7/9 - 7/10 We end up at Plumas-Eureka State Park

Lake Almanor was suppose to be our destination for Alexa's birthday celebration -- including a night out at a real restaurant, but the smoke from the Paradise fire was rolling in so bad that it looked like fog coming through the trees. To make matters worse, it was 98 degrees -- not a good combination for dry camping.

So we tried to get farther south on highway 89 to get away from the smoke. Alexa found a state park in one of her books that was highly recommended. We stopped in at a forest service ranger station and they called ahead to see if would be clearer and cooler. The state ranger said yes to both.

As we drove up the highway, the smoke actually got worse. The road to Paradise was closed and it was hot. I was getting worried as we were only a few miles from our destination and it was 96 degrees and very smokey.

The last three miles were almost straight up a mountain side. When we finally got to the campground, it was tucked in an amazing forest setting.


We lucked out again. We had a very enjoyable evening. On 7/11, we decided to outrun the smoke and get to Truckee -- it had to be clearer there --- wrong. At Truckee, the smoke was so thick, ash was falling from the sky. So no nice dinner in Truckee. We decided to just head on over to Sugar Pine State Park at Lake Tahoe. Since Liesl and Clayton couldn't join us anyway, we decided that if the smoke was still bad, we would just stay a night and then keep going south.