Author: joeldmeyers

For our crew, one of the most-anticipated activities of the year was going tent camping on Ski Island on Lake Shasta. We heard about this some time ago, and we’d explored Ski Island a couple of time during day trips on the lake. Actually putting our tent and camping gear into the boat and spending a night out there surpased some pretty high expectations from our boys!

In our explorations on Ski Island, we found around 30 campsites sprinkled around the island. Each had a picnic table, a fire ring, and a level spot for a tent. There were also a half-dozen vault toilets installed around the island as well. There is no cost associated with staying here, no reservation system, and no amenities besides those mentioned above. In our case, there were also no other campers on the island — we had the whole thing to ourselves!

An aspect of the super high expectations around this particular camping trip was the need to wait to make it happen. Given how warm it can be in our region (119 at one point this summer!), we knew that trying to tent camp in summer was unlikely to be a fun experience. We went the first weekend of October, when the afternoons were not so hot and the days no quite so long. An implication of making this adventure happen during the fall was that we were in competition with the boys’ soccer games, so we didn’t get away until after lunch on Saturday.

We launched at Centimudi boat ramp, which is our favorite Lake Shasta boat launch area. It’s right by the dam, and it’s a shorter drive for us than other ramps. That did mean that we had a 20-minute boat ride over to Ski Island which is up the Pit River arm of Lake Shasta. We love being out on our boat, so this boat ride was not a problem! Some of our gear started to blow away, so Joshua took one for the team and laid down on it to keep it there!

We parked out boat on the west side of Ski Island, where there is a gradual slope up to the trees and campsites. I use two anchors, one off the stern in the deeper water and another off the bow on shore, to keep our boat just a few feet from the shore so it doesn’t get dirty or ding up by the mud and rocks on shore. Hiking up to the campsite from there took us several trips to get all of our gear and supplies up. This was not everyone’s favorite part of the trip, but it was necessary, and it was not too bad. We were thankful that the water level wasn’t any lower!

Since we’d been there scouting before, we knew about a particular campsite that was really close to where we parked the boat, had great views, two picnic tables (not just one), and plenty of space for our tent and other things. We setup our tent and all of our camping stuff there.

After getting our camping stuff setup, we did a camping dinner including hotdogs and pasta salad. After dinner when the sun had set, we did a campfire and made s’mores. Ayla had a little bit of a hard time going to bed, so Kristen stayed in the tent with her.

The next morning, we did up breakfast burritos, including scrambled eggs, sausage, and hashbrowns. Kristen had gotten some apple cider donuts too. It was a delicious feast!

After breakfast, we enjoyed hiking around on Ski Island. We went down by the water and threw some rocks into the water too, which was fun.

As it got warmer, we did some tubing out on the water in the late morning.

After water sports, we went back to camp and packed up to head home. With a successful one-night initial foray into this kind of adventure, we look forward to doing a two-night stay in the future. That would make it more worth the time and effort of getting packed up and setting up camp. But even just one night was great and we would do it again!

More about Ski Island and camping on Lake Shasta

Lake Shasta has four boat-in camping opportunities, and Ski Island is one of those. That’s the one that we picked to explore and ultimately to have as our destination for camping. We might check out the others, but we’re all pretty excited about this one.

Here is an aerial shot of Ski Island. I’ve overlaid some of our explorations (colored lines are our tracks) and marked all the campsites that we found with waypoints (red “pins”). For the most part, we stayed on trails that exist already on the island, or we roamed around on the exposed dirt that would be covered by water if the lake were full.

Here are views of a couple of other campsites, and what one of the vault toilets look like as well:

If you go camping on Ski Island, make sure that you bring everything that you need, including water. There is no running water on the island. Whatever you pack in, please pack it out with you when you leave. Let’s keep this amazing camping experience nice for everyone to share and use!

In the future, we might try to go in the spring before the weather gets too hot, rather than coming in the fall after the heat of the summer is over. We think that the lake would be more full before summer, and that could make for less work to haul our stuff up from the boat to the campsites.

Several years ago, we figured out that a best friend of Kristen and I had a milestone birthday coming up this year (2024) just 3 days apart from each other. We decided that we should plan a wine tasting trip to Napa and Sonoma together to celebrate! After a lot for planning, that trip finally came to fruition!

We just wrapped up a wonderful 3 days of wine tasting together. Here is a rundown of what we did, how we did it, and our thoughts about each part of our trip. Overall, we do recommend this kind of trip if wine tasting and pleasant weather are something that you enjoy!

We did find out that it’s important to book reservations for accommodations, wine tasting, and dinners well in advance. We booked the Airbnb more than a year ago, and we booked most of the wine tasting and dinner reservations several months ago.

Accommodations: Airbnb house near downtown Napa. It was a quick jaunt of less than a half mile to the few places that we visited in Napa. We would stay in the same place.

Day 1: North Napa Valley

Stop 1: Sterling Vineyard.

What we did: Wine tasting on self-guided walking tour.

Highlight: Gondola ride; great views

Wine quality: not that great

Recommendation: Do it once for the gondola rides and the views – it’s totally worth it, even though the wine wasn’t amazing.

Stop 2: Bennett Lane Winery

What we did: We’re wine club members here, so we did an extra long tasting beyond what is offered to typical guests

Highlight: great wine, quite a few different wines, awesome outdoor space where picnic food is welcome, staff that are friendly and welcoming

Wine quality: we really like every wine that we’ve tried here

Recommendation: Do it.

Day 2: More Napa Valley

Stop 1: Silver Oak

What we did: The Silver Tour

Highlight: Getting to see behind the scenes about bringing in grapes, processing grapes, and storing grapes.

Wine quality: Really good wine. It’s all Cabernet Sauvignon.

Other note: Our Tour Guide was very nice and very knowledgeable, but she was also very hard to follow. She told a lot of personal stories, but sometimes they would get jumbled together and we weren’t sure what she was talking about. This detracted from the experience a bit, but it was still a fun time.

Recommendation: Do it.

Stop 2: Barnett

What we did: The Tasting Experience

Highlight: This place is up very high outside of St. Helena, and it has truly stunning views back into some northern parts of Napa Valley. Also, the person who was engaged with us for our wine tasting was working with just us and one other couple, so he was very attentive in a good and pleasant way.

Wine quality: This had absolutely wonderful wine, and a good variety of wine too.

Other note: This was the most expensive tasting that we did on this trip.

Recommendation: Do it once. Given the cost, we probably won’t do it again, but we’re really glad we did it and wouldn’t change that at all for this weekend.

Day 3: Sonoma Valley

Stop 1: St. Francis

What we did: Wine and Food Pairing

Highlight: This was a 5-course meal for lunch, each course paired with a different wine. The chef started with the set of wines, and then concocted a menu of food that would go with that wine really fun. The food was great and the experience was delightful. We learned more about effective pairing, and will use some of those learnings at home!

Wine quality: We enjoyed the wine a lot! Good wine, good variety, and having it paired with food helped make the wine that much better!

Recommendation: Do it. They change up parts of the menu frequently, so this is the kind of thing that could easily be repeated because it will be different every time.

Stop 2: Deerfield

What we did: Wine Tasting

Highlight: There were two parts of this that were unique: 1) The wine tasting was deep in a cave, which was really fun. 2) This place uses some different approaches to making wine that result in “Clean Wine” that doesn’t need sulfites added, resulting in their wine working for people who are otherwise allergic to red wine.

Wine quality: The wine was pretty good. I wouldn’t go out of my way to find it, but I enjoyed drinking it. They had a Pinot Noir that we didn’t prefer, but we’re accustomed to very good Pinot’s from the Willamette Valley.

Other note: the price was right – this tasting was on the cheaper end. Also, it’s a much more low-key operation. The owner and wine maker was there and came to talk with us for a while, which we appreciated.

Recommendation: If you’ve got an open spot on your itinerary, this would be an OK one to add, but don’t build your plans to make this one work.

Stop 3: Loxton

What we did: Wine Tasting

Highlight: This was the smallest and most-chill operation that we went to, which we really liked. The staff person was super friendly and transparent and the owner was there too and chatted with us. We got to see various steps in the process of wine making, including a small vat of grapes that had just been brought in — and we even got to try a sample of a grape right out of the vat!

Wine quality: We really liked the wine here. Chris Loxton makes great wine.

Other note: This was the cheapest tasting that we found ($20/person), and they will wave a tasting fee if you buy 1 bottle of wine. Also, the price of the wine was very reasonable. It was a rare find to have such good wine, at such a great price point, and a fun experience.

Recommendation: Highly recommend that you do!

For Labor Day when this year, we joined up with my family and enjoyed three days packed with all kinds of fun on the water at Green Peter. Kristen and I bought a used boat in August, which we used for water sports, and my Dad had his boat out for the weekend as the fishing vessel.

A highlight for me was getting to watch our kids enjoying the tube with their aunts and uncles.

In addition to tubing, we also had some skiing and kneeboarding happening too!

Sarah got up on slalom ski for the first time!

Joshua got started on the journey of learning to ski as well!

Elliott and Joshua both gave kneeboarding a try!

We had a little competition between Aaron and Joel to see who could stay on the longest… and against Avery (who was driving the boat) to see if he could buck one of us off.

It was also fun to just do some boating!

The fishing crew!

Isaac sure continued to have fun! He even got some one-on-one tubing time with his mom and dad!

But, we sure wore him out. Falling asleep while on the tube is a new precedent for us for “able to fall asleep anywhere!”

Less than 2 hours after we left, the wind direction changed and smoke poured in. We were thankful to have this last bit of summer before the terrible wildfires hit Oregon.

Just before all this craziness happened with the coronavirus pandemic, Kristen and I got to do a trip to Disney World! It had been on our bucket list to do together for a long time. I had a training for work to do in south Florida, so we decided to make the Disney trip happen!

I went and did the work training Monday, Tuesday, and half of Wednesday. Kristen dropped the kids off at my parents’ house late on Tuesday, and then she caught a flight over early on Wednesday. When the training ended around noon on Wednesday, I rented a car and drive up to Orlando from the Fort Meyers area.

Upon arriving in Orlando, I did grocery shopping for our basic food needs before turning in the rental car, and then headed to our hotel. Kristen and I arrived within about 5 minutes of each other at the hotel, which was amazing timing!

Our original plan was to do 4 days in Disney (Thursday-Sunday). We were able to add two more days on for very minimal additional cost, so we got to spend a little time in the park on Wednesday afternoon after arriving as well as on Monday morning before leaving.

Shortly after we got home, the pandemic response massively accelerated, and by the following weekend, Disney World was closed! We are so thankful that our trip happened before everything closed down.

Day 1: Magic Kingdom

Highlights: Being there! Fireworks!

Morning of Day 2: Hollywood Studios

Highlights: Star Wars land, riding the Smugglers Run ride, getting to talk to Stormtroopers in the street, riding the Rise of the Resistance ride (limited/lottery access)

Afternoon of Day 2: EPCOT

Highlights: the food from all over the world, the fun flower bush character sculptures, the fun international architecture

Morning of Day 3: Magic Kingdom

Highlights: seeing more of the Florida take on many of the classic rides we love in Disneyworld

Afternoon of Day 3: Animal Kingdom

Highlights: the Tree of Life, the animals, Pandora, a fun burger/ice cream buffet dinner, and an enjoyable water & light show

Morning of Day 4: Animal Kingdom

Highlights: Flight of Passage and Navi River journey rides in Pandora, safari animals, the Lion King show

Afternoon Day 4: EPCOT

Highlights: more fun food

Drawbacks: crowds and cold/windy weather! We headed back to the hotel and rested rather than staying to closing time.

Entire Day 5: Magic Kingdom

Highlights: early park entry for Breakfast in Beast’s castle (so no crowds), being in Magic Kingdom one last time. This was the only full day where we didn’t park hop.

Morning of Day 6: Hollywood Studios

Highlights: getting lucky with the lottery and getting to do Rise of the Resistance a second time! We also rode the recently-opened Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway

By late morning, it was time to leave and head back to the hotel, catch the shuttle to the airport, and start the trek home. We used airlines miles, so we had decided to use a few extra miles to do First Class so we could sleep some and enjoy the trip home a little more. That was very nice!

I decided it was long past time to dust off the camera and get outside this morning to take some pictures. Since quarantine started in March with the coronavirus pandemic, I haven’t really taken any pictures other that some family shots. I was feeling it!

I got up around sunrise and drove over to the nearby Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge. As expected at that early hour, there was almost no one else there, but there were plenty of birds (mostly Canadian Geese) and flowers to be seen! I also saw a deer.

Bonus – it’s close enough that I made it home just before the kids got up, so they didn’t even know I was gone! Since Kristen is primary parent when I’m working during the week, is really important for me to take point on the kids as much as practical during the weekends so she can have a break! I’m thankful for places to go nearby that make it possible for me to get out before they get up, at least the time of year without better weather and earlier sunrises.