CaseWell Memorial

Casewell Memorial state park is our favorite camping site. This was our fourth visit to this camp site. This park is a little, wild sanctuary in the center of the Great Central Valley of California. This unique park protects one of the last remaining oak-riparian woodlands that once flourished throughout the valley. There will not be even a slight imagination that you will enter a state park while passing through almond farms. The state park entrance gate suddenly shows up out of the blue.

The camp sites are very spacious and there is lot of room for the tents. Since the campground is first-come-first-serve type, going early is recommended to get the right campsite. Most of the campsites are covered with shades from the tree. This campground is usually very hot during the summer. Outdoors recreation is bountiful; some of the enjoyable stuff you can do is relaxing, and swimming, so you won’t get bored. The new entrants in our group hardly slept the first day in tents, but second day everyone slept like a log.

We have been going to the camp grounds for about 8 years now. Every year our groups have been getting bigger and different and every new person that has gone with us all say the same thing it’s a really nice place. The kids love it because the water is so clear, clean and they enjoy going down the river for swim. Showers and bathrooms are now remodeled. We have made this our family campgrounds ever since we did our first camping. The drive for us is very short and I like that. I like to spend more time camping then traveling to get there so this makes it a perfect location. The stores are also very close.

We hope to visit again this park in future a few more times.

Antioch Ranch

This July long weekend, we explored into the Antioch Ranch that is located near the picturesque coastal village of Mendocino. We stayed in Hammer Head cottage and used the South West cottage only for add up, as each cottage allowed only 8 people. The Ranch featured 20 acres of Redwoods, rolling hills, and orchards. The cottages were nestled amongst beautiful towering redwood trees. The firewood was available in abundance for the barbeque.

The cottage had a great deck with a great view for the morning visit by deer’s. The cottages were free from high speed internet, telephone access, satellite TV. This made us free from the tiring working world. Everyday evening we did barbeque outside the cottage and one day was visited by a strange animal which had been speculated as dog or mountain loin or a large cat.

We had a wonderful outing here as there was a great appreciation for silence. During our stay at Antioch ranch, we explored the Mendocino downtown, the beautiful beach close to the downtown, glass beach close to Fort Bragg, hiked to the 6 mile (roundtrip) uphill Russian gulch state park water falls. There were 7 kids in our group ranging from 2 to 10 years and all of them completed the hike successfully.

This is a very nice place to get away from the speed of city life to relax, enjoy the beauty of redwood trees.