Posts from the ‘On the Road’ Category

Feb 18

Long weekend at Coyote Lake Campground

For the first time since I can recall, working for the man (that is to say corporate America … or more specifically – the private equity firm which owns my company) has bestowed upon me a great gift – a day off of work tomorrow in observance of the President’s Day holiday.

This being the case, Kelly also took the day off as PTO (the man she works for is not nearly as generous with holidays) and we decided to get out of town and check out Coyote Lake Campground – a county park which is located about 90 minutes southeast of our home base in HMB.

We’ve been anxious to find more locations ideal for quick three and four-day weekends and we were particularly keen to see how this county park differed from the state run parks we’d visited previously. More importantly, this county park is very dog friendly, which isn’t the case with most state parks.

We arrived mid-afternoon on Friday to a mostly empty campground and quickly found the park to be great on many levels – two generous loops, one with water & electric, the other being dry camping only.

Our campsite

We chose a water-facing spot in the dry-camping loop. A $12 per nightly fee gets us a paved pad, fire pit, picnic table, and food locker. The proximity to water affords plentiful waterfowl and some of the loudest frogs you’ve heard.

My cones

There are loads of trails to explore, and most interesting, many trails roam through beautiful hillsides and are shared with free-range and grass-fed cows.

Yes cows.

A few cows wondering why I am so close

Also, in the event you are wondering how two cows react to a pair of cyclists riding bit too close, you’re in luck as I have some video.

The best part of the weekend was that Lilly got to join us on every hike. Most California state parks restrict dogs from the trails, but not here at Coyote Lake. Thrilled that Lilly could join us, her presence allowed us to enjoy the half-day hikes guilt-free, unlike when she is stuck back in the Airstream while we were enjoying ourselves outdoors.

I know this sounds a bit kooky, but dog owners will relate to our excitement in bringing Lilly with us, particularly on the longer, multi-hour hikes.

By the way – per usual, Lilly was hell-bent on investing every gopher hole she could find. At one point Saturday, she decided to dig herself under a felled tree rather than simply jump over it as she did initially. I captured a quick video of her in the act.

As evidenced in the picture below, all that digging, coupled with the 8.5 mile hike required some serious napping yesterday alongside her favorite red squeak toy.

Lilly napping

Most of the the park literature hypes the views atop the ridge line highpoint, near a scenic overlook. We decided to see for ourselves, but unfortunately, a thick fog rolled in Sunday morning, so the views were not so great.

Lilly, impatiently waiting for me near the top

I question the need to describe the climb as “strenuous” (it was not), but I definitely agree that it’s worth the effort to ascend even if the views were limited. Once we reached the top, there was a nice clearing which I’m sure makes for a nice lunch break when the the views are clear.

One of the scenic overlook picnic tables

On the other-hand, based upon the picture below, perhaps there is not all that much to see.

Very descriptive signage

Anyway, the park is great and I’m excited to visit other Santa Clara county parks soon.

Feb 18

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Early Morning Fog Over Coyote Lake

Early morning fog over Coyote Lake, a photo by Dave Burns on Flickr.

The view from our campsite, overlooking the water.

Jan 13

Wandering Without Airstream

Last Saturday Kelly and I concluded our two week holiday trip through the southwestern desert, but not before stopping for some maintenance at Toscano RV. In the interest of brevity, I’ll summarize to the following — we arrived in time for repairs on Friday and decided to spend the night at the RV dealer as our preference is not arrive to our home base RV park after dark.

Gray & Fresh water tank sensors replaced

Grey & Fresh water tank sensors replaced – this one dangling is the Grey

Sleeping at the RV dealer. No charge for full hook-ups.

Our overnight spot at the RV dealer. No charge for full hook-ups (that’s us in the middle)

Saturday we arrived back to HMB, allowing Kelly one final weekend of complete freedom before starting her new job on Monday. Alas, once again we are full-fledged DINKS.

This week has been a bit crazed for us, hence the lack of blog postings. Before I knew it, the week had passed and I found myself jetting (pun intended) off to Europe on a business trip.

My ride — Boeing 747-400

Currently I am in northern Germany, specifically the town of Hamburg attending to some work matters this week. Unfortunately, the ways of winter apply here in Hamburg — it’s quite chilly and the days are short. Thank goodness I had enough sense to bring a stocking cap and gloves.

Cap San Diego

This is my second visit to the Hamburg office. Unlike my previous visit, this trip affords me enough time that I hope to more thoroughly venture out after work hours and explore the town.

Per usual, I was not able to get any sleep on the long-haul portion (10 hours) of the flight (San Francisco to Frankfurt). This being the case, I’ve been forcing myself to stay awake today until I know that I can get a solid night of sleep in an attempt to ‘flip’ myself onto local time (GMT +1.00). Tomorrow evening I’ll know whether or not my plan worked.

Trying to stay awake has been a challenge this evening. My hotel TV has a full array of satellite channels to view, but since I don’t speak German (or any other language for that matter), I opted to take a walk. I wandered throughout the downtown and waterfront areas until (and I mean this literally) my feet were too cold to continue. Long gone are the days when I thought 34 degrees was crisp. Whatever, now I consider that to be cold.

It’s about 9pm local time and I’m pushing almost 30 hours without sleep. I’m dead tired.

Time for bed.

Jan 2

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Nearing the End

Sadly, today is our last day in the desert – tomorrow we are departing this lovely place we’ve come to like a lot. We have an appointment early Saturday morning in Los Banos, some 430 miles to the north. In order to break the drive into more manageable chunks, we’ve decided to begin the trek in the morning. My guess is we’ll drive at least half way, perhaps a bit more … there is no rush, so the day will end whenever it feels right doing so.

In an attempt to squeeze one last gasp of fun into our time here today, we wandered into the eastern portion of the park to checkout the Vista del Malpais area.

Access road

The road in from the highway follows the desert floor along a series of short washouts before approaching serious steep descents into a wash section. We drove into the modest wash sections, but decided not to push our luck with the more serious off-road sections. Unlike the recreational off-roading commonplace to the area, we need the truck to pull our home … getting stuck or risking damage is simply out of the question.

End of the drive, we hike from here.

No matter, we hiked into the canyon floor with Lilly.

Lilly loves to climb

As you make your way into the more pronounced sections of the wash floor, the sand is quite thick and the walls become more and more vertical around you. From what I could tell, it would be quite accessible hiking in the bad-land off-shoots anywhere along the way.

Washouts eroding the valley walls

Desert flora eventually succumbs to erosion as well

Desert flora eventually succumb to erosion as well

The place is very cool and I definitely would have loved to have a more capable 4×4 vehicle to use for deeper exploration. Maybe some day.

The view from above the washouts

Kelly and me enjoying the views and warm weather

Once we returned back to camp, a few departure preparations were completed before Kelly and I had dinner with Tim & Amanda one final time.

Making time for my weekly haircut

We drank some champagne (which was originally intended for New Year’s Eve but never consumed) and a potluck style array of eats. It’s been great spending some extended time with and getting to know more about the Watsons – they are both good eggs for sure. A super casual evening in the company of really nice people.