Camping Adventure Part II - The Wind's A Changin'

Drinking cocoa at Camp Side-of-Road


We fell asleep, and awoke to, the beautiful sound of a rushing river. In the daylight was realized we had pulled off in a beautiful area. There was a path that took us down to the river and we all took a little walk. Elise thought it was fantastic. It was "Fairy Land." With a full night's sleep and renewed enthusiasm, we set off to find a place to camp. The real Frog Lake? Some place else? We weren't quite sure.

We stopped at Timothy Lake so the kids could see this really cool reservoir where the water was pumped under the road and out in to the canyon on the other side. The water shot out like 15 fire hoses and the sun was hitting the spray just so to make a perfect rainbow. Spirits were definitely high at this point. We stopped in at a campground on Timothy Lake just to check out the availability. Of course there was none, but the camp host told us that since we had our reservation for Frog Lake for two days, they HAVE to hold it for at least 24 hours before they can give it up to someone else! Wahoo!!! "Let's go to Frog Lake! We've got plenty of time!"


We find Frog Lake. The kids are ready to get out of the truck!!! BUT, guess what? The camp host gave our spot away already! She said the policy is 12 hours. Check in is 2pm. So that meant that sometime between 2 AM and 9:30 AM she gave our site away. The middle of the night???Hmmmm!!! Very odd. And we are very disappointed. We drove back down the road to Clear Lake. Oh Clear Lake!!! We love you! The camp host there was totally cool. He confirmed that it is 24 hrs. that they have to wait and asked if we wanted to file a complaint. This guy told us that he too had a family that hadn't shown up and if we just waited three hours, the site could be ours. In addition, there were two other family's taking off early who's sites we could take. Wahoo!! Our luck had finally turned. We parked the truck, got the boats out, and got to the business of having a fun time. All was well from then on. We got our campsite and finally could relax.

We had a fantastic time at Clear Lake. It was beautiful there! The kids had a blast. Elise caught her first fish!! (she also caught a salamander and a piece of wood with someone else's old line attached to it.) Shawn practiced casting and is really good at it. See video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL2njN0dbhE
There were baby salamanders and newts all over the beach. We probably saw 100 of them! We had fire roasted brie with cherry tomatoes for dinner. (So gourmet!) We roasted marshmallows. The kids fell asleep that evening so quickly and slept well all night. I didn't hear a noise from any other campers in the whole place. Beautiful!!!!