I love Coyote Lake! I don’t know why we haven’t come here more often. Last time we came, Richard was sick. This time, I was sick. But it was a beautiful place to relax and convalesce. Bonus points: the presence of roaming droves of wild pigs!
And here’s your weekly dose of ask Siri: Answer: A group of pigs is called a drift or drove. … A group of hogs is called a passel or team. A group of swine is called a sounder. A group of boars is called a singular.
This place is an easy drive from home, so we arrived with plenty of light left to back in to a totally level site. Richard did all the unhitching and I rolled out the bed and was down for the count in under ten minutes. I got up long enough to eat dinner that he made and watch a silly chick flick before falling into a deep restorative sleep. Saturday I barely left the <100 square feet of Dory. Yes, I did write a report (I’m just going to keep pointing this out, lest you ever start to wonder whether the job of a special educator is challenging), but I also napped like super hard in the afternoon. When I woke, I felt a thousand times better.
Richard meanwhile went on a ride around the area that he later described as an “E ticket ride,” akin to a National Park level. It probably helped that the poppies are starting to bloom, but he swears he saw scenes out of fairy tales, with horses frolicking along sun speckled rolling pastures. The only sadness came from seeing an injured turtle that he helped move to the side of the road. We are choosing to believe it is recovering nicely and will live a full turtle life.
Waking from my late afternoon nap, I peered through the window and spotted the unmistakable shape of a pig snuffling through a nearby campsite. I was excited and took many pictures. I was also surprised that the rest of the campground was seemingly unimpressed. So I went outside to get a better look, and saw that the entire field just below the campground was filled with at least thirty of them. They didn’t seem to be aggressive at all, nor did they go out of their way to bother the campers. Obviously, they had been out there for a while.
Our city has just gone through a massive wild pig infestation and this was all completely new information to me. Like, that wild pigs existed at all, let alone the fact that they could do tens of thousands of dollars of damage to sports fields. The fields at my school have been totally torn up so this was an actual problem. I’ve been expecting to run into them on my night walks, but have seen none. Now I know what they look like, and I must say, the little piglets are pretty cute.
We are looking forward to coming to this campground more frequently. It’s not that hard to reserve, is an easy drive from home, and is quite lovely. There was only intermittent cell signal, but we used the booster and that was enough for most things. The reservoir was closed to boaters, due to low water levels, but it would be a beautiful paddle if it’s ever open. There were all kinds of birds, plus of course, the traveling pre-bacon.
Last note: I give a thumbs up to “About Time.” Very sweet, yet poignant, movie. I’ve decided I need more uplifting shows in my life and this one fits.
Total miles: 83.9, 18.0 mpg, 2 hours 30 min. Site 8, electric and water hookups. Non hookup sites in lower loop that look nice: 27, 25, 34, 35*, 44*. 32 and 40 also nice, but no solar. Good bathrooms. Good dump.
