Another world unto itself.....

7:25 am - Sunday - May 29th - Likely, CA - 39° F, humidity 65%, wind 13 mph out of the northwest.....heavy cloud cover today with a forecast high of 55° F....a 30° drop in temp since Tuesday!  On this date in 2017 TLE and I were giving Tim and Laila (son, and daughter-in-law) a tour of our Lake Tahoe......↴

The much needed rain came down most of Friday evening, and into the early morning hours of Saturday, and although it was not raining when we awoke, it was cold, blustery and threatening rain most of the morning.    By about 10 am we decided to just head out to explore Jess Valley, and its two main attractions with Charles and Phyllis.....Mill Creek Falls, and Blue Lake.  We've heard a lot about these two places from locals, but had been saving them to visit for the first time until Charles and Phyllis arrived.  We all bundled up and headed east on Jess Valley Road a little after 10 am.  

First on our list was Mill Creek Campground where the trailhead of Mill Creek Trail resides.  We were told it was about 1.5 miles round trip to the falls, but it was actually .49 miles round trip.  We reached the falls in less than 10 minutes......

....Mill Creek Falls are about 50' in height, and after the overnight rain they were flowing close to their maximum flow rate.

Jess Valley is like another world unto itself, and the views are large.......you can see rain falling in the distance wherever you look, but we would not encounter it until we arrived at Blue Lake....

....after our brief interlude at Mill Creek Falls we drove to the southern end of Jess Valley to find Blue Lake...just as we exited Charles' Ford pickup it began to sprinkle, but we still got some pictures.....

.....Blue Lake is not very large, but one can see the potential for a nice place to escape the coming summer heat on our four day weekends.  The lake sits at about 6,000' elevation, and motorized fishing boats are allowed upon the lake.  We only saw people kayaking on this day.  I admire their fortitude as it began to rain much harder within a few minutes of our arrival.....

.....our final stop for the day was West Valley Reservoir located just a few miles from LPG&RVR.  The reservoir is quite large, and we found a lot of Memorial Day weekenders living off the grid along the shores....

....in spite of the cold temperatures there were people riding jet skis (above), and people in power boats (below) enjoying their time on the lake.....

....by the time we decided to head back to LPG&RVR it was getting quite windy, and colder by the minute.  We were back home by 1:30 pm, and heading for our respective abodes to get warm.

The cool thing about our exploration is the abundance of things to do within a short drive of LPG&RVR.  TLE and I will be planning a few hikes in Jess Valley once we get a trail map, and I can see us kayaking at Blue Lake to escape the summer heat in the near future.

You might remember I mentioned yesterday that I heard TLE and Phyllis talking about a rump roast for dinner Saturday evening, and that is what we got.  Phyllis had it cooking for 23 hours, and did it ever turn out tender, and delicious.....I had seconds.  TLE and Phyllis also provided sides of roasted potatoes and squash (TLE), and two salads.....carrot with feta cheese, and cranberries, and a kale/brussel sprouts/pistachios slaw.  Now, to be fair, I am not a fan of either kale, or brussel sprouts, or even pistachios....in fact I normally avoid them like the plague, but I did not know what was in second salad until after I had taken a few bites, and asked what was in that salad....was I ever surprised....it was quite good!  Of course, there were a couple of bottles of wine consumed during the evening....maybe even 3...Charles pulled out some extremely fine 12, and 16 year old Zinfandel vintages from his 'cellar'.

We had a lovely evening with Charles and Phyllis, bid our evening adieus around 9 pm, and headed for home, and sweet dreams....thanks for stopping by!