River Time!

When my Mom first moved up to Reno years ago, I used to drive up there and then we would go camping at  Hampshire Rocks Campground. It's west of Truckee along I80. There is a river that runs along the campground and we used to sit in it for hours...or until we were freezing, and then sun on the rocks like a lizard. We hiked up the other side of the river to the railroad tracks and watched the trains go by. It was a little hot for the hiking part this time, but the river was perfect!

This is the rest stop a couple miles before the campground. Tom is showing us how they drilled this rock to cut it.

Then they climbed up the hill and found a fairy stream. This is my Mom leading them up into the mountains. Just a little disturbing that this is the "Donner Pass" rest stop!

This is our camping spot, #18. #17 is just a little better, but it was taken. We didn't spend the night, but we stayed all afternoon for a picnic and lots of swimming.




Down to the river! It's really close to the camp, but it's totally secluded. The boys did a bit of skinny dipping. How many chances do you get!?

Here they go! The water is very cold here. Tom was a shivering mess after a few minutes. He had to come out and sun himself warm. Jake was proud that he could last a lot longer. He proved that he would last longer if a second ice age came. My little Viking boy!

 Sliding down the rocks and then pulling themselves along the bottom to get back up was fun. Tom said they were pretending to be Salmon and Jake said it was a lot harder than it looked.

They looked like river otters to me!








 Gorgeous spot isn't it? It's hot in the sun, but super cool in the shade. And at night it is pretty darn cold even during the summer. I loved it when I was a kid with my Mom and I can't wait to bring the whole family up here. Maybe next summer.

On the way back home, we stopped at another rest stop and used our smart phone to find a GeoCache. Grandma and Jake were too tired to do the walk, so Tom and I did it by ourselves. It was up a little interpretive trail they had. We came across a few people on horse back and found the Pacific Trail runs through there too. That trail goes all the way from Mexico to Canada and runs right by our house!

Here's the view from where we found the GeoCache. We took a hot wheels car and left a legless good luck pig and a fortune from a cookie.






We headed home for some pizza at Round Table and then went for homemade ice cream with my Mom's friend. Steve's was great! He makes the ice cream and then sells it at the shop. The boys loved it, but after a full day of sun and water and mountains, they were hard pressed to be able to show it.

It was another great day and we were beat, just a little sunburned, and pretty darn happy.