Perseids, Camping Castle Lake and a quick swim in Lake Siskiyou

Being in the middle of nowhere means that the skies are pretty dark around here, which in turn means that it is possible to do some great star gazing. Given that the Perseid Meteor Shower was this weekend, I decided to head up to Castle Lake for a little camping trip. Castle Lake is a very pristine small mountain lake surrounded by forest. The waters are generally (I've never seen them otherwise at least) crystal clear since they are made up of snow-melt from the surrounding hills and spend much of their lifetime frozen. The whole thing just feels clean. Here's the wiki link for the pathologically curious http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Lake_(California). It is gorgeous up there and one of my favorite get aways.

The camping part of the trip was pretty much a Rorschach test to determine whether you are a pessimist or an optimist. My first mistake was trying to use J's ginormous tent and set it up by myself. I figured his tent would be much better than my puny little one-person deal since the entire upper portion consists of mosquito netting, so you can sit in there bug free and enjoy the views. That's all fine and dandy in theory, but when you combine a weakling like myself with two GIANT poles and enough fabric to clothe at least 3 Walmart shoppers (i.e., a lot), much slapstick ensues. I kid you not, it was all very Laurel and Hardy-esque. Then, ignoring all the laws of physics, I had the brilliant idea to take the bike out of the back of the truck and try to rig the tent in there by attaching the uppermost point to the roof of the truck. The rest was supposed to just fall into place. Magically. It didn't... at all. Soo, I set up my tiny tent, which takes about 5 minutes, and fits me and a few choice belongings perfectly, but alas has only one small mosquito net window in the top and another on the side.

As you can *maybe* see, I put a super tiny dog in there to trick you into thinking that I have a tent that humans can fit in. Clever, I know.

After giving said tiny dog her insulin, we both settled down to dinner and watched the sunset. Unfortunately, the meteor shower coincided with a full moon, so I figured I would read and listen to some music and such for a bit. Then I had the bright idea to take a nap until the moon set figuring that I would naturally wake up in a few hours as per the usual when camping. Well, I did wake up but the moon was now in the middle of the sky and I was still quite tired so back to sleep I went. Next time I opened my eyes it was to see a translucent yellow glow in the

sky and the sun just rising. Damn! I did catch one meteor through the top window of my tent, but that was all. I can attest from past experiences, however, that the meteor showers in this area are breathtaking.

Next day, or rather later late day, I went for a brief dip in Lake Siskiyou (about 7 miles down the road from Castle Lake and on my way home). Apparently, the Buddhist nuns from the abbey were having a retreat there or something since they were all over the place and one of them had waded into the lake, habit and all, to help a slightly crippled dog swim. I think Buddhism is the shit, fyi. Unfortunately, I could only take a quick dip since it's impossible to do anything without the dog freaking out, but I shall return. It is only like 15 mins from my house after all.

In the end and despite everything that went wrong, I had a good time and it was nice to get out and enjoy what surrounds me for the time being. These are the things I will miss about this place.