Two birds with one lake, that’s how the saying goes right?

What seems like a year ago, we went to Prineville Reservoir and Jasper Point (also located on the reservoir). We got in late Friday night May 15th to Prineville Reservoir which seems to becoming a Friday night routine these days. The routine goes as follows: leave work, drive to site, put up the tent, set up the sleeping bags, go to sleep. We did have a little surprise in the wee hours of the morning when Nina heard some rustling right outside our tent. It sounded like there was a small animal attempting to get into our tent. Nina sprang upright and blurted out, “Where’s Sir?!” It turns out the animal outside our tent was our own. One of us (lets be real it was probably me) left one of the tent doors unzipped a little bit and our stinker, Sir, wandered outside in the middle of the night and couldn’t find the door again. Oops! He was safely retrieved. After some not so restful sleep we got up, ate I’m sure though I can’t remember for certain, and then took a relaxing walked along the lake and park.

Our morning walk.

Worrying that we might not get a spot at Jasper Point because it is first come first served park, we packed up and drove up there, a mere 10 minute drive. Lucky for us, there were plenty of spots available and we picked one that looked out on the lake. We are getting very good at setting up and putting down camp. We have a whole system but perhaps I’ll divulge the boring details of our system in another blog post! Later, we walked a trail that led to nowhere in particular but was still an enjoyable walk around the lake.

Beth being cool

We let Sir off leash some which he loved, but when he ate poop we decided that was enough of that and put him back on the leash. We also sat with our view of the lake and read. Very pleasant!

there were jackrabbits scurrying around the park!

Prineville Reservoir happened to be having their annual star party Saturday night so we checked that out. They had 5 or 6 telescopes out and we got to look at Venus and Jupiter and could even see Jupiter’s moons! It was crowded and you had to wait in line to look through the telescopes but it was still a fun and rare (at least to us) experience. Presumably we would have seen even more had we stayed later but we were tired so we drove back to Jasper Point and went to bed. Even when we’re camping, we’re old and boring and can’t party too late into the night, even at a star party.

The water was gorgeous!

REVIEW

Prineville Reservoir

The sites were good sized and very close to the water so the view was great. There was a nice day use area that included: volleyball, swimming, boat launch, fishing, fish cleaning, horse shoes and picnic tables. We didn’t stay here too long.

Rating: 

Jasper Point

This one was first come first served which stressed us out because we weren’t guaranteed to have a site. The location made up for the stress though- we were literally right on the water and the view of the lake was gorgeous. The site felt fairly private so that was nice. However, the park was a bit on the pricier side. The bathroom facilities weren’t great- dump toilets. And get ready to squat! The toilets were quite low to the ground. The day use area wasn’t as elaborate as Prineville Reservoir- just a boat launch. The trail we took was quite nice, though it wasn’t good for small paws as Sir kept getting small ouchy things stuck in his paws. A definite plus was that for $5 we got a ton of wood- more than double what most places give out for $5.

Rating: 

The views were fantastic

Coming up, blog posts about:

May 22-25 Memaloose

May 29-31 Emigrant Springs and Hilgard Junction

June 12-14 Collier and Jackson Kimball

June 19-21 Viento State Park