We camped at Loon Lake, surprised and annoyed to find that the crowd from Memorial weekend hadn't yet packed up and headed home. The place was still crawling with tourist. Nevertheless, we found a decent spot next to the lake, scrounged up some abandoned firewood from the next site over, and set up camp. Abby was nearly as annoying as the mosquitoes that plagued the lake edge. She was constantly underfoot and impossible to avoid no matter how much the tent needed to be pitched, or the bathroom staked out, or the kitchen set up, or dinner needed to be prepared. Eventually, she became distracted enough to let us set up camp properly.
Unfortunately, she became distracted by all the little garbage pieces the previous tenants had left behind. Within five minutes, Abby had a multi-colored collection of beer bottle caps spread out on a rock for display. Next, she lined up anywhere from ten to twenty bee bee pellets on the cooking table where they promptly rolled off and scattered to the four corners of the camp. Then she would collect them again, place them back on the table to watch them immediately roll right off again. Next she found the glass shards. Broken beer bottles, soda bottles, energy drinks, anything glass and broken was the new fascination. At one point, she even picked up a dangerously jagged shard the size of her palm and state, "this is sharp." Der.
After a bizarre conversation about garbage, littering, keeping our environment clean, and relating it all to Wall-E, I felt myself slipping towards the edge. Why on earth did I think camping with a kid would be fun? But then, I looked over and saw my little girl reach up to hold her uncle's hand and lead him away for a stroll. Just before they disappeared around a clump of trees, I heard Abby say, "Holding hands makes me smile." Awwww. And Mikey didn't even look that scared.
The forecast for the entire weekend was on-again/off-again thunderstorms up and down the Sierras. Now, the Sierra Nevada is a large mountain range. We figured the odds of us experiencing a thunderstorm were pretty slim. And besides, we brought our water-proof tents and stuff. If we got wet, it wouldn't be too bad. So, the next day, with a weathered eye on the sky, we loaded up the cruiser for some hiking up to Bunker Hill. Bunker Hill is an old fire lookout tower with an awesome view. Afterward, we planned to take various winding trails around the area to 4-wheel and splash through mud puddles (from melting snow). The skies were blue and clear, the sun was out and warm, and only a few white clouds puffed up behind the Sierras. We could stay out all day.
The ride to the base of our destination was super fun. Again, I felt my heart strings tug as Abby sang aloud into the wind, threw her hands up to the sky with delight, and stick her tongue out to taste the wind. She was truly enjoying herself. And so was I. When we hit the dirt road, I allowed Abby to stand - while holding onto the seats - and helped her practice her 4x4 legs (kinda like sea legs). My own childhood memories of riding and standing in the land cruiser and the motor home came back to me. I was more than happy I could share this with my kid.
Just up the trail to Bunker Hill we discovered that the Forrest Service, in their infinite wisdom, had decided to put in a new gate, barring the way. We expected there to be a gate. There had always been a gate. But that gate was more than half way up the mountain with plenty of space to park. This gate was near the bottom of the hill. No way we were going to hike up from the bottom. So, we decided to drive around and forget about hiking to the top of Bunker Hill.
On whim, Mike drove around to the other side of the hill and discovered that the road actually went a fair way up in elevation -- probably as high as the original gate we would have hiked from. We decided we'd try it. There didn't look to be a trail on this side, leading up, but Mike had his GPS, and I had my own sense of direction. Besides, how could you not find the top of a hill? There's really only one way to go.
Hmmm, so, should we eat now or hike up and have lunch at the top? Mmmmm, lunch, was Mike's simple reply. Okay, so we took our time eating and we let Abby play in some snow piles lying around in the shade. We even had a mini snowball fight and watch Kali frolic in the snow like a puppy.
At this point, I have to stop the story and say something. Maybe the day would have been a lot different if we had started sooner, if we had known about the new gate, if we had driven straight around to the other side of the hill, if we hadn't stopped for lunch first, if we had waited until after lunch to start our jaunt to Bunker Hill. A lot of ifs could have been involved here that might have made this story a lot less exciting. Just wanted to point that out...
Finally we set out, up the steep hill to the look out tower. At this point, it was more than cloudy. It was dark. Those little white puffy clouds had puffed up super fast in the heat. We've seen fast moving storms before in the mountains. We weren't really too surprised until the hail started to fly. We were pelted and pretty soaked in minutes. Then came the rumbles of thunder. Umm, maybe we shouldn't do this after all?
But we were more than 3/4 the way up the hill. And in a few more minutes the rain and hail ceased. We pushed on up. At the top we had only a moment to appreciate the view before we heard a SNAP! POP! BOOOOOOOOOM! We hit the deck. Lightning had just cracked directly above our heads. All three of us had been looking in different directions the moment the lightning struck and we still disagree on whether or not the lightning had hit the watch tower's lightning rod, only a few yards away. But we all instantaneously agreed that it was time to get off the hill - like NOW! In a crouching run, with Lee cradling Abby, we half stumbled, half ran, all the way down the hill until we were well under the canopy of trees. Not really safe, but a heck of a lot safer than the hill top.
If it wasn't for the heaping dose of maternal guilt weighing on my conscience, I'd be bragging about that experience. It was so totally awesome. And so completely stupid. I guess I'll just leave it at that.
On the way back to camp, the rain increased. We got soaked in the cruiser with no top on. The thunder and lightning lessened with each mile we traveled, not because we were driving away from it, but because it was blowing itself out quickly. In fact, only a few hours later, blue sky broke through the clouds and the storm was gone. Anyway, despite the rain and cold, we took a few winding detours to drive through giant muddle puddles and explore. Soon, the rain stopped altogether.
Abby was doing great. She was none the worse for wear. We kept her huddled near Mike's only heater in the cruiser. She stayed warmer than the rest of us and dried out more quickly too. She loved driving through the mud puddles.
The rest of the trip was rather uneventful. Our camp held up well. Nothing was truly soaked - just us. Like I said, the first ones of the season are the worst, and I'm glad I got this one out of the way. Stay tuned for more exciting camping adventures coming this summer.
When we asked Abby what her favorite part of camping was, she readily replied, "riding in Uncle Mikey's cruiser!"
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