Journeying On

Both vehicles outside the locked gate at Emerald Point Campground, Tuesday, August 24, 2021.     The season for Emerald Point Campground at Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe was scheduled to end on Labor Day, September 6, and we had planned to leave after the holiday rush on Tuesday, September. 7, but the Caldor Fire changed that. On Saturday, August 21, California State Parks announced that all the Lake Tahoe State Parks would close for an undetermined length of time due to the very real, though (according to the thinking at the time) distant possibility that the fire could reach the Tahoe Basin. On Sunday we were told the closure would be on a "week to week" basis, so we planned to stay in place and find opportunities when the smoke wasn't too thick to do some campsite cleanup. On Monday morning, August 23, we were informed that the campgrounds would all be closed through at least September 7. We were welcome to stay if we wanted to. There were no evacuation orders or warnings fo...

  On the Overlook Bench last night, August 17 Behind us is Emerald Bay and the mountains which are not visible in this picture, nor in real life due to the extreme smoke - thus the N95 mask I am wearing.     Since my last blog post, I have not taken a lot of pictures - the smoke has been hiding the blue sky and the blue lake most of the time. I have also not taken any long hikes because of the smoke, but until this week I was still hiking down to Vikingsholm and back (5 mile round trip) between morning and noon camp checks most mornings. When it is just hazy, even thick haze the smoke doesn't bother me too much, but the past couple of days with smoke from a new fire in El Dorado County (Caldor Fire) I am keeping my walking to the Overlook in the mornings and evenings. Beginning yesterday we have had lots of ash falling as well so we are staying in the motor home most of the time. Yesterday morning when I woke up the sky was blue and the lake was blue when I walked to the ...