Reminiscing on the Final Days of 2014

My husband, daughter, and I were able spend one night camping during my daughter's short visit home for the holidays. She wanted to experience one night camping in an RV. So, we loaded up the MT, Midget Trailer, left son and Meeks at home, and headed for beautiful New Hogan Lake.

View of lake with Bear and Hogback Mountains

New Hogan Lake and Acorn Campground are located east of Stockton at the start of the foothills to the Sierra Mountains. The US Army of Corps of Engineers created this 4,400 acre lake in 1964 along with the New Hogan Dam.

I had read that one might not want to camp here on weekends since the campground is usually full. Since the weather was just starting to get colder from the Arctic air mass pushing into California, we didn't have to worry about the campground being full of folks. In fact there were only three other RVs in the campgrounds. We found a very nice spot, site 99, away from the other campers.

 A view of the road next to parking pad to the site.

 

A couple of views from the site looking down at the lake. Even after all the recent rains, the lake is WAY below normal. It will be a very long time before California is out of this drought.

After getting situated and walking the campground, we headed into the warmth of MT for an evening of Monopoly while eating bowls of Chili.

My daughter owned that corner of the Monopoly board, and yes she won.

After breakfast the next morning, we hiked over to Coyote Point to take in the beauty of the lake from a different view. I'm glad we did the walk to the point since we saw a couple of American Bald Eagles in flight looking for food. This lake is one of their nesting grounds during the winter.

Daughter and her dog.

Our RV is at the point just behind us to the right.

Before heading home, I took a picture of my husband's addition to MT, a water filter by the sink. Even though we filter the water coming into the tank, we want to filter the water once more before using it for cooking and drinking.

Last peek of daughter and her dog enjoying the RV before heading home.

 

Two days after returning home, the entire family headed up to Brushy Peak for a walk. Here are a couple of group photos from that beautiful day of hiking.