older woman who tripped over herself on a dark night) went home and invented this little gem. It made my nightlife a convenient pleasure and I'm very thankful for modern inventions of this magnitude.
So much for the "old lady" stuff.

I had a great time. Our boys learned their survival lessons well after years of camping with us and other members of the family. They set up camp like a five star hotel.
This was the kitchen. The little blue tent is the food tent.

Below, was the dishwashing area and eating table. Mommy, daddy and the Beans tent is in the background.

Both were covered completely with pop up covers.

The fire pit was surrounded by enough chairs to accommodate everyone.
I got there the day after they did and my tent was already set up and waiting. Can't ever remember that happening before. Age has its privileges I guess. I was very thankful.
They rented the Beans (my grandchildren) some bikes.

This is the smartest thing you can do for a 6 and 8 year old. They spent most of their time riding around "C" loop and finding other children to play with.

One night this amphitheater at the lake turned into a movie theater and  my youngest son and I took the Beans to see a movie. I have only one comment on this movie. It was an animated movie called Despicable Me (part 2, I think.) and it was, in my estimation, DESPICABLE. But the Beans loved it. The place was packed and we were glad we took chairs. We would have had to stand up without chairs. The benches were full. The place was packed.
This photo, above, was taken the next day as we started our hike to the dam. This is the framework that held the screen for the movie. The Beans just had to go up and check it out.

 Then we started our hike.

Pinecrest Lake is a beautiful man made lake that is in a stunning location at 5600 ft. in elevation.  It's on the road to Sonora Pass, a scenic winding highway that has guided people across the Sierra Nevada since 1852.

It can be very crowded but it's always well run and clean. 

The weather was perfect. The lake, as always, is a bit cold to swim in. This doesn't stop people though. They love to swim, fish and recreate in all kinds of boats and floats. You can't water ski, but there are party boats, paddle boats and canoes to rent... and of course fishing boats of all kinds.

My Daughter in law took this photo of me, my boys and my grandsons on the giant granite boulders that line the lake.
Then we rearranged...

 And I took a shot of them with Robbin in the middle.

 This is the "Relax, Noni." part. I was so nervous about the little guys way up there on those big boulders. I worried and fussed the whole time.

We hiked about a mile to the damn but it wasn't a bad hike at all. Sometimes the rocks got to me and I needed to rest, but everyone stopped so we could take pictures and enjoy the beauty.

The path could be steep...

And the bridge to the dam was a bit scary to walk across, but we all walked across it to the dam itself. The wind took my Animal Ark hat on the dam and it's now floating in the lake. I hope some fisherman in a boat picked it up and took it home.  I will miss it. Before I left, I bought a Pinecrest hat at the store.

The trail continues over the damn and around the lake.

Robbin and my oldest son decided to continue on around the lake. The rest of us went back down the trail the way we had come.

This sign tells you (with the ever present graffiti) that this is an official trail.

My Beans never complained about all the walking. They are little troopers. I know they were tired.

When we got back to the store we bought ICE CREAM. They enjoyed the treat.

I took a nap when we returned to camp. Had a hard time that night. My legs were hurtin'.  (It was Advil and Aspercreme time.) We had a great dinner and sat around the campfire talking about other trips to this lake  years ago and how we missed Papa.
Next year we will figured out how Noni and Papa can come up together.  He usually comes instead of me.
We will bring Carl and Cutter with us, have someone feed the chickens and take care of the farm so both of us can be there. If  the Prospector had his way we would have a cabin here, but it's expensive and we want to travel too. Maybe an RV of some sort is in our future. I could really get into camping in an RV with a queen size bed and a private bathroom. Guess I'm getting old... I know I am. Comfort has become a key word in my vocabulary.
But....
there is nothing like an open fire pit with family around it.

And the tall trees... 

And a sky getting darker... until your grandson sees the first star and  you say, "Make a wish, Bean." and he makes one, out loud, while the other Bean falls asleep sitting up. It's a good feeling.
It's worth the sore legs, the dirt and the bugs.
I'm glad I went.
 I will show you more photos later and tell you about our middle of the night visitor.
 It's late and it's past my bedtime.

An Overnighter with the Prospector's Mom

When my husband was a little boy, his parents took him camping and fishing... a lot.
One of the places that they went, every year, was called Pinecrest Lake. 

This is where the Prospector, his brother, our sons and our grandsons go for a week every summer.
It had been many years since my husband's Mom had been up there so a few weeks ago, we called her and asked if she wanted to drive up to Pinecrest and stay overnight. She said "Yes!!". My mother-in-law's name is Vi.
She is 91 years old... and still full of spit and vinegar.

So last Wednesday we drove the back roads from Jackson to Sonora and then east up into the mountains. Her daughter drove Vi from Stockton, through Oakdale and up to Sonora.  We met at the Lake.
We got settled into our motel room. Ours was on the very end. There were only six rooms in this motel. We were the only ones there until late that night, when one other couple came in.
Pinecrest is a busy, popular place in the summer but now it is peaceful and quiet.

The resort has cabins and condos for rent too.

 I wish I could include the smells of Pinecrest...the pines, firs and oaks, the campfires and "mountain misery". The familiar sounds of crows and mountain jays and a red tailed hawk sailing over head.

 We checked in and then drove down to the lake.

The Fall color was just starting. The weather was beautiful.

 We took a walk down to the lake. Look at that woman go. She has cruise control on that walker. She walks almost a mile every day around her neighborhood with her niece. She's a lesson to us all.
We finally made Vi sit and rest for a while. I sat with her and the Prospector and his sister went down to the water.

They came back with two homemade anchors that were found because the water level was so low.

 One was very old. The Prospector lost two when he was here a few months ago.
The weather was beautiful. Probably the last good week. It's suppose to snow here on Wednesday.

 This lake is regulated by the Pacific, Gas and Electric Co. Right now it's very low. You can see a lot of huge boulders and tree stumps in the water.
 We also drove to Strawberry... just a few miles up the highway. 

This is the south fork of the Stanislaus River... and it's a beautiful stretch of wilderness. It comes out of Pinecrest Lake, flows downstream joining its north and middle fork and then flows into New Melones reservoir.

This river has been extensively dammed and diverted and is a river of controversy. Here is some information about what happens when too many people need too much water and the "wars" that ensue. It's an ongoing problem with all the rivers in California.

This is looking upriver from the bridge on Old Strawberry Rd. I learned the art of fishing from the Prospector here before we were married. I learned the art of river fishing... and patience. I learned how to read a river and where the fish hide.
I don't fish much now, but this is where it started.

And below is Dawson's cabin, up on the hill to the south of the bridge. This belonged to a friend of my husband's father. It looked better in the 60's.  Then, there were no other cabins around it.
Remember the couple who came to visit us before our 50 year reunion? Al and Ginny... from Washington? Well the four of us stayed in this cabin one summer night in about 1964. We were young, not married yet... and well, it was scandalous behavior for all of us. I'm not even sure how we were able to use the cabin that night. We must have gotten the key from someone but I don't remember where or how. Maybe there wasn't a key.
I didn't want to sleep in the cabin because of all the spiders, (I'm sure it has a ton more now.) so the Prospector and I slept outside on the ground. That was a first for me... but a beautiful memory.

Now, no one is using it and it's in a state of decay. But it's still there, overlooking the river.

 We never told Vi that we stayed overnight up there. I'm sure she would not have approved, then. But the Prospector was conceived just up the road at another cabin in the Dardanelles and she loves to tell that story. Of course, she and grandpa were married... so that made it OK.

What are they looking at?

 They were all looking at a HUGE house that was being built up on the hill. It was one of those McMansions that are overwhelming and ostentatious. I guess some folks just have to flaunt their wealth. I will give them the benefit of the doubt and guess that this was a primary home and not a vacation home. I didn't take a picture of it.

When I was taking pictures and trying not to fall into the river, I found a very interesting metal marker in a huge rock that I was standing on. It's a US Coast and Geodetic Survey Bench Mark.

The term is generally applied to any item used that shows a point of elevation for reference. Bronze or aluminum disks are set in stone or concrete. Go here for more information. I thought this was interesting. It was put in this boulder in 1957 and I had to laugh because there's a $250. fine or imprisonment for disturbing it. Believe me, there is no way that this "bench mark" is going to come out of this rock unless you use dynamite. It looks really tamper proof.
Vi and I use to collect rocks up at the Dardanelle's campground. We would get the biggest ones we could carry and lug them back to the car where the Prospector and his dad would roll their eyes and complain about the extra weight. It got to be a joke. We would be driving along and I would call out "ROCK." and  Vi would yell, "Stop the car." and then we would laugh at the guys when they got mad about the whole thing.
We carried a lot of rock up from that river and took them home with us. To this day, Vi still has them lining her garden in Stockton. But we never saw any with "Benchmarks" in them. The boulders with benchmarks  were too big to carry home. Grandpa would have really had a fit.

Later that day, we went back to our motel, cleaned up and went out to dinner.Then we came back to the motel and crashed...
We slept well.
 Next time I will show you some photos of the beach at Pinecrest and  other interesting things that go on in the beautiful Sierra Nevada Mountains.