Ice House Camping

So,
   On Monday we set out for a high sierra camping trip. We loaded up the van to entirely new heights and weights, packed in the fam and the dog and set out for our 7.5hr (googlemaps) 9hr (actual time with potty breaks and such) drive up to Ice House Reservoir. Google told me to take the I-5 so we did. I regretted it the entire way. It's more crowded, looks like dung and sucks the soul and the life out of CA. I'm strongly considering banning all interstate driving for vacations. Any who, we arrived just in time to set up camp, check out the lake, cook dinner and put the kids to bed. It was a challenging day.

You could see the storm brewing before sunset.

The drive up was at least great driving weather. It was cloudy and cool-ish. That night we had a CRAZY high sierra thunderstorm that lasted for an hour or so. It was late enough that we were all in bed and I'm not sure it rained much at all but the lighting was frequent and the thunder rumbled and echoed from peak to peak.

The next morning we woke up in better spirits, breathed the fresh mountain air and explored our surroundings. The lake was really quiet the whole trip. It is located 11 miles off of a pretty isolated road, off of a pretty isolated road so it isn't a big boating destination. Mostly older folks in the campground and fishermen on the water.

The kids rediscovered their love of throwing things at water.

We played by or in the lake almost all day ate some good grub and hung out. The day went much more smoothly than the previous.

Water guns are good fun.

So are rocks.

And inner tubes loaded up with the whole family.

I threw Sam in the lake a few times and he wasn't a fan but it kept him cool. I'd never seen him swim until this trip.

That tiny yellow spot out there is me on a tube. It was a great floating lake since there were no waterskiers.

That night the campground was visited by a bear who banged around a few trash cans and shuffled through some of our neighbors stuff. The kids slept through all of it and for the second straight night T and I didn't sleep much with all the noise. Still it was a calming and relaxing day.

Wednesday we set out to explore South Lake Tahoe about 1 hour away. I didn't get very many pictures of that but Tahoe was a really cool laid back town. Kind of like Jackson Hole with a lake, a mix of dirty hippies, hitchhikers, and crazy rich folks.

We got back to camp in time for another swim, and more fishing. I caught a really large brown trout (at least 14 inches) in the spot that T told me to try right as we were about to head back for dinner. It got off of my hook right as I pulled it to shore I tried to grab it with my hands for a picture with T's phone but it slipped out and back into the water. I have my whole family to vouch for the size of the fish and the catch. I was planning on letting it go anyways but it beat me to it.

That night we had another nice campfire and told princess/ dinosaur stories.

No bears that night and a significantly better nights sleep for everyone. The trip got progressively more and more relaxing to the point that I wished we were staying camping for another day or two. We weren't.

Since the drive there had been so terrible with kids and traffic and scenery I figured I could at least improve the scenery. We drove home along the Eastern Sierra past mono lake, some amazing high country passes, mammoth and Mt Whitney. We spent a long time between 7,000 and 8,500 feet on some windy roads but everyone held it together until lunch. We stopped in Bridgeport at a local burger joint.

You can see another storm brewing. Also of note: how low the van was sitting and the enormous overstuffed bag a top it.

The food was actually really good and I think everyone but me was happy to be off the windy mountain roads.

We made it home in time for clean up and dinner. It was a good trip, we are already considering our options for next year and maybe a desert destination (Grand Canyon) in the fall. The kids weren't great in the car but once we got there and they could entertain themselves with rocks and sticks they really liked camping. They didn't seem to want to be home.

RTSZA