Chico or Bust! (Part 1)

Summer is almost over so it's back to Chico! Since I don't have a car my parents drove me back up and decided to have a little vacation touring around Chico. 

Chico is known for a few things. The great outdoors activities. The Sierra Nevada Brewery. And of course the..well we will just call it the "night life". 

We came. We saw. We concurred Chico.

The beautifully boring 8 hour drive up. 

That is literally all you see on the 5.

Plus the car was packed tight with all my "crap". 

I had about 12 inches of seat.

We made it to Chico and this was our forecast for the week....

Yeah we don't get this hot on the coast..... ever,

In touristing it up we visited Upper and Lower Park.

First we went to Upper Bidwell Park. 

Here is a little background info (if it's wrong blame google). Bidwell Park was given to Chico by its founders General John and Annie Bidwell. It is a 3,618 acre municipal park and I love every bit of it. Upper Park is more of the wild lands with water holes, hiking trails, biking, and camping. You take a rocky dirt road back into no-mans land. 

I wanted to show them Bear hole where I normally go to relax and swim. 

Here is a very smokey Upper Park. There are tons of fires going on in northern California right now and boy could you smell it!

Bear hole with crystal clear water.

I think it speaks for itself, don't you?

It's just absolutely gorgeous. Those rock however are very deceiving. They are volcanic (I think). Well they get so hot they feel like a volcano. So hot you have to sit on a folded up towel or you will literally burn yourself. And they are slippery! I slipped trying to get out of the water once and ate it. 

This however is typical.

If I can hurt myself in some way I will.

I get it from my mom.

Blame her.

I do!

Awwwww!!!!

or is it

Ahhhhhhhh?

(or that someone screaming?)

I don't know just pretend you hear angles singing at all its glory.

We then went to Lower Park which is more the picnicking, leisure bike riding, playing catch in the park kinda place. Completely different from upper park and beautiful in its own right.

Here they dam up the river and create a pool in the summer time for everyone to go swimming in.

The water is a great way to cool off in the hot summer heat.

I didn't take too many pictures there because I was enjoying putting my feet in the water and just relaxing (i.e. cooling off) so I thought I would add a couple pictures I took from last winter.

I love that you can see the icy bitter coldness in these pictures. (It's helping me cool off a little)

 Even with all the leaves gone it's still stunning. 

If you visit Chico you must visit Bidwell Park. 

It is one of Chico's gems