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Lake Piru, oh how we hated thee.

Okay, so in all honesty it’s not the lakes fault that the weekend we went out there, ended up being a record heat wave in triple digits every single day, or that we spent about half of the time there in the local emergency room.  However I’m still going to say it’s the lamest campsite I could possible envision, at least for anyone into actually “camping”.

Instead of a huge write up into the details of the weekend’s adventure (kidney infections et al), I’ll just hit some of the quick bullets on why Lake Piru itself, sucks.

1) SMALL SMALL SMALL campsites, with NO barrier or space between each other.  The ground area you get to work with is even more confined due to slopes and tree stumps caused from it being planned out in an olive tree grove.  We got the largest site possible and we found it just the right size for our setup, which I don’t really think is all that overwhelming.  Some of these sites were unable to fit little more than a two person tent and a fold out chair!

2) Party camping, which I guess is all fine and well for some folks, is the theme there.  We on the other hand, like to enjoy the outdoors and relax in a calm environment.  Despite this being what we thought was the typical “camping” experience, or at least what I thought was, it appears nearly all of the campers at Lake Piru have a TV, Xbox or playstation, and several 36 packs of Bud Lite packed as the core of their gear.  When not out on the lake in obnoxiously decorated, “no fear” sticker covered boats, getting sunburned and drunk … most “campers” found solice in their areas, trying to out volume the areas to either side, and discuss the finer points of Coors Vs Bud.

3) HOT.  And yes, it was a heatwave and that has nothing to do with the actual area we were at, however… One would think a campsite designed and operated in an Olive tree grove would potentially offer some resemblence of shade.  Of course, one would have thought wrong.  Trees are pretty far apart in most cases, and pretty thin at the tops as well.  This all means the sun can not easily be escaped.

4) Swimming area.  Exactly 4 square feet of the lake.  And I’m most likely exagerating that figure.  Out of the entire lake, which was sizeable I guess, there is the smallest roped off area you could imagine for “swimming”.  The entire bottom of this area is covered in rough, uneven, algae covered (slippery) rocks, while the top of the water is coated in a thick blanket of wood/vegetation debris which sticks to your body as you go in or out of the water.  The whole thing just makes you feel like you’re somehow in a sequel to Cabin Fever.  After the several minutes of treacherous walking across the slip and slide rocks below you, to an area rumored to be even and soft, yet only waist deep at best for grown adult, the fun begins.  Standing and watching the boats enjoy the actual lake you are not allowed into, at high speed because there’s so much area for such few of them.

All in all, we could only find 1 positive out of the area.  Free showers.  Yep.  Thats the biggest bonus this place offers.

Hazen specifically LOVES to hike and explore.  So one quick lesson was make sure he’s not trying to on his own.  The main part of the gear we brought along to try and keep the boys contained, was an X-pen.  We thought this might be the thing to do the trick from the get-go, as long as we also kept the leashes clipped to it since it’s not that tall and Mike has repeatedly shown he can jump from a stand still, to a person’s shoulder.

The sweet smell of freedom!

As great as a product X-pen is, it just wasn’t enough space to really let the boys move around, and without putting thin stakes into the very dense ground (nearly impossible), it would just fall over if they leaned on it too much.  So, our next trip will be with nice tie-down stakes for the dogs.  This should give them plenty of room to move around on a good sized leash, and still keep them very well secured to one small area.   Oh, and another good lesson was that the boys want their OWN chair for the next trip!

It’s so … dirty out here.

So, a great weekend that went by way too fast is behind us.  Did we have a great time? You betcha!  Did we get a good test of all of our gear?  Beyond a doubt!  Did we realize a few things we could tweak for improvements?  Oh heck yeah!

First off I just want to say that it was SO great to get back to the outdoors and do some camping.  It’s been FAR too long since I’ve been out and that relaxed and, I have to admit I honestly thing I enjoyed it 1000% more than I used to (which was already quite a bit)!   Gena and I both got more relaxing sleep at night, despite the partying college kids a few sites over the first night, and the late night Russian duo setting up the second night.  The dogs seemed to enjoy the outdoors and were pretty stimulated by being out of their normal settings, and were content with discovering every new inch of the place.  The kids?  Oh yeah, they were there too.  Everyone had a great time and we loved everything except for the coming home portion of the weekend.  About and hour or so was set aside to debate the pros and cons of calling in “sick” for the next 2 days of work!

The gear performed great, with a few exceptions.  We quickly learned that some of the items we thought we needed, or needed alot of, didn’t really pan out as all that useful.  We also realized that a few things we (ok, me) had doubted, came out to be pretty dang nifty out in the field.  Pie Irons ftw.  I’ll cover things more specifically in some individual posts in the “Our Gear” category as the week progresses and I get some pics to pair up with my thoughts.

One thing I think everyone can declare approval for was the large tents we ended up using.  So much space, there was never a need to crouch when getting changed, or moving items around to make room to stand somewhere.  It was great being able to keep the large dog cage in our tent with us, and barely having it intrude on our living space.  The kids enjoyed being able to sleep all 3 in a tent, with ample room to move around too.  While it’s not an RV setup quite yet, the ample room meant we were pretty comfortable, and could have remained that way for quite a long time if work schedules and supplies permitted.

We’re leaving the cars pretty well packed with the non-perisable supplies, and already discussing our return to Cachuma in 2 weeks.   While site 311 was a winner in our books all around, we’re going to aim for another site next trip, to get a bit different of a view.  Before then, expect many updates here on specifics, and oh yeah … TONS of photos!