Monday, August 15, 2005

Car camping

I've been camping for the last weekends, exploring bits of northern California before I leave these parts. Both times we were meaning to go to Tahoe, but Tahoe keeps on evading me. So the weekend before last, I went with my friend La Parisienne to a place called Duncans Mills on Russian River. This Duncan bloke must have been quite a big shot - there was also Duncans Beach, Duncans Cove and The Place Where Duncan Liked to Sit and Have a Bit of a Think.

As it turns out, La Parisienne and I have very similar camping styles. We ate out in the nearby town at every meal (i.e., real coffee, gourmet food), stayed up late yakking and drinking, and slept until nearly 10am. We ended the weekend with a dip in the river and lunch at Korbel's winery (champagnery) before heading home.

This weekend just been, I went with 4 friends and 2 dogs to Olema, about an hour north of San Francisco. Being on the coast, it's cold and foggy there most of the time - just a mile inland it's hot and sunny. So no swimming this time but plenty of meandering around Point Reyes - we went to the lighthouse, took the dogs for a walk (and five poops for just one dog within a 15 minute time span, I kid you not. And they were humungous poops too) on the beach, saw an elk in the distance (and a stuffed elk up close) and discovered why there seem to be a few roads and things named after Sir Francis Drake in the area (he made it as far as Point Reyes looking for a passage, but was forced to turn back because of the fog). And we also did plenty of sitting around the campfire and drinking and such.

Here are some photos of the campground.

To the west, a couple of other campers.



To the north, a really cool tree.


To the east, some pretty trees with hills behind them.



And to the south, just next to our tent site...



R.

posted by flying kiwi @ 10:41 PM