After a particularly stressful week, we took a well-deserved vacation and decided to make a quick trip to Glory Hole Recreation Area in nearby Angels Camp. We packed up our teardrop, Green Bean and headed out of town for a two-night trip. We were joined at the last minute by Lisa’s sister and bro-in-law, Beth and Robert and our niece, Sara, her husband, Wes, and their three chitlens, Wyatt, Hunter and Allie.

Getting stung by a scorpion and visiting Glory Hole after the photo gallery.

New Melones Lake (reservoir) has the best skipping stones that I’ve encountered anywhere. I’ve never been a champion skipper, but this the rocks in this location had me setting personal bests again and again. Often the thrown stone would split in half and both stones would continue on, easily skipping another 7 or 8 hops.

The highlight of the weekend, at least for me, was a side trip to the Natural Bridge trailhead. After a 1 mile downhill hike, we were treated to a large cavern, out of which a stream emerges. We walked into the stream and came upon a beautiful cave with colorful features including stalactites and stalagmites. The price of admission (free) was well worth it.

The weekend wasn’t without its low points though. While walking back from Wes and Sara’s camp, I was stung by a scorpion for the first and probably only time in my life. This little bugger crawled up my jeans and got me four times from my calf to my upper thigh. I had no idea what had happened except that it felt like a bee sting but worse.  I later found the liittle guyin my bed, near-dead but still twitching. These California brown scorpions in the lowlands around here don’t tend to have enough venom to do much damage, and later I’m sure I’ll look on this as a story to tell my grandchildren. I still have him today in a spice jar in the back of Green Bean.