Weekend Round-Up: Taylorsville

Rob and I joined his parents up in Plumas County for a solar cook-off festival this weekend. Rob’s dad has recently taken up solar cooking and has built different types of sun-heated ovens based on his own designs.

Unfortunately, the cook-off turned out to be more of an outdoor music festival. I get the appeal of these sorts of events: hang out with your friends, listen to music, eat international food, drink as much as you like and walk around. Those are basically the benefits of city life. But fun in San Francisco doesn’t involve copious tie-dye, bongos or heatstroke. Not exactly our scene.

The saving grace of the weekend was the lovely location. I’d never been through this gold-rush country between Chico and Reno. Big valleys, clear rivers and cute towns from the turn of the century. We spent most of the day Saturday exploring Taylorsville. They have a great old general store, church, schoolhouse, scenic creek and post office.

After eating our delicious solar-cooked dinner of turkey, stuffing and green beans, we drove out through Genesee to Antelope Lake to do some birdwatching. Very pretty! To bed with a few light summer showers rolling through the sierras.

The next morning, Rob made a second batch of his famous blueberry pancakes for everyone, we packed up camp and drove to Indian Falls. A fun little swimming hole with pretty waterfalls.

From there, we parted ways with Rob’s parents – they’re continuing up to Lassen. The five hour drive went quickly and we got to stop at Ikea on the way. Back at home, we had a nice dinner and prepare for the busy week ahead.