Two serene days with nothing to do but play in the water.
I wanted to get some camping in before the season was out, so I rounded up my good friend Cookie and off we went, to the Tahoe National Forest, settling down on a late Friday night to the Goose Meadows campground.
We drove north from Oakland through rush hour traffic, which put our total time for the trip at about 4.5 hours (it’s a 3 hour trip without traffic). I will remember that for next time. But we put some music on and sang loudly to some tunes to pass the time. Then we stopped for dinner in Sacramento, at a place called Tower Cafe, where I was thrilled to find that they had a Monte Cristo sandwich on the menu. That is something this East Coaster doesn’t see very often on the West Coast. And it. was. delicious. Yay me!
When we got to the campground, we found that it was nice enough, but that it sat very close to the road. We could hear all the cars as though they were much closer, as well as the trucks that were taking this road, which was pretty much the only road that goes to Tahoe City and the lake. So, there we were.
But we made the best of it. When I woke up the next morning, I realized that the sound of the traffic actually served as white noise, which is something I really like to have when I sleep. I am a very light and picky sleeper, so that ended up being a blessing in disguise.
The next day we got up and the plan was to go on a hike somewhere nearby. What we learned from the campground host is that there weren’t any trail heads that started right at the campground, and that we would have to get in the car and drive to one. We hadn’t really made a decision, when we decided to just go down to the Truckee River, which was just a few steps from our campsite, and wander for a bit before deciding what to do.
Well, it turns out, that’s where we decided to spend the day. At one point during our initial walk, we were just moseying, picking flowers, jumping across rocks, when I said, “you know, if we stayed here all day and goofed off and didn’t have to get in a car today, I wouldn’t be mad.” And Cookie said to me, “I was just thinking that!” So there it was. The plan. To pick more flowers, jump across more rocks, and not go anywhere except right where we were. And we had a great day.
