Emerald Bay State Park, CA

Emerald Bay State Park, CA

We’ve spent the last two days playing around the southwestern shores of Tahoe. 


Here’s a view from our campground looking out over the opening of Emerald Bay.

When we left Sugar Pine SP, we still had some time before we could arrive at Emerald Bay SP. We passed by D.L. Bliss and the sign said beach parking was full. Because we had a state park pass on our windshield from camping the previous night, the ranger waved us through. (Good tip to know, when you pay for camping at a CA State Park, that pass is good for any CA State Park until sunset).  Just for the heck of it we drove all the way down to the beach (passing hordes of people carrying coolers and beach paraphernalia) and were able to nab a spot directly on the beach.  Originally, we were just going to scope out this area, but since the parking gods had smiled upon us we decided to spend the day at this sandy beach.  

It was super crowded, but the sandy beach and clear water felt like we were swimming in a pool. 

The smoke had been slowly drifting over to the west shore for most of the day, so we were quite delighted that the campground at Emerald Bay SP still had good visibility. Right after I took this picture a bald eagle soared by.  So beautiful.

Because we got this campsite as a last minute cancellation we didn’t know what to expect.  It was awesome!  It had a little terrace that you walked up to that overlooked the campground.  Great place for snacks and late afternoon adult libations. 

We even went for an evening swim in Emerald Bay! 

The bear activity at this park is out of control. We know the drill about using the bear lockers and storing all your food and we’ve encountered bear activity at other parks, but nothing like here!  Starting in the early evening you could repeatedly hear cars honking their horns, people beating pots and pans and yelling at the bear to scare it away. This kept up until after one in the morning.  I would drift off to sleep and then was startled awake with a neighbor on one side or the other making noise and chasing the bear away.  I’ve never been so happy that we sleep on the second floor!  Needless to say we didn’t sleep well the first night here.

We woke Saturday to a lot more smoke in the air and very little visibility.  So glad I was able to get some clear shots of Tahoe on the day before.  The last day of our vacation was spent doing pretty much what we’ve been doing everyday…swimming, snorkeling, reading, biking and eating.  Sounds like a pretty great vacation to me!  

We really enjoyed this sweet little cove at Emerald Bay.  Watching all the boats coming in and out of the bay was really fun.

Tomorrow we head back to Megan and Kevin’s. We’ve missed Maddy and Theo and are looking forward to hanging out with the munchkins.  Here’s hoping the bear decides to sleep tonight and not terrorize the campground. 

We haven’t plugged in once this trip. Having solar with a good fridge is so appreciated.  Thanks Wolfgang. 

Sugar Pine Point, Tahoe, CA

Sugar Pine Point State Park, Tahoe, CA

We headed down the west shore of Tahoe towards Sugar Pine Point. While we love Tahoe and it’s been a blast revisiting some of our favorite spots, this wasn’t our original plan. A few days before we headed out for our week vacation we were notified that our campsite at Grover Hot Springs had been cancelled due to the Tamarack Fire. Not wanting to drive near the fires, (circumventing the road closures) we also cancelled our Mammoth Lake camping spots. We lucked out by nabbing sites here and there along the shore at Tahoe. 

One of my favorite things to do at Sugar Pine is ride the bike paths that meander all through the park and along the entire west shore of Tahoe.

It wouldn’t be a true vacation at Tahoe unless it included lunch and epic people watching at Sunnyside.  

We spent the afternoon hanging out at the beach.  Much to our delight, it was so hot outside that the lake didn’t seem that cold…no really! 

We even did some snorkeling.  And while I didn’t see very much fish, I did manage to snag these…

…fancy sunglasses at the bottom of the lake. 

In case you’re wondering about the smokey conditions with all the fires, we’ve lucked out with blue skies.  Here’s a picture looking toward the south east shore. You can definitely see the smoke line in the sky. 

Another beautiful night sleeping under the pine trees.  

Donner State Park, CA

Donner State Park, CA

We’ve been coming to Donner for years. This is our go-to place. We’ve camped with family, friends, taken bike rides, swam, hiked and had crawfish feasts caught from the creek. I thought I knew this place.  Well, well look what we discovered this trip.

We’re at campsite #99.  It’s a HUGE site. Look behind Ned and you’ll see a split rail fence. Guess what’s behind the split rail fence? 

A little lake! We’ve hiked around this lake before, but in my mind it was located farther away from the campground. There was no one in sight. I asked the campground host if one could swim in this lake (I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a drainage ditch or an old toxic mining site, you never know around these here parts).  She assured me that it was great lake and people swim in it all the time.  Mind blown. 

So yep, that’s pretty much where we hung out the last couple of days and we had the place to ourselves! The water temperature was about 10 degrees warmer than Donner Lake too. What a bonus.  So fun to just read, take a dip a few steps away from our site and repeat. 

Really appreciate that we didn’t have to haul all our picnic supplies back to the campsite too. 

Or course we did manage to rally and get in some bike rides.  This park has so many fun trails to ride. 

We even did a ride around the lake (and some of those hills are no joke). 

We still went swimming and goofing around in the big creek.  The people watching is just too good to pass up.  So fun to watch people learning to paddle board, kayakers dodging the swimmers and kids jumping off rocks.  This state park is awesome and we so appreciate that it’s so close to home. 

One last picture…biking along a trail at dusk.  Great two days camping here. 

Jackson Meadows Reservoir, CA

Findley Campground, Jackson Meadows Reservoir, CA

We spent the last 2 nights on the west side of Jackson Meadows Reservoir. We had the place almost to ourselves!  Go figure.  The east side was sold out so we decided to wander on over to this area.  There are 3 campgrounds here.  In our campground and the next one close by there were a total of 2 families…including us.  

There was no cell service and it felt divine to just disconnect and unwind.  

It was about a 15 minute walk from our campsite to the lake.  Of course, I did what I do best…float.  

The lake is really, really low.  Check out the boat ramp! I guess this is one reason why the campground was almost completely empty.  We think those boats were put in on the east side and then driven over to this area.  The walk from where the lake used to be to where it is now is a good football size field.  Plus side…the water was pretty shallow and warm.  

A couple of days of just R&R…some nice walks, reading, swimming and

some great meals with the grill master. 

What we enjoyed the most was just how quiet it was, like camping alone in a lush forest. 

Thanks Findley Campground.  Great start to a vacation week.