How to Just Be in Graeagle

About a month ago, I hit a bit of a breaking point. The kids were home for the summer, and I’d been running myself ragged, trying to keep up with social media for the Blogging Betties Podcast. Unfortunately, as we all know, there’s no such thing as keeping up with social media. It’s like the mail. It never stops.

Which is why I was going insane.

It was at this time that we had the chance to bug out of town for a few days. The first plan was San Francisco. I love San Francisco — we almost moved there 16 years ago (dear lord we’re old). The plan was to do Alcatraz, tour China Town, maybe run around the museums in Golden Gate Park. But this was clearly going to be a working vacation. You know the type — you get up, have to forage for breakfast, figure out when ferries are leaving, and get the “right” tickets to places. Not to mention, I’d still be tethered to my computer.

What I really wanted — what I really needed — was to just go somewhere and be. I wanted to wake up in the morning and drink my coffee outside while looking at some lovely, calming view. I wanted to play games with the kids and read out-loud at night. I wanted to just…hang.

In a word, I wanted Almanor.

If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you know about Lake Almanor. It’s where my parents had a little cabin that overlooked the water. My mom and dad spent all summer up there until my mom passed away. After that, my aunt, cousins, husband, and kids sort of took it over. It was a simple little place with a cute store up the road that sold ice cream. We’d go out on the boat and swim off the dock. The kids would climb rocks and try to catch squirrels. We’d play games, read books out-loud at night, and I’d drink my coffee on the deck overlooking the lake. And we would all just…hang.

But then my cousin died. He drowned, in a horrible boating accident, right there by our little house. And we never went back.

The problem was, I missed everything that came with being at the lake. And after burning myself out all summer, I knew that was exactly what I needed. So we blew off San Francisco and found what turned out to be just perfect — a place only an hour or so from Reno in Graeagle, California, called the Chalet View Lodge. To some extent, we feel incredibly stupid for never going up there until now — it’s easily become one of our favorite vacation places for kids in Northern California.

I got to do everything on my list of nothingness, with the exception of gazing out over a lake. At least there was an adorable pond where the kids could row a boat all by themselves.

Between that and the 3-par golf course, swimming pool, and nearby horseback riding, we never ran out of things to do.

And they’re pet friendly! The owner had a little black dog who roamed the place, like an assistant caretaker. We took our dog, Jasper, who ran around, jumped in the pond, and chased frogs.

We even got to take him to dinner and breakfast with us on the terrace.

The Chalet Lodge has a variety of rooms, but we rented one of the cabins, and it was the perfect size — two little bedrooms upstairs, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a livingroom. Like a very upscale version of Little House on the Prairie (that is, without a outhouse or water pump and with a leather couch and a flatscreen TV that we never turned on). And while they had internet, it was juuuuust spotty enough for me to have an excuse not to use it.

The kids played cards, didn’t set eyes on the iPad for the first time all summer, and learned to make balloon animals.

And me? I finally got my cup of coffee out on the patio.

We may end up back at Almanor some day. It’ll be two years this September 15th that we lost Logan, and who knows. Maybe we’ll feel differently after more time passes.

But at least I’ve found a good place until then just to be.

 

Do you have a place where you can just be?

By the way, if you want to learn how to make a cool gallery page with a bunch of your photos in it like this, check out the easy tutorial at Blogging Betties.