Location: Side of the road behind a bush near Bridgeport, CA
If I had any reservations about turning 55, today certainly obliterated them. Sign me up for those senior breakfast discounts and hanging out with old people "taking the cure." Seriously, the best birthday present I could have ever wished for was traveling again with my hubby. It felt so great to have him by my side traveling the backroads.
As we headed for Lake Tahoe, our first destination was Sunnyside Resort. We picked up a tshirt for my brother-in-law, Eric, and marveled how different this favorite summer hangout is in the late fall. The beach was deserted, the tables stacked up and no scantily clad tanned bodies roamed about. The trade-off was having the crisp fall day to ourselves. There's something quiet and wonderful about visiting Tahoe between seasons. We continued on highway 89 stopping off at several turnouts to admire the view (does one ever get tired of seeing the crystal blue water of Tahoe?). We had a late lunch at Bert's, a mom and pop diner, then continued on to Grover Hot Springs, our first stop on the "Hot Springs Fling". Even tho it's relatively close to home, neither of us had visited this hot spring before. It absolutely exceeded our expectation. The hot springs pool was about 104 degrees and the cooling off pool was in the mid-80's. We spent a good hour and a half going back and forth between soaking and swimming. Of course it didn't hurt that the air temp was in the mid-70's.
The good news is that Ned tried to see if he was able to swim again. In July he tried it and was unable to do more than 2 freestyle strokes. Today he swam 2 laps before his shoulder gave out. That's great progress! At it's peak, there were about 20 or so people there, the majority of them middle aged and visiting from Russia, Japan, Australia and we think Mongolia? By the time we left at about 4ish I was completely relaxed. Our goal is to visit a hot springs every day for 2 weeks - some private, some public and some just tucked away on the side of road. So far, I'd give this one a solid B - great water, good atmosphere, and choice of both hot and cool pools. If this is day one of our trip, dang, I'm gonna be one mellow chick by the end of the "Hot Springs Fling"! The campground at Grover was closed so we decided to drive over Monitor Pass, connect with highway 395 and venture onto one of the various National Forest campgrounds along the way. The drive over the pass was absolutely stunning! The late afternoon shadows, pink alpenglow and golden pockets of Aspen turning colors were quite a sight. Unfortunately every National Forest campground was closed for the season and after our low-key chill day, we couldn't bring ourselves to be in a seedy private campground. We finally decided to camp outside of Bridgeport, near a reservoir on a deserted dirt road. We have a great view of the snow-capped Sierras overlooking the water. A glass of wine for moi, cranberry juice for Mr. Ned and a rousing game of skip-bo were the perfect way to end the day. As I write this we can hear the sound of the coyotes calling in the distance. Night!
p.s. We woke up this morning to the most beautiful sunlight on the Eastern Sierras.
Check out the last photo. (It was a balmy 29 degrees...thank god for the heater in the Winniemobile!)
