Deer Creek

This weekend, Dave and I really wanted to get away on a little "vacation." At this point, I suppose it was more of a need than a want. But where do you go for a change of scene when you can barely afford gas as it is?

We drove up the canyon a little ways and reached a lovely reservoir called Deer Creek. Mostly, this is a great place for water sports, and people with boats, and we most certainly do not have a boat or a jetski or anything. But we figured that it was the closest thing to "the beach" as we were going to get. We explored the area, looking for a good place to set up our blanket and get ready for a swim. Mostly, we found steep, rocky beaches. We tried another part of the reservoir and saw a wonderful little cove with a private dock donned with "no parking" signs, but this wasn't a very good spot to set up camp either. Eventually we found an actual beach, and although there was already a family hanging out there, Dave and I set up our stuff a little ways away from them and got ready to get in the water.

It felt cold at first, but not too intolerable to swim. Once we grew used to the temperature, we thought the water was perfect. We swam around the shore (wearing water moccasins to protect our feet) and followed the rocky edge to the little cove we had found earlier. The water was nice and warm here. We decided to climb onto the dock and lay in the sun for a while, staying until we'd almost entirely dried off. We swam back to the beach after that, passing a kind of reservoir "coast guard" boat with a policeman in it. He watched us but didn't say or do anything. Once we reached our blanket again, we walked back to our car to fetch our cooler so we could eat lunch. As we passed the cove from the land, we noticed that the policeman's ship was parked by the dock where we'd been lying in the sun. He had missed us "trespassing" on his private dock by a matter of minutes...I'm glad we left it when we did :)

We ate and then returned to the water with one of those blow-up rafts you're supposed to use in a swimming pool. We floated around for a while longer and then started to get tired, ready to head home.

The unfortunate side-effect of staying in the sun too long hit us after we got home: we had both managed to get pretty nasty sunburns despite our efforts to put on sunscreen. We had a great time anyway, and felt at least a little more ready to face another week after our mini vacation.