Donner Memorial, SP, California

The trip out from our campsite at Folsom Lake was much easier than the way in, at night. We drove back to Auburn and looked around old town and downtown. Dawn found some nice old books at one of the stores.

We then headed over to Grass Valley on Highway 49 for lunch at Cousin Jack's Pasties shop. Ummm, good! We did some grocery shopping at Safeway there as well. Then we were off toward Donner Lake on highway 20. We stopped and looked around one of the campgrounds but there weren't any level spots so we continued on.


At Donner Memorial SP, we found a great spot with a view of the sky, one of only a couple there. There were several chipmunks scampering about.

Our campsite was right next to a small lake to the South of the park, not Donner Lake. There was a lot of noise due to being located between the freeway and the railroad tracks but really a nice spot. There was a nice nature trail heading from the campground to the Donner Memorial. It passed through some nice wetlands and along a stream. We looked through the memorial learning all about the Donner party. A distant relative from my mothers side and his wife were in the party and survived. Their daughter didn't. He went on to San Jose and became the sheriff. Dawn is quite interested in history and discovers these things.

After our museum and memorial visit, we headed off to Reno.