Anthony Chabot (6)

Nice lazy weekend in our backyard regional park. This marks just the sixth time we have to come to this campground, despite its proximity and pleasant, Eucalyptus vibe. This sites are nicely spaced, some have full hookups, and there is good cell service in the park. And it is under an hour from home.

Richard likes to ride from home when we stay here, but his return trip was thwarted by some much needed and very welcome rain. It wasn’t a deluge, which is a good thing, just enough to quell some fires and dampen the tinder.

We did get in a hike down to Lake Chabot on Saturday and that was very nice. It is super steep to hike from the campground down to lake level. I must admit, I have noticed that going uphill has become significantly less complain worthy over the last few months. It helps to have taken off the equivalent weight of a crazily over-packed backpack. My calorie counting app used to tell me how much I had lost as I hit little milestones, like, “You’ve lost a bowling ball!” or “That’s the weight of two cats!” It stopped doing that and I would kind of like to know the pounds-to-cats conversion of how much I’ve lost actually. But at least I know that inclines do not piss me off as much.

Rain in Dory is a delight. We lazed around inside for so long on Sunday, that we were pushing the noontime checkout. It is just way too delicious to be under the covers, heater running, listening to rain on the roof.

Next time we come, we will have to try one of the non hookup sites overlooking the lake. We don’t know why this site’s electrical pole trips (this is now the second time that has happened), but at least we know we don’t really need hookups for a weekend. And the electric sites are very tricky to back into. There is this steep drop off from the pavement to loose dirt right at the place your tow vehicle needs to make a sharp turn. So the front wheel goes off and then spins against the edge before coming back up. I watched another trailer back in, to see if they had a maneuver I was missing, but it happened to them too.

The only downside with camping so close to home is that we get back really early. Then I don’t know what to do with myself. I was eventually able to put the time to good use and identified a whole lot of barely used camping items in the garage that we will be giving away at our Alto rally in a couple of weeks. Looking forward to that!

Yay California! Hope we get some more moisture. But not too much.

Total miles: 14.1, 12.2 mpg (all uphill), 54 min. Site 9. Hookups, but pole tripped again, so no electric. Site dump was good though. Excellent cell. Bit o’ solar.