KEEP ON TRUCKIN'

Monday

Early morning we heard something that sounded like a wounded beast moaning very close to our tent. Startled we sat up and twisted our bodies to see outside. Then the beast dislodged the frog in its throat and released it natural call... Moooooowwww. Near us was a cow grazing for its breakfast. Apparently they came past the camp site many mornings, then would continue up the mountain where they'd be scared back down again a few days later only to continue the whole routine again. Silly cows. Once up we broke down our camp and ate our left over eggs & bagels for breakfast. Tasty.

The family told us about a lake that sat about 1000 ft. above our site on the mountain. They informed us that Matt's Toyota truck "Betsey" should be able to make the 10 mile 4 wheeler road up. So we took off for the top. Travel was slow due to the road being very rocky and narrow. About 2 miles up we came across and abandoned gold mining town. We could still see the whole set up for sifting. Water was brought from the creek to a mill with wooden pipes and you could see where excess water and dirt would spill out underneath creating a small pond that was now dried up. The mill had collapsed and now sat in the hole. As we hiked around we saw gold dust everywhere. Matt was convinced that if we searched long enough we'd find ourselves some gold nuggets. Unfortunately no nuggets were found. So we returned to the truck and pushed on.

The road got really crazy after the ghost town. We were all impressed with Betsey's abilities to climb over rocks like a caterpillar. Finally about 2 miles before we reached the top we decided she had had enough and that we would walk. As we approached the lake we could see only a small fraction of its size. The lake was only a few hundred feet across yet continued on like an elongated kidney bean for almost a mile. Jeremy quickly found a good fishing spot and began messy with untangling his line. There were horse flies everywhere so we stayed busy avoiding being bitten. After a few hours of not catching anything (the fish were there they just didn't go for the horsefly bait) we packed up and hiked back to the truck. That night at the house we took it easy, cooked some dinner and went to sleep early.