Burnt Ranchera

Dale and I took off just for the weekend for a camping trip to the Burnt Ranchera Campground in the Cleveland National Forest. We had been camping in the Cleveland National Forest before, but this time we went to a different campground that was much further south. It was 50 miles due east of San Diego. We drove down the 5 freeway, that was packed with so much traffic it was like rush hour the entire way down. Once we got to San Diego and on the 8 Interstate it was much, much better, and a quick trip to Laguna Mountain, near Pine Valley, CA. A beautiful area, surrounded by indian reservations, the national forest, and state parks!


It was a bit of a rainy weekend, but luckily we missed most of the showers and the most we had was a light sprinkle while making lunch on Saturday. I think that was pretty successful. In spite of the seasonably dry weather, this campground allowed campfires in the rings provided by the US forest service. We had a little nap and I started a great fire. The campground was quite empty and we had a nice secluded spot that we didn't see anyone else from, nor did we hear anyone. It was great just to sit around the warm fire, as it was quite cold. (in the 40F) We started cooking a great dinner, and the wind picked up, and just after it got dark the forest ranger came by to tell us they had instituted a fire ban with the high winds, and we needed to put out our campfire. It was OK, as we did have a few hours to enjoy it, and much better than having the forest all burn down! We had a very nice dinner, and then did some reading for the evening in the tent before calling it a night. The next morning was cloudy, but soon cleared out after we got packed up and drove back to Long Beach.

Then we descended down from the mountain, up at about 6000 feet in elevation, it became warmer and more sunny, and overal it was a very pleasant drive back home to Long Beach, and a nice dose of the mountain woods was just what we needed! Well worth the trip, if only we could have stayed longer!