I went camping along the Russian River, outside Guerneville, a few weekends ago. My wife and I went with two friends, and their medium-size dog, and their very small baby. One night of camping, about an hour-and-a-half drive north from Oakland. We stayed at a small campground nestled in a canyon of second-growth redwoods and bay laurels, recommended by another friend who camped there at the end of last summer, to spend time calf-deep in the river, fishing for bass.
Just across the road from our campsite, past a modest orchard—I grabbed a small golden yellow apple from a low branch, crunchy, delicately sweet—there is a small, pebbled beach. Green tufts of coyote brush line the riparian path; alders and maples fill in the gaps between redwoods on the ridge above the river. A young cottonwood leans toward the water. The river is low, moving slowly enough that it seems not to, dotted with mayflies. I stand ankle-deep in the water, and listen to the sound of an electric saw whirring somewhere in the hills above me, another camper whistling for their dog to come, my friends layering and de-layering the baby—it’s his first camping trip—as the sun moves in and out of clouds.
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