Sunshine!

Eastman Lake

What a beautiful day we had today. The sunshine made it’s way to Eastman Lake and it was a joy to behold. I’m not sure what our high temp was today but I know it was in the 50’s and after several weeks of 40’s and grey days we were celebrating the sun.

We like this park more each day and from what we can tell it is a well kept secret in California. One of the rangers said they don’t even have it on the printed California map, though you will find it on Google maps. We have met people from Fresno (50 miles away) that had no idea where it was and one of our fellow volunteers said even people in Madera ( 20 miles away) don’t know where it is. So if you are looking for a place in the foothills of the Sierras, actually not that far from Yosemite, this would be a great place to stay. Now you will have to wait until at least April as they have closed the campground (except for the volunteers) until then. The day use area and boat ramps are still open.

The dam looks closer than it actually is in this photo

I think I mentioned in the last post that the road going up to the campground has a hillside that is not real stable. They do have one lane open around it for those of us who need to get through. That includes all the rangers and staff as the office and maintenance buildings are also up that road. Yesterday when we were on our way to the day use area to work, there were a whole lot of people having a look and discussing what they want to do about it. Hopefully they let us know if they close the road. It is the one thing that we have noticed and all the volunteers agree on is that communication is not this groups strong point.  They all are nice enough people to work for but they forget to let the volunteers know what is going on, hopefully that will get a little better because we really like it here.

John on litter patrol

John’s favorite job is litter pick up. After all those years being an engineer who would have thought what he really wanted to be was a garbage man. :)  What is nice about it is we can hike all the trails and the shoreline and do litter patrol, logging hours at the same time. We are trying to do the shoreline. This is a big bass fishing lake and I think a lot of things are blowing out of these peoples boats. Plus I do get disgusted with just how negligent people can be, but it keeps us busy. 

We have been wanting to order an inflatable Sea Eagle Kayak for sometime and John decided now is the time. We just got a mailbox set up at the UPS store in Madera so now he can order it. We figure we can do more shore cleanup and get some kayaking in at the same time - we are just into this muti-tasking our fun and work at the same time. We know several other of our RV blogger friends that have these kayaks and we are looking forward to getting out on the water.

The first pen we filled.

Another job we are doing makes me think of my friend and coworker back in Iowa City, Becky. As long as I have known Becky she has had horses. She lives out by the Coralville Reservoir and I know the horses have always kept her busy, lots of chores come with them. Well we aren’t mucking out stalls but instead are adding fill dirt to the pens in one of the equestrian camping areas. We got one pen done but the second pen needed a lot more dirt than the first and we have to wheelbarrow it up (up a hill) to the pen. We know these old bodies aren’t cut out for hours of that so we are trying to work a couple hours a day on it and then do something a little easier. My back and shoulders were a little sore yesterday but in a good way. 

The best part of this gig is that it is keeping us very active and we spend most of our day outside. Yep we are liking it.

Some of the shoreline at Eastman Lake

Happy trails..............