Weather forecasting, hardly a perfect science, has been consistently predicting a very soggy outlook for northern California and the overall northwestern states. That’s good for our drought-stricken region, but not so great for traveling and camping. Consequently, our current travel goals have been more on the order of getting further away from the weather system than seeking out any particular destination.

Despite our un-focused non-goals, we’ve had the pleasure of some brief encounters with pleasant places. Ever the amateur photojournalist, I’ve snapped some casual shots along the way. Dull gray skies flatten the light, but my wonderful PaintshopPro comes to the rescue every time, putting snap into my snapshots.

Departing Whiskeytown: A lackadaisical mule-deer doe doesn’t even wave goodbye, nonchalantly strolling out of our path as we leave the Brady Creek camp. The deer up here are much bigger cousins to the tiny blacktails in our home neighborhood and California coastal mountains. This one is probably 150 pounds or more, where most blacktail does are lucky to break 100.

We drive 120 miles across the Sierras, making a brief jog over to Susanville for groceries. Leaving Susanville, we watch the town glint at us through the valley haze. We drive up the steep, twisty ridge to the northwest, down an equally steep and twisty descent, and on to Eagle Lake, where we’ll spend the night.

North of Susanville at Eagle Lake campground, our morning view is not of the nearby lake, but of the dense stand of pines crowding the shoreline. We drove around the lake in Ralph, and it is a pleasant but nondescript place. It is stocked exclusively with its own species, Eagle Lake Trout, and is popular with fishermen. As yet, we do not fish, especially when it’s 38F outside. And no, we’re not tempted to put Bote on the water, for identical reasons. With the weather still oncoming, we decide to move further east, over to Pyramid Lake above Reno.

As we turned off of US-395 and headed toward Pyramid Lake, the Wild Horse Adoption Center came into view. I think they also have a similar structure for burros. All the animals in the picture are captured wild mustangs awaiting new homes. Both horses and burros are non-indigenous species – and while their desert presence is undeniably charming, they tend to be pretty destructive of the native desert ecology. This program is decidedly a better methodology than previous efforts at hunting/culling or neutering/sterilizing.

Pyramid Lake is a pleasant surprise. There’s only a small fee for camping throughout the area, and the place is not restricted to RV parks like some other reservations that we have visited. We are allowed to go anywhere we please, and we pick our usual no-company, isolated private spot with a nice view. Right on the lake shore, nobody around, quiet as a tomb except for the yipping of the coyotes in early evening.

Howie and Ralph look peacefully out over our lake-side camp. The broken sky lets a few low rays of sun through to the distant hills, dappling them for the last time today.

Under darkening skies, the lone boat on the lake scoots for home; perhaps he’s got a cooler full of cutthroat trout, some of which get to be over 20 pounds here!

And a miniscule Howie enjoys the grandness of the lake and the setting sun.

Karin prepares her usual sumptuous repast, and the coyotes entertain us with their territorial music. Drops of rain are already pattering on Howie’s roof as we eat dinner, and I begin to harbor some vague thoughts about how much rain it will take to make the sandy ground impassable. In other words, can we get back out of here again? Ralph would not have a problem with his 4×4 capability, but tubby Howie, at 14,000 pounds or so, well, that’s a different story. The incoming road off the main highway+ is pretty good gravel, but the sandy beach, although nicely compacted, is a wild card. Forecast is for “showers” and “light rain”. So I’ll drift off to sleep tonight (and maybe tomorrow night too) wondering how much of that wet stuff is required to imprison us here on the beach. But if it causes me too much angst, we’ll probably relocate to some more reliable turf, before the heavier rains of tomorrow arrive.