Staycation Day 1 -- Sardine Lake, California

Agenda:
* Visit Sand Pond, Lower and Upper Sardine Lakes in the Sierra Buttes of California (click on the picture above to see how Tucker REALLY felt at that moment)
* Ice cream in Historic Downtown Truckee, CA
* Circus Circus trapeze show and games
* Take and Bake pizza at home.
* Movie at home (after the kids are asleep)

Day 1 was great! With two very young kids, it is easy to get an earlier start. We got to the lakes nice and early; it was still cool and there weren't too many people there. Right off, Carson and I explored the area -- finding lots of frogs that were way too fast for us to catch. But we did catch a garter snake.



I love Carson's view of the snake. He took this picture:



The snake wrapped himself so tightly around Carson's hand that we had a difficult time getting him off.

We had a really nice picnic by the side of Sand Pond.


Carson was pretty good with his new wiffle ball bat.


We took on the 4x4 road to Upper Sardine Lake in our Tundra pickup truck. We got through it with minimal damage to the truck, but with extreme stress to Angela. It was this tiny little road, barely wide enough for the truck. There was a nice 100' drop-off on one edge, and a steep hill on the other. If you came across another vehicle, you would be in serious trouble. The road was way too rough to back down. Some of the rocks were huge. I wasn't sure if we could make it over them, but we couldn't turn back. Even with all of the off-roading that I have done, it was tough. We got a pretty good gouge in one of the running boards of the truck, but other than that, we survived. I thought that Angela was going to have a heart attack on the ride down -- she was on the cliff side. Needless to say, Carson loved the drive. Tucker was amazingly calm.

After that drive, we were ready to go. We headed down to Truckee, CA and got some ice cream cones at an old soda fountain.



Circus Circus was alright. The show wasn't too spectacular and Carson was a little young for the games.

Overall, Staycation Day 1 was every bit as fun as vacation. We'll see how Day 2 goes.