Camp a Little While in the Wilderness

We made it back from a lot of traveling on our camping trip. We started off at New Hogan Lake on Saturday, in the 95 degree heat, with the small semi-shade trees, and sloping campsite. And if that was New Hogan Lake, I'd hate to see what Old Hogan was like. Really, though, if you don't have a boat, it's not a great place to be. We couldn't check into our site until 2, so we ate at the local Round Table, then after we set up our trailer, we took a drive to get the kids to sleep and ended up driving all the way up to Big Trees. We found out that they had spots available for the next night, so we left as early as we could on Sunday, threw everything back into the trailer, and took our time getting up to Big Trees, stopping for a couple hours at a really nice park in Angel's Camp, which they constantly remind you is the home of the Jumping Frog of Calaveras County so the kids could run around without falling onto rocks for a bit. There were frogs everywhere, I think each store had their own frog dressed in the uniform of that particular establishment. The fire department had two.

Little E discovered that she's a little clumsy around campsites, she left without a scratch on her. She came back with skinned knees from constant falling, a scratch above her right eye from falling into a picnic table at Hogan Lake, and a slight redness from when she was leaning against the trailer door when her big brother opened it from the other side. She went from the inside of the trailer headfirst onto the step and tumbled onto the ground. It all happened so fast, and yet seemed like slow motion to me. But such is life.

They did get to see a lot of tall trees and some taxidermied animals in the Visitor's Center at Big Trees, which Little E loved, she was just as giggly as could be staring at a 5 foot high black bear. Big T also got to go fishing at Hogan Lake. It was his first time, and he spent the first five minutes or so throwing rocks into the water where we were going to fish, so he didn't catch anything. But he had fun casting and reeling in his line.

Some pictures will appear next time with a little more detail. Big T, though, loved the trip and is inviting everybody he meets to go camping with us. A morning hasn't passed yet, that he's asked if we're going back.