May 16, 2013

Acorn Campground

New Hogan Lake,

Valley Springs, CA

We woke up to rain and temps in the 60’s.  I had enough of a WiFi signal to do a quick search of libraries in the area before it fizzles out completely.

I discovered there is a library in Valley Springs but it wasn’t going to open until 1pm so I called the library in San Andreas only miles away to inquire about their WiFi.  The librarian informed me they don’t open until 12pm but was nice enough to give me the password and said I would be able to access the WiFi from the parking lot.  Well already then!

We packed up our laptops and set out making one detour.  We drove to the Oak Knoll campground just down the road from our campground.  It is actually part of the same campground system.  The only real difference is at Acorn there are flush toilets and showers whereas at Oak Knoll there are only vault toilets.  (The rate for Oak Knoll is $14/night-$7/night with the senior pass.  At Acorn we are paying $8/night with the senior pass and $10/night on Friday and Saturday.) 

Our thinking was that since we had to move out of our site on Friday afternoon, if we were to find something at Oak Knoll we liked we could move there and not bother to move back to site 131 on Sunday as planned.

 

 

 

 

After taking a drive through the campground we decided we would stick with our original plan and move to site 130 on Friday returning to site 131 on Sunday.  Oak Knoll is nice enough but the sites are further from the water and the beautiful geese leave behind undesirable evidence of their presence-all over the place. 

 

Because of our detour checking out Oak Knoll we arrived at the library a couple of minutes after it opened.  Both Monte and I were quite impressed with the facility. 

 

 

 

 

 

There were several tables and chairs with power receptacles underneath the table. 

 

 

 

 

 

  

We plugged in our laptops and within minutes were getting caught up on e-mails, researching and posting several days worth of pictures and blogs. 

 

 

 

  

The San Andreas Library is only one of several in Calaveras County.   Calaveras County is the setting for Mark Twain’s first great successful story, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.

 

I didn’t realize how much time had elapsed while we were in the library until my stomach started growling.  I looked at the time on my cell phone and was surprised to see it was 4pm.  Before leaving the library, I picked out 4 paperback books, with permission of the librarian, that are on the honor system and do not need to be checked out.  I know I won’t read all 4 books by the time of our next planned visit to the library next Wednesday, but I have several books that I have read and will donate to the library in exchange.

I remembered passing a pizza place on our way to the library.  We were quite hungry by this time so we decided to eat dinner there. 

 While we were waiting for the pizza to be delivered to our table, we thumbed through a local paper and saw an advertisement for the Calaveras County Fair featuring a jumping frog jubilee.  It had started today and would run through Sunday.  We may have to check it out on Sunday when the final frog jumping competition will be held.

   The pizza was excellent.  Before leaving town, we took a ride up and down a few blocks. 

We made one detour to Mar-Val, the local supermarket in Valley Springs for a gallon of milk.  We ended up with half a cart full of groceries.

 

 

 

 

By the time we returned to the campground, the sun was shining and it had warmed up enough to sit outside without a jacket.  Even though it had rained most of the day our batteries charged 100%.