Butte Lake/Old Station, CA

May 25, 2009

We returned late last night from a fantastic trip to California to visit Fred's family!

We left last Thursday for what was thought to be a 12 hour car ride to Northern California. We left here around 6:30am and unfortunately hit a big traffic back-up near Portland which caused us to be stopped on the freeway for nearly 45 minutes. Later we learned that a trailer had overturned on I-5 which was the cause for the back-up.

We arrived in Old Station, California around 7:30pm on Thursday evening. To get to Old Station, basically you head southbound on I-5 to Mt. Shasta.

Evan & Erica with Mt. Shasta in the background

Once you pass Mt. Shasta, take a left and drive for approximately 90 minutes and you come to the booming metropolis of Old Station, population 250 (when the campgrounds are full...LOL).

It was great to see Fred's folks and the kids were thrilled to see Granny and Grampa Stanley since it had been nearly a year since we'd seen them last.

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On Friday morning Fred's twin brother, Jon, and his family arrived. They live in Petaluma so it was about a 5 hour drive for them to get to Old Station.

Later that day we drove a short distance to Butte Lake to spend some time on the water going boating, kayaking and swimming.

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We even have some video footage of Erica kayaking with her cousin Jessica, great job for her first time:

On Saturday, Fred & Jon had a golf date so the rest of us headed over to Butte Lake again to do some hiking. We've been hearing about Cinder Cone for years and this was the day for some of us to tackle Cinder Cone.

Evan was gung ho to climb it and promptly went right up with cousins Jessica and Genna. Erica was willing to give it a shot too!

Erica and I managed to make it up to this point to have a view back to Butte Lake in the distance.

Evan, on the other hand, managed to make it to the very top!

Afterwards, we went back to Butte Lake to take a dip in the cold, refreshing water.

When we weren't hanging out at Butte Lake, Evan loved playing Wii tennis at Granny & Grampa's house. That kid really works up a sweat playing that game!

On Sunday morning, we were packed up and ready to head home. We wanted to get a jump start on the Memorial Day Weekend traffic . Erica was wide awake the whole 13 hour trip home.

Evan was exhausted, but happy!