The Adventures of Us: Camping the California Loop

Collier State Park, Chiloquin, OR

We just returned from a grand 3-week trip exploring the backroads (i.e., avoiding the freeways) through Oregon and California. The highlight of the trip was seeing Uncle Burton and Aunt Helen for their 70th wedding anniversary in Palm Desert... or perhaps it was visiting brother/sis in law Dan and Diane at their mountain retreat in Sky Forest, CA ... or perhaps it was Disneyland. Nevertheless, is was a great and trouble-free trip in the Nashinator.

After a stopover in Monroe to check out the house, we headed south and cut over to I-97 through Oregon, stopping at Collier State Park, in Chiloquin, OR and visited Crater Lake. Most of the loop road was still closed due to snow, but we did see the gorgeous lake and visitor center. Collier was an excellent campground with miles of hiking trails and a cool logging museum.

Crater Lake

Crater Lake Lodge

Heading further south into California, we stopped at Eagle Lake and camped with good friends Wayne and Nan Miller. We had a good opportunity to test the soalr panel as the site was dry camping and it managed to keep up with demand just fine. Unfortunately, Wayne scared off the fish when they saw his legs in the water, but otherwise we had a great 4-night stay.

Logging Museum Collier SP, Chiloquin, OR

We headed on down 395 stopping overnight in Bishop before landing at D&D's place at Lake Arrowhead. As usual, we had a great time there, including attending Burt and Helen's 70th wedding anniversary. It was cool seeing our cousins Craig, Larry and Ron for the first time in at least 20+ years. We also visited Disneyland and it was as magical as ever.

Dan, Dana and Kyle at Dland

Magical Disneyland

Camp site at Eagle Lake

Disneyland

Camping Eagle Lk

Beach Eagle Lk

70th anniversary - Cousin Craig Reed on Left

70th anniversary - Dan with cousin Larry

Empire Mine Site

Empire Mine Blacksmithy

Empire Mine shaft

Park at Empire Mine SP

We had originally planned on heading home via Zion NP and Salt Lake, but upon Dan and Diane's suggestion, decided to go home though the California gold country...Hwy 49. It was a fun and worthwhile trip even though D&D failed to tell us about the hills and switchbacks in a couple of areas. It is also a much more interesting route than I-5 or even 99 through most of California.

As we headed north, we first visited the historic towns of Jamestown and visitied the living museum town of Columbia State Historic Park. En route we stopped at the Marshall Gold Discovery SHP, the site of Sutters Mill. Northeast of Sacramento, we stopped near Grass Valley and walked the town oif Nevada City. We also saw the Empire Mine State Park, which is a tour of an old hard rock gold mine. I highly recommend seeing this place.