Beer Drink'n Fun

On Rob's most excellent suggestion we drive to the lower mountains to visit New Melones Reservoir on the Stanislaus River in the California Central Valley, or about 60 miles upstream from the river's confluence with the San Joaquin River. This point forms the border between Calaveras County and Tuolumne County, home of Yosemite. It is about 30 miles or so from our cabin. The reservoir is huge - 2,400,000 acre-foot capacity - making it California's third largest. The stoppage was formed by the New Melones Dam, which was completed in '78 and built by the US Bureau of Reclamation for flood control and, of course, water skiing or tubing. I learn that the lake's depth is about 1,080 feet and now, thanks to the drought, is 100 feet below normal. It feeds the San Joaquin valley, the world's most productive agricultural land and without H-2-O a desert. We rent two boats for skiing and beer-drinking while the kiddies swim, jump and ride the day away. By the afternoon everybody beat-red (despite 50 sun-block) and happily exhausted. Sonnet stands up on her first pair of water skies and has the thrill of her life time... after me, of course. We agree: our white trash day a huge success.