Better late than never: The Trip, Day One

Without further ado, the trip.

Our first day of driving was easy; very little traffic, and nice temperatures. (The drive home was a totally different matter, but I get ahead of myself). The most interesting things that happened were a giant wasp in Dad's hair at the rest stop, and a large sign somewhere in the middle of nowhere advertising the virtue of cork corks over plastic corks.

We stayed in Coyote Lake campground our first night. It's a county park instead of a state park, and really rather nice--there were even showers. The showers were...interesting...but they were hot so none of us were inclined to complain. Unnervingly, the list of regulations for the camp did not list fine amounts. It listed bail amounts.

Don't mess with Santa Clara County, guys.

Here's the camp. My parents' tent is hiding behind the car, while mine lurks near the bear safe.

As soon as we got everything set up, Mom settled down to paint the view. It was a very quiet evening--we had a stirfry for dinner, cooked over the camp stove, and crawled off to bed at what was (for us) an obscenely early hour. A contributing factor was that we had not the slightest, hairiest clue what the hell we were doing the next day. We had two possibilites: head up to Santa Cruz and see giant trees, or cut across the San Joaquin Valley and head to Malakoff Diggins State Park, a ghost town some distance outside of Grass Valley and Nevada City.