Camping in the Bay Area, California

This is probably fairly obvious to 99.9% of Californians, but as a non-California native, I allowed myself to play the fool and eagerly looked up spur-of-the-moment camping options in the bay area last August. I was of the mindset that on a whim, we should be able to waltz onto some magical campsite, surrounded by magical redwoods, hearing the magical ocean waves crash in the distance. And we should be able to do that for free or close to it because how many people in the bay area actually like camping anyway?

Ha.

Loon Lake, El Dorado National Forest, CA

It's been awhile! Lots of moving, working, and getting our acts together these last few months as we transition out of grad school and into a nomadic lifestyle. I have a bunch of posts to catch up on, the big one being the major off-grid power overhaul we did to the camper (yay!!!), but I'm starting off with the discovery of Loon Lake.

In early July, a buddy of Clay's came up to our neck of the woods and asked for advice on a place to camp for a long weekend. Blue Oak! We instantly think... until we realize that it's July and Blue Oak will be roughly a million degrees out during the day. So we hit freecampsites.net and our California camping books in search of good spot to send him. El Dorado National Forest was a clear winner - less than two hours away, higher in elevation so cooler in temperature, and there were two water areas, Union Valley Reservoir and Loon Lake, to find a possible site at. So off he went, and we followed a few days later.

A Story of Chairs and Water Bottles

Clay and I both have your basic run of the mill folding camping chair that you can find for ten bucks in any store during the summer. These chairs, while conveniently portable, are not so hot to sit on for long periods repetitively and we developed camping chair envy pretty quickly. So the search for decent chairs began. Big, small, we tried them all.

Not kidding about the big part. It had six cupholders.

During a trip to REI, we sat in a GCI Outdoor Slim Fold Event Chair they had on display and were surprised at how much we initially liked it as it was lower to the ground than a typical folding chair. So we sat in it for a while and had a chat. Got up, walked around the store a bit, came back, sat, and had another chat. Wash, rinse, and repeat another three or four times until Clay was satisfied. While lower to the ground, the chair had a slight but nice angle to the seat that made the height really comfortable. The big bonus for me was an attached side table, as I was really tired of always having to balance my s'more supplies on the armrest of a camp chair. How am I supposed to make an excellent s'more if the chocolate and graham aren't all ready to go?