RV Trips South : Dos Reis County Park, Lathrop, CA

Day 13, 14: Saturday, Sunday, January 27, 28 Dos Reis County Park, Lathrop, CA

We headed south on I5 to Dos Reis park on the San Joaquin River. Although I am sure this river used to spread out and have many wetlands, now it is all confined by dikes, and some of them look as though they were recently made higher, probably after last year’s high water in California! We got settled in our campsite and went for a walk with Sarah along the dike. We rode our bikes about 12 miles out and back on the dike, having to lift the bikes over a low gate in one spot and walk the bikes around gates in two other spots. We were battling the wind a bit, just as we did at Black Butte Lake! We came to a bike bridge over the river, and on the other side was a paved path all along the river, part of an 11,000-house development that is being built called River Islands. This is a bedroom community for the Bay Area, which is 50 miles to the west! People are already moving in here. The dike is nice and flat, making for easy biking, but the wind made it feel uphill, seemingly more than half the time, so we did get some exercise.

Walking the girlie on the San Joaquin River

Paved path near River Islands community

Dike path near our campground

Sarah on a sunset walk

Sunset on the San Joaquin River, coast mountains to the west

Difficult to select only one sunset picture!

Sunday morning we went to Caswell State Park on the San Joaquin River and hiked around a bit. This is a nice example of the riparian woods that used to stretch for so many miles in California. We saw white-crowned and golden-crowned sparrows, and Jim saw a Nutall’s woodpecker, which we had not seen before. Pretty sunset colors on the river! We finished watching season 6 of Homeland, began watching a series I bought called the Americans. This is a nice little park in a rural spot, but not far from the highway!