Pine Grove

I’m close friends with a family that always has their reunion at a place called Pine Grove. In terms of nature, it is certainly a beautiful place. The cabins are in a redwood forest alongside Kelsey Creek, which has a lovely sound and lulls you to sleep at night. We always have an incredible time there, as for us, the place has become nothing short of magical. It really is a shame more people don’t know about it, as although it’s without a doubt a little dingy, isn’t that what you really want in an outdoor experience? We hope that at least a few regulars keep on coming every year, because they have been having a tough time staying in business and it really is an amazing place.

Although the whole week was really an adventure, I want to talk about our trip to the nearby waterfalls. It was a lovely and scenic walk. We go there every couple of years, and it’s worth a look. We drove out about 10 miles from Pine Grove. (We actually guessed the distance, but even though I somehow guessed closest, I can’t remember at all, and I’m typically pretty terrible with distances and spatial intelligence.) There were a couple carloads of us and as we drove up we could see the geothermal plant in the distance (Lovely, I know, but at the same time it’s interesting. There are a lot of earthquakes in the Grove. Actually we had quite a disastrous time with two earthquakes, a bench breaking with several people on it, and a tree falling right in between two cabins.) The hike down was a nice walk, although a bit steep. But when we got down there, it was so beautiful! Leading up to the waterfall there was a nice creek we walked up. This led to a pool of water around the waterfall that we could swim around in. We played around here for awhile, admiring the view and jumping into the water from the rocks.

Next we hiked up the creek to the even bigger waterfall. This one we could only view from the top. It made me really nervous when I saw people standing on the edge, but once I got up there it wasn’t so bad. Supposedly there’s an even bigger waterfall in the area, but that might just be a rumor. In any case, we didn’t even look for it.