An Angels Camp Gift from Angels

Sweet church friends gave us the gift of the use of their place in Angels Camp for 3 days this week.  Angels Camp is in the hills and a cool central location to many interesting outings and hikes.  We did something a little different and went as just a family of 3 since Ella was busy with both work and taking a pottery class every day this week.  Getting lots of good quality time with Delia ended up being one of my favorite parts of this little getaway.

We enjoyed lots of tasty food-- like our favorite BBQ brisket, pulled pork and all the fixin's at Griffs and some artisan ice cream at a cute little shop in Murphys.  

We discovered that the Angles Camp theater offers $5 movies one night a week!  We saw the new Thor movie and found it entertaining enough, but far from our favorite Marvel movie.  What we'll remember most is this darling little theater, with its old fashioned neon marque glowing on a lit up downtown street and gold rush murals painted on all the walls inside!

The place we stayed was a summer resort condo complex on a beautiful golf course.  The views of the golden rolling hills from our balcony were spectacular and we saw lots of deer wandering around.  The complex also had multiple pools we could hop around.  Perfect for afternoons where we were coming home from a hike and it was easily soaring over 100 degrees!  

Being in the center of some cool places in the hills had me planning 2 fun outings.  Our first was a brand new hike that's been on my list for years-- Table Mountain.  Here you climb above the tree line and New Melones Reservoir to get the most amazing 360 degree views at the top of a sprawling flat mountain, which we thought had to technically be a mesa.  The hike up is challenging enough with lots of changes in the terrain to be interesting, but not super strenuous.   The whole hike was less than 1000 feet of elevation gain, just under 4 miles, and took about an hour and a half.  Finding the super obscure trail head was an adventure, though!  We'll always remember the extreme off-roading our car had to do and the perfectly timed horse back riders who saved us pointed us in the right direction! 

At the top, the huge vultures flew so close, you could actually hear their wings flapping!

Beautiful views, but kinda scary how low the water in the reservoir is getting!

Now I'll tell you honestly that this wasn't really Delia's favorite part of our getaway.  But, understandably.  Getting to the trail was the craziest, bumpiest road, and she felt a little car sick.  There were NO other people around, which always makes me a little nervous when we hike.  Then we kept running into big piles of poop on our trail that obviously belonged to something wild.  We confirmed with a park ranger later that it was probably bear!  Dave and I thought the hike was super cool and felt good about conquering it, but we had a hard time convincing Delia. ;)

Our second outing was to the ultra-familiar Big Trees State Park.  When we moved here in 2003, this was an outing tackled the day after we arrived!  We had boxes to unpack and work to do, but the adventure of our new state beckoned.  I still remember that thrilling realization, "We LIVE here now!!" as we made the scenic drive up the hills and and took our first hike through the Giant Sequoia grove.  We've been back at least a dozen times in 19 years; Big Trees remaining one of our favorite places.

Our Big Trees adventure ended the way so many in the past have-- with a stop at the roadside burger joint, Giant Burger.  Delia found a special heart-shaped onion ring, which I thought was an appropriate way to close this recap.  All the love for special family time-- to play cards, swim, watch movies, hike, eat delicious food, and talk about big and small things in life.  All the love for beautiful places to explore, new and familiar.  All the love for generous church friends who give us the gift of a break, rest and relaxation, experiences, and time together!