It had been four years since I had ridden up that dusty dirt road outside Quincy, CA.
Four years was too long.
The sprawling campground on the shores of Lower Bucks Lake was where I embarked on my first Snipe hunt, then taught others the art of hunting the elusive nose-nibbling bird. It was where I learned to light a fire WITHOUT cheating with lighter fluid. It was the place where I slept under the pine trees and stars summer after summer during my teenage years and wondered about the universe.
Needless to say when the chance came to go back, I jumped at it. My ticket back into the Bucks Lake camping area was my dad. That trusty woodsman has spent many years painting the bathrooms, building sheds to store the canoes in, cleaning up fire pits, installing industrial hoods over the industrial kitchen stovetops and generally putting in hundreds of hours to camp cleanup. The man is behind-the-scenes maintenance royalty.
Needless to say, he has a key to the camp gate.
We spent Friday evening setting up camp then canoeing into the mountain sunset.
[oqeygallery id=21]
After the sun went down, we started up the fire, roasted hot dogs and warmed up some chili … in the kitchen microwave.
But that was as close to civilization as we got that night. Except for all the campfire songs on my brother’s iPod that we sang along to at the top of our lungs.
The next day dawned with a chorus of birds and the sunrise over the lake. I pulled up a log and a good book and enjoyed every moment of the forest morning.
Breakfast came up with my dad’s friend and the camp director, Warren Grandal. The logger/ retired firefighter’s friendly personality and wrinkled smile oozed kindness. He is truly a great man, and not just because he brought home made sourdough pancakes, home-brewed Elderberry Syrup and fresh-churned butter.
A robust breakfast led to a day of lighting bonfires of underbrush and dead branches from the camp, pulling old, rusty nails out of old, moldy wood and washing kitchen dishes. The highlight of the day was when logger Grandal felled an 80-foot tree that had become diseased. The booming crash reverberated throughout or little personal forest. Dead Tree was then chain-sawed into logs and parceled out to the individual campsites for an ax-wielding Sarah to eventually slice into fire-pit tinder.
By the time we were done for the day, I was dirty, sore, stinky and tired. But oh was I happy. It was an unforgettable weekend with my dad and little brother.
