Heading Out Tonight

We're heading out of town this evening after work. It's just a quick trip— we're taking Friday off from work to make a three-day weekend.

"Didn't we just have a three day weekend (Independence Day) two weeks ago?" you might ask. "And another (Memorial Day) a few weeks before that?" Yes and yes, though on both those holiday weekends we canceled our trips at the last moment. 😨 The first was because of a flight delay that wrecked the schedule; the second because of extreme weather.

Tonight we'll avoid flight delays by driving; and this weekend looks to be beautiful weather in the Sierra Nevada, where we're headed, with daytime highs around 80. It's warmer that that in Folsom, where we'll be stopping for the night tonight, but that's understandable because it's in the Central Valley at the foot of the Sierra. Tomorrow morning we'll continue on up into the mountains, where it'll be cooler. After being stymied on recent outdoors trips we're really looking forward to this one!

Thursday Night in Folsom

It's 10pm Thursday night and we've settled in to our hotel room in Folsom, California. It was a fairly easy 142 mile drive out here from home. We left just before 6:30, made two stops along the way, and arrived around 9:45.

If the map I've embedded shows a driving time around 2:15 that's without traffic. This evening we encountered a few slowdowns. Traffic is returning toward pre-Covid normal. It's only Thursday night, though, so it wasn't as bad as the problems we've had leaving on Friday nights on trips in the recent past. In fact those traffic problems are a big part of the reason we chose to start this trip on Thursday night with Friday off from work.

What's in Folsom? For us, nothing. It's just a waystation. We're staying overnight as part of our Friday Night Halfway technique... except it's Thursday night and technically we're more than halfway there.

Where is "there"? Tomorrow we'll drive up into the Sierra Nevada mountains to hike Bassi Falls. We've hiked to it a few times before, most recently in 2018. We'll figure out tomorrow what else we have time and energy for in the area. And then we'll camp for the night.

Our plan for Saturday is to hike up to some of the lakes from the Grouse Lake Trailhead at Wrights Lake in the Desolation Wilderness. "Desolation Wilderness"... that sure sounds inviting, huh? Well, if the name keeps the riff-raff out that's a good thing. 😅 It's beautiful country with granite peaks, jagged ridges, and lots of small lakes. I hiked to Grouse Lake in 2017 but turned back because Hawk was not doing well. We hope this time we'll both get farther.

As for Saturday night and Sunday... we're not sure yet. We might camp a second night or we might drive all the way home, sleep in our own bed, and have Sunday for catching up. Preserving Sunday as an easy, stay-around-home day worked well last weekend and on other trips, too. We'll see how we feel Saturday afternoon.