Monday 8-28-23 Hiking Turquoise Lake Trail & Camping

Camping in a National Forest

We woke up to the temperature in mid 40s and it got into the mid 60s. This is great camping weather for us. 

We setup the Wave3 heater when we got to Matchless so it would be ready if we needed it. When Larry woke up at 6:00 he turned it on to take the nippiness out of the Minnie. We slept perfect without it but it's nice for me to wake up with a little heat at 7:00. 

I made pancakes for breakfast, which heated the Minnie even more. After breakfast we decided to go for a hike.

A rain storm came in about midnight and stayed around until 7:00. We weren't sure if the trails would be too muddy to hike. If they were too muddy we were going to walk the roads. We picked up the Turquoise Lake trail at the overflow campground. It wasn't bad at all. We did have to hike around a couple of puddles. We hiked 2.25 miles of the trail and rested. Then hiked it back. At the end of the hike we had hiked 4.5 miles. 

During our hike we hiked along the lake and by a few other campgrounds. People were walking along the shore of the lake and some of them had their dogs with them. Two campgrounds are reservations only and were busy, one was tents only it had a few campers, the other one was Tabor and it had a few campers. The trail went through a beautiful pine forest and was easy to hike. It was flat. We had to be careful because there were roots and rocks in the trail. The lake was flat and had a couple of people kayaking on it. While we were resting a few people hiked by us and we said hello. We stopped a couple of places where the trail Y'd off and had a trail map. Larry likes to check the trail maps to see where each trail went, how far the trails go and to plan our next hike. It was a very peaceful hike. 

Trail Map

  

Low clouds on the mountains around Turquoise Lake 

 

Camping on the lake

We hung around the campground the rest of the day. 

After lunch Larry and I setup the solar panels. He was very happy he had changed out the connectors on the wires because it made it so much easier and faster. They did a super job of charging the batteries. 

After setting up the solar panels Larry setup our chairs and decided to enjoy the campground by reading. By the end of the day he finished a book he started yesterday. I stayed inside and played the event, which was Event: Spider Adventure of 20 games. I only completed 16 of them because I wanted to give the charging system a break. I probably won't play my daily challenges until we get power. I worked on solving the Super Sudoku but didn't finish.

In the afternoon Mother Nature was messing with us. The clouds blew in, it got dark and there was thunder and we thought we were going to get rain. Larry took down the solar panels and put them in the house. He also disconnected the wiring and brought it in the house. 

We were going to barbecue sausage patties for dinner but because of the weather I made tortellini with meat sauce. It didn't rain so after dinner Larry and I went for a 45 minute walk. We walked to another nearby campground. This campgrounds accepts reservations, there were a lot of openings but every site was reserved for the weekend. We had a pleasant walk. 

For dessert we had Marketside Coconut Creme pie. It was delicious. 

Coconut Creme Pie

By the end of the day I had gotten 20,000 steps, which put me in 2nd place in my group. This is a great beginning for the week challenge of 125,000 steps.