Buenavista Aquatic Recreation Area

 

Feb 17

Another day another long drive another botched attempt at finding a campground.

When I realized it was Presidents' Day long weekend I tried to make reservations for the Kern River Campground east of Bakersfield while we were driving.  We arrived at the campground at 3 in the afternoon only to find that we'd made one reservation at Kern River and one at Buenavista Recreation Area, a 45 minute drive back the way we came. Kern River was full but Buenavista still had vacancies and the very helpful camp host helped us transfer our reservation.  In my defense the camphost did say this happens all the time.

All set up at Buenavista

Buenavista was a massive campsite.  They tried to set us up as close to each other as possible but it still involved a long  hike across a meadow.  The place was busy for the long weekend with big families in giant rvs.  Our neighbours across the way were blasting out the Mexican Fiesta movie but they quietened down at night.

Breaking out the gas firepit

The place was crawling with ground squirrels.

We spent an extra day here. Just walking along the shoreline, checking out the birds and the other campers.

The trees were busy with yellow-rumped warblers and lesser goldfinches.  White-crowned sparrows, grackles and lots of Mourning and Eurasiancollared Doves. But the Bird of the Day had to be the American coot.  There was a huge flock feeding on land.  As we approached by they all ran/flew into the lake.  When we returned they were back on land and again they ran and flew back into the lake,

A deceptively lonely looking coot