Whiskeytown

Mommy and I were supposed to go to Idaho to join Daddy and his friends on their mountain bike adventure but it was too cold!! Mommy was afraid our pipes were going to freeze.  Plus, who wants to SUP when it is freezing outside?

So she had to come up with a plan B! As usual for mommy and her scientific ways of finding a great place to camp, she looked for green and blue on the map.  Somewhere that it would not be too hot like Utah or too cold like Idaho or Oregon.  We settled for the Lake Shasta region and we were NOT disappointed!

We did so much that this adventure will be in a few blogs so we can share our incredible journey with you!

As usual, we took off at 8 p.m. on a Tuesday night and drove through LA to beat the traffic.  We stayed in Lebec but this time instead of staying at the noisy truck stop, we found a road with some businesses on it and camped out there.

We woke up at sunrise and we were off!  First stop, Sacramento river for a swim break from the driving! Mommy kept me tethered so I would not float away!

We arrived at Whiskeytown Visitor Center at 4:15 p.m., 15 minutes after closing time so we had to guess where to camp by the map that was there.  Lucky for us that the Rangers came out and gave us a heads up that the Brandy Creek Campground had more shade than Oak Bottom.  They were both basically parking lots so we would take the shade because it was pretty hot.  It worked out great as there was hardly anyone there! For $15. A night they had a dump station and water to fill up Spirit plus a huge parking lot where we could launch Spirit. A few of the sites had picnic tables too. If you want a fancy campground, this is not it but it worked for us.  Also, FYI there are no tent sites.

We paid for our site so we would have the official camp ticket in our window and headed to the lake! Mommy was so excited to be out of Spirit that she forgot to put my harness or life jacket on me so I was paddling naked!

We paddled and swam until sunset and we were both so happy to be in the trees and fresh water again.  So grateful to make the trek with no accidents or breakdowns!

We even got to see a little wildlife when we were exploring the Brandy Creek beach.  No dogs are allowed there but obviously deer are!

The next morning as we were out on our potty walk, we found a hiking trail with a waterfall on it! Score!  After breakfast, we went back to check it out.  It wasn’t a very long trail but it had waterfalls so we were happy.  The only bad part was the poison oak and the bugs that were circling our face.  YUK!

We didn’t get very far down the trail when mommy’s shoe broke! We had to turn back so she could tape her shoe.  She did not do a very good job of packing for herself on this trip! She forgot her new hiking shoes and her paddle hat and a bunch of other stuff.  BUT, she remembered all of my stuff, even wrote a blog about it, so that is all that really matters!

We headed back to camp and got to know the few neighbors that we had.  One couple was from Canada and super nice.  They even bought our book, Jack’s Journey USA.  The other ones were from Twenty-Nine Palms and mommy could have talked to them all day.  Super cool couple and they also  wrote a book  about their 18 years living on a sailboat.  Mommy can’t wait to read it, you can check it out on 18endless.com

Enough talking, I am ready to go swimming!  We headed down to the lake and packed up for the day.  We spent the next 6 hours on the water!  Mommy paddled over 6 miles and I probably swam that far!

We stopped at a bunch of little islands that had little teepee’s on them and swam and just relaxed and enjoyed the day.

Mommy even brought her book and attempted to read between throwing my toy in the water for me!  I even got in a little SUP diving!

It was the best day ever!  There are no jet ski’s allowed on this lake and it was Thursday so the lake was not very crowded with boats so it was awesome!

We paddled till sunset again and then headed back to our camp.  We were the only ones in the entire camp and we moved to the best spot (#8) so we had a little wooded area for me to run around in and chase the squirrels, although to be honest, I was pretty tired.  I just enjoyed watching mommy stretch and roll out on her foam roller.

What a great few days.  Whiskeytown lake is so beautiful.  The water is not super cold and the lake is VERY clear.  The entire lake is surrounded by trees.  We could not be happier!

You can continue to follow along on our in adventure week.  You will not be disappointed….

Thanks for reading!