Lake Chabot

For Fourth of July weekend, my family was up and in the mood for fishing.  I generally don't care for fishing, as it's a whole lot of sitting around, getting smelly from the sunscreen, worms, lake water, and supposed fish.

But I went along with the promise of a nice lakeside hike and a close proximity. And close it was! We went to Lake Chabot in San Leandro.  I was surprised they had such a nice lake so near to the cities.  On the Peninsula we have Crystal Springs, but you aren't allowed to touch it since it's drinking water.

Lake Chabot was teeming with people, mostly on the picnic tables and BBQ pits.  There were many on the weird "gym" playground.

That'd be an elliptical. Lol.

There were people fishing on the "shores" of the drought-ridden lake.

And there were plenty of people out on the water in rental boats!

It looked like fun~ here's the price list inside the cafe:

Anyway, the trail around the lake is nice and paved, though Sak and I only went about 30 minutes before my new-shoe-blister from the week before opened up again. Gwah.

Beware the poison oak on the sides of the trail, it was EVERYWHERE.

There are a lot of other kinds of non-itchy plants around though!

Derrrr!

The East Bay Regional Park District has flower photo guides on their website too if you want to know what you're looking at!

It really is a pretty lake!

I don't know if they have one for birds too, but we saw many different types of ducks, geese and small birds busy building their nests!

Watch out for the Canadian geese though - they are disgusting and poop all over the place.  I hear it makes excellent fertilizer, but it sure ain't so nice on the soles of your shoes!

After our hike, Sak and I were lame and went back to the car to sit on our phones.  :P But in my defense the mosquitos were biting me because it was dusk.  My parents and sister fished for a good hour and half, hoping for some of the catfish that had been planted the day before.

They had no luck, unfortunately. Instead, we ate black bean catfish at a Chinese restaurant that night. :P

I wouldn't mind coming back to this nearby lake in the future, with a rental boat and a good book. That'd be relaxing. And it's still surprising how you can live in the Bay Area so long and *still* not have seen/done everything. I guess that's the fun part of living here!