Monday Day Two at Waldo

 Monday morning it was still cloudy and windy.

I decided to drive to Crescent to get ice.  I'd frozen water bottles for ice to keep things in my ice chest cold and they were mostly melted already.

Its not far to Crescent from the turnoff to Waldo Lake.  Waldo is higher elevation than Crescent and up a few miles off highway 58.   

On the drive down to highway 58 from Waldo, I got the usual look at Diamond Peak.

And driving up from the campground to the road down, all these beautiful white flowers.

After I turn east from the Waldo Lake turnoff onto 58, I next pass Odell lake on the south side of the highway.   Its a huge lake with multiple campgrounds and allows motor boats.  There's a resort at one end too.    About 9 miles on from Odell is Crescent.   And Crescent Lake which is beautiful but all their campgrounds are often full of trailers and RV's with loud generators going.  Not a tent or car camper friendly place to camp so much unless you are deaf.  I like to go to the south end of Crescent day use area.  It's beautiful.  I launch from there.

There's a store in Crescent by the turnoff to the lake, there at the gas station.  They have an ice shed.   I went inside to purchase the ice and then out to the shed to get it.  I'm always leery of ice sheds.  What if the door closes behind me when I go in and I can't get out!!  Most have releases from inside, so my ice shed fears are largely stupid.

I had waited on the way to Crescent at a construction zone.   On the way back, I saw the line up of cars ahead, waiting for the westbound traffic's turn to go through and decided to detour off and take the narrow gravel road to check out Gold Lake and its campground.

I didn't know how far it was to the campground.   The road was gravel/dirt, narrow and rutted, washboards in spots, but the scenery was beautiful along the route in.  The campground was beautiful, too.  Many expansive campsites right next to the small lake.  I saw only two occupied by campers besides the camp host. The campground was divided in two by the day use area and a small bridge across a creek by the boat ramp.

I sat in the construction zone back up for awhile and took this photo of Diamond Peak.

Once I got back up to Waldo, the weather had improved and I went out on my kayak.  I paddled across the lake to the south west side burn zone and paddled along the shore there to see the changes since last year.   There were signs of life in spots.

When I got back I amused myself tossing peanuts to gray jays.  

I don't know what these two were up to

Evening campfire.
Anytime at the campsite, morning or evening, best to be covered to ward off mosquitos.  Socks, long pants, long sleeves, but I forgot my hoodie, which is good protection for head and neck.   I got a few bites.