There are worse things than waking up in. Walmart parking lot.
Driving out of town I came across a house with their own amusement park and various animal statues in the front yard. Rather eclectic tastes I would say and definitely worthy of a picture.
Drove to Silver Lake to relive some childhood memories of camping here with my family. I hadn’t been back here since 1975, so I wasn’t sure what to expect and how well my memory would allow me to find the campsite.
Back in the day we would arrive at the lake access point, put our canoe in the water and boat-in to the campsite. There were no roads and few formal structures. The access point didn’t look at all like I remembered it. The little general store was gone – wiped clean from the ground. I did remember there was a trail that looped around the lake. I followed the trail with a general idea of where the campsite was and what the rocks looked like.
I found the campsite 45-minutes into the trail. Today there are cabins rimming the lake, which I was surprised to see. There still aren’t any roads into this area, so am assuming people are still accessing their cabins via boat.
As I remember it there was a central kitchen made from a rock foundation and logs. It had some kind of roof and plastic sheeting, that could be rolled up, for the windows. There was an old cook stove and a picnic table inside.
Around the kitchen there were level tent platforms with plywood decking for setting up canvas tents.
I hiked up the rocks from the campsite to a cliff area where we used to roll rocks – after calling out to make sure no one was below. Looking back, that probably wasn’t the safest thing to be doing, but hey, this was the early 1970’s and we didn’t have seatbelts either – at least not in the backseat of our 1966 Toyota Land Cruiser.
Back at the lake entry point, I hiked down the creek from the lake to see the rushing water – or at least that’s how I remembered it. I was not disappointed.
Camped for the night in the Eldorado National Forrest.
Van-Tastic Adventures 