Late Season Camping Trip

September 23, 2008

With cold weather right around the corner, my gent friend, Eddie and I decided to slip in a late season camping trip to my favorite spot, Huntington Lake. 

FRIDAY
Okay so the way I like to camp involves a lot of equipment...my Camp Chef 30,000 BTU double burner stove, my Coleman Kitchen (which literally has 'the kitchen sink'), my chest of equipment ranging from serving utensils to zip loc baggies, my Quik Shade, etc.  Luckily, Eddie has this trailer that he's had for about 100 years which easily carried everything we needed.  It looked like the Clampetts were going camping...
 
After a 4.5 hour trip, we arrived at the camp office where we are supposed to check in (despite having prepaid online reservations).  Guess what?  They were closed for lunch.  DOH!  What timing.  We decided to just drive into the campground (about 4 or 5 miles in) and set up our camp.  I wanted #4...

We drove on in and to my delight, #4 was waiting for us!  This campsite is about 25 yards away from the lake - with its own 'beach' so to speak.  We unloaded and I set up my elaborate kitchen, then we set up the tent.  Huntington Lake's campgrounds always have a host on site (at least between Memorial day and October 1).  We were next to our host's RV and Thom came and introduced himself, and said it was fine that we were setting up before getting registered; there were just some papers which were needed for the vehicle and the post in front of the campsite.  So that was fine.  We went down to register eventually and then spent the rest of the day doing a whole lot of nothing.

The best part of camping IMHO is night time - the campfire, all of that.  I cooked up some great barbecued chicken and Eddie tended to the fire...which, well, wasn't the hottest idea.

I have been making fires for years and admittedly, I had to learn how to start a fire properly.  A 'real' fire - not the Duraflame variety - a real fire involving kindling and actual hardwood/tree branches, logs, etc.  Eddie kept being overly eager at putting 'that huge piece' on the fire and would do it before the fire was really going.  It didn't take me long to become grumpy about this...selective listening was in full force...We had been 'practicing' with my fire pit in my back yard but I learned later that he was starting the fire with a can of WD40 and a lighter...  Um...sounds like part of a Jeff Foxworthy routine, doesn't it?

We did some star gazing - the stars are INCREDIBLE over Huntington Lake.  The Milky Way was so clear, it felt as though you could reach up and touch it, and you could see stars reflected in the glasslike water.

We crashed in the tent and I have to tell you...it was COLD!

SATURDAY
I cooked up breakfast and took inventory of our food.  Hmmm...I told Eddie that we needed dinner so I hoped he would catch some fish but NO PRESSURE <g>.  I purposely conserved some eggs and bacon thinking we might have to have a weird dinner...I wasn't sure where I could get a package of chicken up there, but soon learned that the General Store in Lakeshore had it.  Yes, they had it all right - $8 for 4 drumsticks!  ACK.  Package of chicken, bandaids, alum. foil = 27.00!!!

After that sticker shocking experience, we went back to camp, got fishing stuff, and headed to the dam.  There were about 15 people already there fishing - and they were all catching decent sized fish.  So, for an hour, Eddie cast his line out with salmon eggs, then power bait, then a combination of both and NOTHING.  Finally, he felt something and pulled in the line.  There was something slightly smaller than an anchovie choking on a nightcrawler that a nice man had given to us (they had caught about a dozen fish while we suffered).  We decided we had the wrong bait and headed back to camp to get some more tackle and then go all the way down to get some nightcrawlers. 

Since we stopped at Camp, I had to make a pit stop.  I ran up to the flush toilet building only to find it LOCKED!  WTF???  I was not happy. This meant that I had to use the 'vault' toilet and risk getting stung in the a-- by one of the hundreds of aggressive yellow jackets that were in full force.  UGH!  I later learned from our host that their boss said to close them all up for the season, even though it was a week early and they had campers there, etc.

Frustrated, we drove down to get the nightcrawlers which were thankfully only $3.  We returned to the dam with our new bait and...and...and...NOTHING.  Failure to catch...

There were two guys next to us and one of them was using this amazing lure to catch em one after the other.  He said something about needing to wipe his hands...I said "I have paper towels...trade you for a fish!"  I was joking but after they caught about 4 more in a 15 minute period, he gave us fish!  They were our heroes - Larry and Steve.  Larry said that anyone who drives as far as we did to get there and not catch fish should get fish one way or another.  They were from Fresno - about an hour give or take a few minutes - down the hill.

We kept trying anyway and finally, Eddie got an impossible snarl in his line and we decided that was it.  We headed back to camp and cooked the donated fish. 

My sister came to visit us; she is one of those crazy triatheletes with a triathlon at Shaver Lake the next day  (Shaver Lake is about 20 miles down the hill from Huntington Lake).  So she showed up, didn't stay long as she had to eat something.  Triatheletes are sort of like diabetics; they have to eat every 2 hours or, instead of passing out like a diabetic, they become agitated and angry.  She had to get some pasta or else...at least she stopped by.

It began to get very cold as the sun sank.  I repeated my "Fire 101" class as a frustrated teacher to an eager student who doesn't seem to understand physics...can't fault him for not trying; he just keeps putting that big-a-- log on way too early...

I went in the tent and put on long johns, jeans, wool socks, a long sleeved t shirt, my heated fleece vest, a thermal shirt over that, and finally, a hooded sweat shirt.  It was bone chilling cold.  Another look at the stars, and then we went back by the fire and consumed a bit of vino.

When we got into the tent, I took a video that looked like The Blair Witch Project comes to Huntington Lake...talking about freezing our a--es off.  We went to sleep and I had to get up to go and I thought I would pee ice cubes...

SUNDAY
It was still cold in the morning.  Our host's wife, Chris, said it was 36 when she had gotten up around 8.  Whoa.   That meant it had to be in the high 20s during the night!! 

I decided to cook up all of our remaining bacon and mix all of our remaining eggs up and scramble them.  Put them in the skillet, fired it up and looked at my spice rack...hmmm a little sea salt from the grinder might be nice, I thought, and grabbed it.  As soon as I began to grab the grinding portion of the shaker, the entire bottom of it fell out, dispensing the ENTIRE jar of sea salt into the eggs.  DOH!

So we had hot dogs and bacon for breakfast...(sigh)...

It was time to break camp and head back home.

I will conclude with this: There is nothing like that shower when you get back from a camping trip...