July 31st 2008 08:16 pm

Vacation 2008–Honeymoon Flat Campground

Vacation 2008--Honeymoon Flat Campground

This was the most beautiful campground I stayed in.  The drive there was awful; the payoff was great.

Actually, only part of the drive was bad.  I took Highway 89/36 south out of Lassen Park, then cut south again when 89 goes its own way.  This was beautiful country, marred only by smoke from a new fire on Highway 70 near Belden or Twain.  In fact, 70 westbound was closed to traffic, but I headed east toward Reno riding through Quincy and Portola before hitting Highway 395 near the Nevada border.

That’s where it got yucky–Highway 395 into Reno is wide and fast; out of Reno (and through Carson City all the way to Minden) it’s not much more than any slow billboard-laden drag in any big city.  Constant stoplights, crowds of cars inching along, huge, gaudy casinos lining the blocks.  I was trying to get all the way to Bridgeport and it was already late (5 or so) when I passed through Reno, so I knew I was eating up sunlight sitting at those interminable stoplights.

I couldn’t have been happier crossing back into California where the highway becomes a scenic by-way south of Topaz Lake, hugging the river and winding through the eastern foothills of the Sierra.  I seriously thought of turning off into one of the many National Forest campgrounds between Walker and the Sonora Junction, but I pressed on.

Originally, I meant to stay at a campground called Green Creek, about 10 miles south of Bridgeport, but when I finally got to the turnoff, it turned out to be down 8.5 miles of graded dirt road, and I decided the bike and I had had enough for the day!  I knew there was another campground called Honeymoon Flat on the Twin Lakes road out of Bridgeport, so back I went (stopping briefly for a bottle of wine for the evening).  I got to Honeymoon Flat about 7:30 and the sun was nearly behind the mountains.  By sheer luck, I found a campsite that wasn’t reserved until Saturday night right next to the creek!

The pictures don’t do the site justice.  I stretched my hammock just feet from the water and had the wildest dreams as it murmured nearby all night.  Twice I got up to answer nature in the middle of the night and it must have been a new moon, since the only light was starlight–billions of them.  A slice of the Milky Way cut east-west across the sky and there were so many stars, I could only make out the most obvious constellations.  I just stood a while, engulfed.

1 Comment »

One Response to “Vacation 2008–Honeymoon Flat Campground”

  1. 릴게임야마토 on 28 Jun 2021 at 11:41 pm #

    릴게임야마토

    English&More » Vacation 2008–Honeymoon Flat Campground

Trackback URI | Comments RSS

Leave a Reply

« | »