My wife, Lisa, was out of town for 10 days visiting family in Texas, and I was not working for 5 days, so I decided to grab the dogs and go camp somewhere I haven’t been before. I happened to get an email flyer for a dog walk in Sacramento for that weekend in late April. Therefore, I signed up for the dog walk and found a campground an hour north of Sacramento in Browns Valley, CA, at Collins Lake. I reserved campsite #59 which had a great view of the lake which was only about 100 yards away.

Got up there on a Friday, got settled in, and took the dogs for a walk along the lake. There were tons of beautiful bluebonnet flowers near the edge of the water.

The next day we drove down to Sacramento to William Land Regional Park on the south part of downtown just east of interstate 5. There was a dog festival where they raise money to help dogs and cats. So I paid a few weeks ahead to sign up for the dog walk that they had going on. The dogs had a blast seeing and smelling all the other dogs. When I decided to do this trip, however, Kiki, our 12 year old Papillion was in perfect health. By the time we arrived in Sacramento her vision went down the toilet as she couldn’t see 2 feet in front of her. We looked at having surgery to remove the cataracts from both eyes, but apparently, she has cornea disease, so even if they removed the cataracts, she would still not be able to see. Therefore, Kiki has had to adjust to life without vision and this was her first couple of weeks without sight. She did fantastic and really has adjusted quite well, but with the walk, I had to make sure she had plenty of breathing room so as not to overwhelm her. It was still fun, but slow going that’s for sure.

There are a lot of trees at this campground which was fantastic. Also, there were tons of birds, some that did some serious talking above our campsite. I spent an afternoon or two just chilling in the camping chair listening to the birds talk. Nerd alert, I know, but it was pretty cool.

I also spent the afternoon driving up to Lake Oroville which was semi-nearby. After a 3 mile hike which the newly blind dog did amazingly well, we stopped at a local winery, Hickman Family Vineyards. The wine wasn’t too bad and we got lucky that they let us do a tasting since it was supposed to be closed due to a party. Really cool family on top of the fact that they let me taste whatever I wanted and as many times as I wanted. Wouldn’t mind coming back here with Lisa, that’s for sure.