Thursday: We moved South a few miles to the Bidwell Canyon Campground at Lake Oroville State Recreation Area. It's about 8 miles East of the city of Oroville. You might realize from the campground name that the name Bidwell is rather important in this area as well as in Chico. General Bidwell was on the first wagon train to California, worked for John Sutter and later bought the Rancho de Arroyo Chico. He got the money to buy the ranch from a discovery of gold just across the lake from our camp. He was instrumental in establishing many crops that are now common in California.
There are only a half dozen or so RV's here in the campground. It has full hookups and the weather is great so we'll be here at least four days possibly moving out on Monday. They have a wonderful greeting committee. A pair of ducks came into our camp immediately and introduced themselves.
On the way here we stopped in Oroville to get gas. When we left a week ago, gas in Palo Alto was about $3.89 for regular. When I visited there a couple of days ago it was $4.03 for regular. That was a steep increase. Must be near vacation season? Anyway, the price at the 76 station we stopped at was $3.77, but, the attendant said fill up quickly, it's going up again. At the Chevron station just down the road it was $3.99. We usually expect higher prices when we are away from the big city but so far it isn't toooo bad.
We're just relaxing in camp today. Lou''s going through her Ebay acquisition of the china paints, Kenzie's knitting. I'm browsing.
Above is a view of our camp from the dry portion of the lake. Water is down a hundred feet so the tree line is well away from the water line. Our campsite is just behind the trees in the middle of the left picture. The Bidwell Marina is below our campsite, down the steep sides of the bare hills.
Friday: We toured the Bolt Tool Museum and the Chinese Temple. It's named after the founder Bud Bolt and has nothing to do with bolts and everything to do with hand tools. And excellent museum.
Lunch at the Gold Country Casino. They have an outstanding buffet.
We also took a driving tour of the Oroville Dam and visited the State Park Visitors center. Oroville Dam is the tallest earthen dam in the United States, about 754 feet tall.
Saturday: We returned to the Bolt Tool Museum in Oroville today. They had a special presentation on the Dust Bowl Days. Mr Bolt, the founder and proprietor of the museum lived in Nebraska during it and there were several other guests that lived in other areas of the Bowl. Kenzie has a special interest in the subject since she wrote a detailed report on the farm camp in Weedpatch.
We continued our day by visiting the Oroville Pioneer Museum. It's a rather small museum but provides some good information.
We found several of our museum destinations to be closed even though they were supposed to be open. Must not have had docents available.
We had lunch at the Cornucopia Restaurant. It's our kind of place. Lou and Kenzie shared a prime rib dinner and I had a huevos rancheros breakfast.
We then hit a few thrift stores and a nice candy store with some excellent taffy.
Our final endeavor was to do some grocery shopping and get a few craft items for Lou.
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