Thursday Night in Folsom
Jul. 15th, 2021 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerIt'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.
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.
