For New Year's Eve, Einav and Adit took us to Alexandra Palace, a huge public venue in North London, near their flat.
From the front porch of the palace, we could see the fireworks at the London Eye, probably a half dozen other
fireworks shows, and countless sporadic little fireworks lit by revelers. For such a regulated place, I was surprised
by the magnitude of fireworks that an apparent regular-shlub could purchase and set off about 20 feet away from me
in a crowd of people. It was a fantastic place to see fireworks. New Year's Day was beautifully sunny and clear,
so we headed for the London Eye. Very cool, amazing views, skip the audio tour. The pod following our pod on the
London Eye:
After the Eye, Adit and Einav headed home, Adit to prepare for Shabbat
and Einav to sit in a dark room to recover from spending so much time
in such a huge crowd. Noam and I walked along the south bank of the
Thames to Wagamama for a noodle lunch, then to the Tate Modern art
museum, housed in a huge old brick power station. The Tate Modern
outside:
The Tate Modern inside:
I enjoyed the
Tate Modern though I am not a big museum person. I love to hate the
artist Mark Rothko, but they managed to find a good one. After the Tate
we walked across the Millenium bridge to St. Pauls, sat in a restaurant
right on St. Paul's square narfing tiramisu and watching for old
Routemaster buses, then grabbed the tube back to Einav and Adit.
Saturday Einav walked us around the markets in the old stables near
Camden locks. We headed to Hampstead to have lunch at the crepe stand
there, so much butter and cheese, highly recommended. Church Row in
Hampstead:
Super cute cafe in Hampstead:
When the sun set we grabbed the tube to Covent Garden, had a beer and some fish and chips in a pub, then met Einav and Adit
for a walk around Covent Garden, a bite to eat at Food for Thought on Neal Street, and the play War Horse at the New
London theater. I really enjoyed War Horse, the life size horse puppets were mesmerizing and surprisingly
realistic. Sunday, back to Heathrow and back home.
Ireland, December 29-31, 2009
Monday after Christmas we flew to Shannon, on the west coast of Ireland in County Clare. We stayed in Bunratty,
and went to the medieval banquet dinner/show at the Bunratty castle. It was fun - I downed about a pitcher of mead. I have
a debilitating sweet tooth and admit that I love mead. Booze + sweet - what could be bad about that? Had I
never discovered red wine I could have been extremely content slurping chablis and white zinfandel for all of my days.
At the dinner we
sat by Devorah and Rivka from New York, which was useful because the two of them and Noam could present a
united front to the staff when demanding pork-free options. (The kind folks in period dress were extremely
accomodating, though I don't think the melon drizzled with mango could really hold a candle to the short ribs).
What is the deal with the teeth-gluing, sinus-headache-inducingly-sweet desserts in that part of the world?
How could things which sound so good, like "Christmas cake" (Bunratty)
and "toffee pudding" (a few days later in London), turn out so horribly, horribly wrong? A question for the ages.
Christmas carols sung by the nice folks at the Bunratty castle dinner:
Wednesday was rainy, snowy, windy, and cold, so we spent a lot of time in the car with the heater on. We drove to
the Cliffs of Moher on the Atlantic coast:
The cascades in the town of Ennistimon:
A fantastic bakery in Ennistimon, where the apple turnovers and chocolate-covered cream cakes were out of this world:
From Ennistymon
we drove south and took the Shannon ferry, a car ferry, across the
Shannon river to County Kerry. We reached the ring of Kerry, a ring
road through beautiful scenery in County Kerry, just before sunset. We
saw about half of the road before it got dark. By this time, we were
starving and sick of driving so we made tracks to Killarney where we
had dinner at the Silver Fox, which we chose by virtue of it being the
first restaurant we came across that would seat us immediately. The
food was pretty good, but the dinner was somewhat marred by the disco
Christmas carols that were absolutely blasting from the speaker right
above Noam's head. It was pretty damaging to the bouquet of my dinner
and Guiness even after we asked our server to please turn it down.
Quiet enjoyment of the dinner went even further downhill when the songs
started repeating. Our plan to escape before being subjected to the
disco-Christmas CD for the THIRD time was foiled when we realized that
Noam had his V-neck sweater on backwards, which rendered him unable to
get up and walk over and ask the server for the bill when she
disappeared as the CD got perilously close to the end of the second
time through. As I said, it was a wet and cold day, so dinner was the
first time Noam could comfortably remove his jacket to reveal his
dressing error from the morning. Oops. On Thursday, New Years Eve, we
headed back to Shannon and caught a flight to London.
Christmas 2009
Hannah modeling her new Packer jersey and her new hat:
Boxing day hike in Huddart Park in Woodside:
Pinecrest Lake, December 5-6, 2009
The first big storm of the winter was predicted to begin Monday December 7, so we figured the weekend
before was our last chance in 2009 to hike in the mountains. We headed for Pinecrest Lake
on highway 108 on the way to Sonora Pass, a place that sounds so popular I figured it must be
unpleasantly crowded during the summer. It was fantastic during the first weekend of
December, we saw no more than half a dozen groups of hikers. On the way there, we stopped
at Knight's Ferry, where there is a lovely covered bridge:
We hiked around Pinecrest lake, low at the end of the summer and after years of drought:
Sunday we hiked on a beautiful rails-to-trails path above the North Fork of the Tuolumne
River:
Buenos Aires, November 21-29, 2009
Noam and I arrived on Sunday morning, took a bus to the hotel and met up with mom, Denny, and
Ellen at the hotel in the Recoleta neighborhood. We set off to the Recoleta cemetery in
search of the ticket office holding our polo tickets for the match later that afternoon.
Noam is amazing - the ticket lady office immediately launched into about four paragraphs of
rapid-fire Spanish. I had no idea what was going on, but Noam kept nodding intently and
saying "si" at elegantly-timed intervals. I know it is at least partially "fake it 'til you make it" - he
once had a ten minute conversation with a cabby in Tokyo where he said only "Atago Green
Hills" in his Japanese-person-speaking-English accent, but the cabby really seemed to believe they were
conversing - but he did manage to learn that the polo match was canceled for rain, and
something about Tuesday. The urgency of the mission gone, suddenly coffee and breakfast
became extremely important. We stopped at La Biela, a cafe under an enormous gum
tree across the park from a cemetery where we ended up spending an inordinate amount of time later in our trip:
Sunday afternoon we walked to San Telmo, a neighborhood filled with hippies, aging and otherwise,
to take in the market:
Sunday evening, to fight off jet-lag, Noam and I went to a hipster wine bar near our hotel, the Gran
Bar Danzon, highly recommended.
Buenos Aires is a city that loves its dogs - everywhere
we went we encountered happy dogs. Monday morning, walking around, we encountered our first of BA's famous
dog walkers:
Monday
afternoon we walked to the A line of the subway, the oldest subway
line. There are still hundred-year-old wooden subway cars running on
the A line, beautiful! We took the subway to Once, a gritty,
trash-strewn commercial district west of the city center. After walking
through a sketchy plaza, past a truly hideous square concrete monument
of some kind, dodging trash and troubling moist piles of whatever on
the sidewalk, Ellen decided that Once, named for the 11 de Septiembre
train station, is really named as a warning to only to go there once.
From Once we walked to the art deco Abasto shopping center, then past a
couple of synagogues and back to Recoleta. The Abasto shopping center:
Monday evening Noam and I headed to the Plaza de Mayo, the city's central square, which is
flanked on one side by the Casa Rosada, the presidential palace, where Eva Peron, then Madonna,
spoke from the balcony.
We ended Monday with dinner at Cabaña Las Lilas, a restaurant in Puerto Madero, right on the
water, which was so thoroughly recommended by Shalev that he said if you have three days in
Buenos Aires, go to Las Lilas three times and skip everything else. It was fantastic, huge
chunks of meat perfectly prepared.
Tuesday we walked around the Recoleta cemetery, where Eva Peron is buried. The cemetery is
really cool, the mausoleums are packed together, walls touching, on narrow lanes, like a
miniature city for the dead.
Most of the mausoleums are carefully tended, but a few seem completely abandoned,
with broken marble walls revealing weathered caskets stacked on top of each other, and yellowing
lace curtains blowing through broken glass doors. Excellently creepy. Noam followed a kitty to a mausoleum that
had apparently been repurposed: a little styrofoam tray of cat food had been pushed through
the door into the other detritus on the floor. Dueling angels over the various monuments in
the Recoleta cemetery:
Wednesday we rented a car and left Buenos Aires for the pampas, where we stayed at Estancia La Flamenca, a
cattle ranch. Jorge, the owner of La Flamenca, breeds polo horses. After lunch (you guessed
it: huge hunks of red meat), we convinced Denny to come riding with us on Jorge's retired
polo horses. My horse was a gray mare with her ears pinned flat against her head for most
of the ride. I loved her: she is a gritty, tough, angry mare, just how I like them, plus
she was really smooth and made me look good. Noam on Anastasia, and Denny on his horse who
we affectionately referred to as Roscoe, even after we discovered she was also a mare:
Riding on the pampas was amazing, we were an hour away from Buenos Aires, a city of 13 million
people, and the only evidence of human existence we could see was a power line way off in the
distance. It looked like plain old grass as far as the eye could see, but when you looked
down, you could count at least a dozen different plants, including little flowers. The
other amazing thing about the pampas - mosquitos so copious and huge, they make a buggy day
in the midwest seem like being inside. This brave guy marched up and yelled at us for
trespassing in his pasture:
Thursday we left La Flamenca and drove to the
nearby town of San Antonio de Areco, a center of gaucho culture. Thursday evening we headed
back to Buenos Aires, returned the car, then headed back to San Telmo for a Tango show at
Bar Sur. It
sounded a little cheesy from the book, but you can't really go wrong with live music, singing,
and dancing. Noam and I even had the chance to cut a rug. Do you like my hair in this picture?
Okay, so that isn't really me. Noam looked super cute dancing with Señora Tango. Friday,
in an effort to increase the number of stamps in our passport and because a boat ride is
always fun, we rode the ferry across the river to Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay. We
took the Buquebus, fancy:
There were video screens playing a Madonna concert and ads for various Buquebus services.
The Buquebus jingle is so catchy, it must
have been written by Barry Manilow. It is probably going to be stuck in my head for the next year. Judge for
yourself here:
(Okay, so maybe you had to be there.) Anyway, it RAINED in Colonia.
What a mess, our socks were all soaked. We sloshed to the historic part
of town, had lunch, then hopped back on the Buquebus for the ride back
to Buenos Aires. On Saturday, our last day, the polo game, which had
been rescheduled about three times, finally happened.
La Biela, our cafe under the gum tree in Recoleta, sponsors a classic
car race. We spent the morning in Recoleta checking out the craft
market and hoping to see the cars, but they were not scheduled to
arrive until 1. After noon, we made our way to the polo grounds in
Palermo:
Wow, what a cool game - fast!
The horse and rider have
such a great partnership that the rider doesn't even register that he is on a horse, he is
totally focused on where the ball is and the horse becomes an
extension of the rider. The riders barely moved in the saddle, and never seemed to give
any cues at all, even when their horses would gallop, sit down on their hocks, spin around,
and gallop off in the opposite direction.
Jorge told us to look for this: the riders will change horses, even in the middle of
a chukker. In an effort to save time, they don't bother with the ground, they just leap from the first horse to the second:
I felt bad that the rescheduled polo game made Denny and Ellen miss the classic cars in
Recoleta, but the universe provided. On the way back to the hotel from the polo game, we
saw about a dozen of them driving down the street. Here is a lady, dressed to the nines,
retrieving the hat that blew off her driver's head:
Leaf Peeping in New Hampshire and Vermont, October 12-17, 2009
On
Sunday I flew to JFK, then took a 23 minute flight to Hartford. After a
lovely night at the Four Seasons New Haven (Hannah and John's house),
on Monday afternoon we headed to Squam Lake in New Hampshire. We stayed
at a wee cabin on Squam Lake which was nice, except the fireplace
smoked. Really bad. Monday night, we totally filled the cabin with
smoke so bad I had to go outside to read my book. I decided this must
have been due to Hannah's poor fire tending skills (sorry sis), so
Tuesday night I built a raging inferno, carefully tended to keep it
stoked. No luck,
the place still filled with smoke. Wednesday, cowed into submission, we
burned a Duraflame-like log (what is the non-trademarked generic term
for such a log?), and even that put out just a little too much smoke,
in my opinion. At some point when I was in college, Hannah reminded me,
dad got really in to renting cabins in Door County for vacation. One
cabin, which was terminally damp, was dubbed "The Stinking Shithole,"
most likely by dad himself. Hannah, who had made all the plans for this
vacation because she is lovely and I am useless, was concerned that one
of her choices would be remembered forever in the family lore as "The
Stinking Shithole II," but really I'll take smoke over damp any day,
and when we cranked the heat up to 72 (calm down, only on vacation) it
was just as nice as a fire. Mist over Squam Lake on Tuesday morning:
We hiked near Squam lake on Tuesday. It was overcast and rained a bit. As we climbed up toward an overlook, we
started to see snow on the ground. I eventually turned around just below the overlook, when the trail became more
like a stream. After hiking, we had lunch then drove around the lakes area in search of a New Hampshire Lakes Region
Bandana-map, which we never found. Wednesday we drove into the White Mountains, where we looked for a White
Mountains bandana-map, which we never found. Hannah near Pinkham Notch:
I think Wednesday was our best fall color day. As the week went on, the trees got more and more bare. The road to
Mount Washington was closed, so we drove to a reasonable facsimile of Mount Washington instead, the Mount Washington
Hotel, and had lunch. This picture is for Juliet: on the way to the hotel, we stopped at a cider factory. This
several feet by several feet box was filled with apple smush, left over from cider pressing. My suitable-for-sitting-on
pets would love to have ten minutes alone with that box:
View from the Mount Washington hotel:
Thursday before heading to Vermont we hiked the Welsh and Dickey peaks
loop in the White Mountains. Every time I come to New England, I think
"the peaks are so dinky, what, like 3000 feet high, how hard can it be?
In California, we have REAL mountains . . ." and every time, New
England hiking totally humiliates me. This loop was rated a 2 for
difficulty, and the author of the book even mentioned that his MOM had
accompanied him on the hike. Imagine my surprise when I found myself
crawling on all fours up an icey slab of granite at like a 45 degree
angle. That guy made his MOM do that? Unfortunately, I was wearing
running shoes, since I have widely proclaimed that I don't believe in
hiking boots. I had visions of Hannah and I passing her hiking boots
back and forth as we made our way down the slope, but I managed to pick
my way down. Hannah, emerging from a notch between two rocks. Which was
the trail. In distinct contrast to the trails in Yosemite, which are,
for the most part, almost as wide as freeway lanes.
Nice views though!
New Hampshire 2, Rachel 0. Though I was by far the biggest wuss, at least I wasn't the only one having a hard time:
Thursday night we
stayed at Lake Dunmore in Vermont. Friday we did a couple of short
hikes, including a short hike along the Long Trail to a place called
Silent Cliffs, which overlooks the Middlebury College Snow Bowl, a
little ski hill. Hannah, John, and the Snow Bowl:
The Green Mountains in Vermont were not quite as huge and impressive as the White Mountains in New Hampshire, but no
day spent in the woods is ever wasted. The Long Trail:
Lunch in Middlebury, at the Storm Cafe, in the gray building on the right, overlooking Otter Creek:
No Green
Mountains bandana-map either. Why are these people so anti-bandana-map?
Saturday we drove up to Burlington to visit Nicole and Eric, who took
us to the Lake Champlain Chocolate factory hot chocolate bar and the
Skinny Pancake, a localvore crepe restaurant. Thanks Nicole and Eric!
Sunday, back to the airport.
Mount Diablo State Park, October 2-3, 2009
My friend DeeDee requested that I bring Sonny to our Parelli group's campout at Mount Diablo
for her husband to ride, so I also dragged Noam up to Mount D on Friday night for dinner
and an early morning ride on Saturday, before he headed back to the salt mines to prepare
for a work trip to Dallas. It wasn't THAT early, but absolutely no one was up and the following groggy exchange overheard from
a tent that was unfortunately pitched right ON the trail one has to ride down to get to the
trails made me chuckle: Male: what the hell are you doing? Female: oh, its horses.
Noam and Sonny, on the trail at Mount Diablo:
Sailing on Green Bay, September 5-6, 2009
Noam and I flew to Milwaukee Friday and had dinner with mom and my aunt Roberta. Saturday morning
dad picked us up and we drove to Sturgeon Bay, home port of the Huckleberry. We headed out on
Green Bay toward our destination at Fish Creek. It was dead calm, so we motored. This is
what sailing is all about:
We tied up in Fish Creek and headed to Pelletier's for fish boil. So yummy. Here is the
boil over, that is our dinner in the middle of that inferno:
Sunday we cruised up to Horseshoe Island to look around, then back down to Sturgeon Bay. Sunday
was no more windy than Saturday. We raised the pretty sail, the cruising spinnaker, for a
bit, but mostly we motored. The number 6 buoy near Hat Island, looking picturesque on
Sunday morning:
Yosemite, August 14-16, 2009
We had originally planned to ride a section of the John Muir Trail, from Silver Lake on the eastern side to
Tuolumne Meadows, but the vet recommended more time off for Juliet and the elevation gain on that section is brutal, so
we opted for a more walkable loop around Yosemite Creek, since we had just one riding horse, Lukka, and Tioga to
carry our stuff. Between Porcupine Flat Campground and Porcupine Creek Trailhead, there is a turn-out on the
south side of Tioga road with some interpretive signs. The trailhead was crammed with cars but this turn-out was empty.
There was plenty of room to park and we just walked through
the trees to the left of the rocks and down the hill, where we found the trail. The trail to the Porcupine Creek
Trailhead was clogged
with several down trees, but we got through. We rode toward North Dome. Amazing views of Half Dome and
Tenaya Canyon from the trail:
After lunch we continued along the loop to Yosemite Point and the top of Yosemite Falls:
Noam and Lukka in Eagle Peak Meadow, where we didn't camp because the meadow was too wet and we couldn't find a decent
campsite:
Saturday we rode
back toward Tioga Road along Yosemite Creek. There were some beautiful
pools, unfortunately there were few trees where we could tie the
critters or I would have been tempted to swim.
The map shows a trail connecting Yosemite Creek Campground and Porcupine Flat Campground. The ranger at the
permit station had warned us that it was difficult to find. We found it, we think, but it was totally clogged
with fallen trees and thick brush and impossible to follow. Jan informed us later that this is Old Tioga Road, and it
was clogged with trees and brush even in the 70s, when she used to camp at Yosemite Creek. Since we couldn't
ride back, Noam hitched a ride back to the trailer while I galloped Lukka up the road to Tioga Road, dragging my
stone boat of a mule behind. When Tioga gets tired, it is speed limit Tioga. Saturday night we stayed with some
friends at the Tuolumne Meadows Campground, then Sunday, we took a wee ride around the campground. I have heard
some spectacular stories of mules holding grudges and I didn't know if Tioga was pissed about being dragged up the
hill at a trot with his packs on, so I made Noam ride Tioga. Noam tells me that besides his spine going right up
your butt (we had no saddle for him, just a bareback pad), Tioga is a perfect gentleman to ride. On Sunday at our campsite:
Sierra National Forest, August 4-11, 2009
On Tuesday, Micki and I rode to Big Maxson Meadow on the North Fork of the Kings River with three mules, Leon, Lisa, and
Lorie. Big Maxson Meadow:
On Wednesday and Thursday we inventoried camp sites (which is basically locating campsites and assessing whether they are legal
and the amount of impact) on foot and cleared a tree that had fallen across the trail. On
Thursday, Micki showed me one of Shorty Lovelace's cabins. Shorty was a trapper who spent his winters in the Sierra trapping,
first in what later became Kings Canyon National park, then later in the surrounding National Forest when the
creation of the park forced him out. Sparse animal population and deep snow required Shorty to travel beyond a
one day trek, so he built a series of small cabins which were always within a day of each other and arranged in loops.
Shorty trapped until the late fifties. Shorty's cabin:
The welcoming committee greeted us as we returned to camp after each day of hiking. They are hoping I will turn my
back, so Lisa can steal the remains of my lunch, in a ziploc in the top of the pack:
On Friday, my hip was bothering me so I stayed in camp while Micki inventoried on foot. By Saturday, the mules were
underworked to the point of being a bit annoying, so we saddled everyone and rode further up the river. Pretty
granite face where we parked the stock and me, still resting my bum hip, while Micki inventoried:
The horse you see with the burgundy saddle bags is Duke, my trusty government mount. Micki and Pat, who watches
the Wishon work center while Micki is in the backcountry, think he is a spoiled brat. Once I beat him over the head
a bit with my pocket baseball bat and convinced him he would not be able to walk all over me, since after all, he
works for the government now and has to follow the rules, we became fast friends.
I like to remind him that I am his only fan. Hannah pointed out that there really is no incentive for him to
behave, since even if he bucks me off and puts me in traction, he'll still get a step increase at the end of the year.
Sunday we rode out again and I watched the stock while Micki inventoried. By Monday my hip was well enough that I
could hike and help inventory again. We saw these neat potholes and little slot canyons on the North Fork of the Kings while
we inventoried on Monday:
Muir Trail Ranch, August 1-3, 2009
For a few days before I went out volunteering with my forest ranger friend, I went to Muir Trail Ranch to sit in some hot
springs, do some little hikes, and get used to the altitude. The last 20 miles of road to Florence Lake took me about an
hour and a half, but Florence Lake is pretty enough that you soon forget the completely annoying road. On the trail from
Florence Lake to Muir Trail Ranch:
Hillary runs the ranch with her husband Luke, who packed for years for Kings Canyon National Park and taught me a diamond
hitch. Proof that for at least 20 minutes one day, I knew how to throw a diamond hitch:
On Sunday I hiked to the bridge over Piute Creek, just inside Kings Canyon. Self portrait:
Piute Creek:
Lake Tahoe, July 24-25, 2009
We had intended to ride a 35ish mile section of the Tahoe Rim Trail with friends Tracy and Logan, but Juliet fell in
Yosemite on July 4 and still looked pretty uncomfortable, so we took Sonny instead, and opted to ride in just five miles
to our campsite at Middle Velma Lake and meet Tracy and Logan, who did the long ride as planned. I have a great
reservoir of gratitude for Sonny, since he is how I got Noam sucked in to horseback riding. As a result, I will do almost
anything for Sonny, including, but not limited to, chewing his carrots for him should he ever need it, and WALKING my own
weight up a seriously steep, rocky, five mile trail in Tahoe, just because Sonny grunted a few times on the way up.
Tioga, sporting his new-used halter that I bought at Mule Days, with a little plaque proclaiming him the Illinois Hunter
Jumper Association Champion for 1999, bravely carrying our crap up to Middle Velma:
Don't go to the
Desolation Wilderness if you don't like rocks, there are lots of rocks.
Our rocky, but beautiful site overlooking Middle Velma Lake:
We learned a lot
about Sonny on this trip, mostly along the theme "Sonny doesn't like
camping." As with people, horses of a certain age apparently lose
interest in travel, and prefer sleeping in their own pasture, drinking
out of their own trough, and eating out of their own bucket. Sonny just
seemed out of sorts all weekend: he didn't want to lay down on strange
ground with strange mares (Tracy and Logan's horses) looking at him, he
didn't like the water, there were too many rocks, really his list of
complaints went on and on. Another thing we learned about Sonny is when
things don't go his way, he whines! He woke us up on Saturday morning
groaning and sighing dramatically. We figured he must be dying from all
the noise he was making, but he really just wanted to be untied from
the high-line (undignified, apparently) and escorted to a particular
spot on a particular creek, where the water was acceptable enough for
him to drink. Which I did, at 5 AM. But hey, it wasn't bad, we were in
the Desolation Wilderness! Gorgeous scenery:
All of us, overlooking Emerald Bay on Lake Tahoe. Tioga apparently couldn't bear to have his picture taken, since his
manty came untucked on one corner so his load looked all tacky. I swear Noam must have tucked that side.
We spent a lot of time at some beautiful corrals at the Bayview Trailhead, letting Sonny rest and hoping he would lay down. He
didn't, so we left a day early, but while he was resting, Noam and I watched a guy get his car stuck in some soft dirt, then
pulled out by a tow truck, which Noam and I found strangely enjoyable.
Yosemite, July 2-5, 2009
Our first section of the John Muir
trail was an overnight in Yosemite, from Tuolumne Meadows, past Sunrise
High Sierra Camp, down to Yosemite Valley past Nevada Fall and Vernal
Fall. One of the Cathedral lakes:
Just before Sunrise meadow:
Snow on the pass! It was just a little patch, maybe a few inches thick and several feet in diameter. As far as Juliet
was concerned, it might as well have been lava. Lukka, unsurprisingly, walked right up to it and started to eat it:
We camped near Sunrise Creek, below Sunrise High Sierra Camp, at about 8500 feet. Feed bags installed:
Says Noam: "camping without coffee is bull****." Noam with his latte equipment:
Pretty veined rock:
On our second
day, once we rode past the junction to Half Dome, Yosemite's marquee
attraction, there was so much hiker traffic that we had to stop taking
pictures and focus on traffic control, and not squishing people. I was
surprised by the number of people that grabbed or pet Tioga as he
walked by. I personally would have kicked their heads in, but he is a
good mule and calmly tolerated it. As the manager of the Yosemite
Valley stables pointed out later, we are in danger of losing our access
to places like Yosemite due to a vocal minority. He feels that 95% of
people are indifferent to stock use in Yosemite,
and our experience matched this: a few people were interested in what
we were doing, a few people gave us dirty looks, and the rest just
treated us like set pieces. How do we ingratiate ourselves with this
minority? No idea. At Little Yosemite Valley, a guy named Rob stopped
us and asked if we would carry his girlfriend Lindsey down on
horseback. We declined to take her but since Tioga's load was very
light, we did take her pack, and to counteract the vocal minority just
a little bit, asked them to tell the park service that some nice people
on private horses had helped them. At the top of Nevada Fall:
Below the
top of Nevada Fall, in the section I was afraid of and tried to scope
out back in May, Juliet slipped on some wet granite and fell all the
way down on her side, poor girl. Luckily I was leading her, not riding
her, so I didn't get crushed and didn't even see it happen. Noam and
his crew in front of Nevada Fall:
We made
it down safely, reunited Rob with Lindsey's pack at Happy Isles, and
headed to the Valley Stables and North Pines campground, where we
stayed Saturday night. Lesson learned Saturday night: in the front
country, don't leave your bear cans sitting next to the bear box, put
them IN the bear box, so the bear doesn't bat them around like soccer
balls and wake up everyone in the campground. Oops!
Pescadero Creek with the Kendalls, June 27, 2009
Horseback riding in the woods, a picnic, swimming in the creek, the Kendalls . . . what more could you ask for in a Saturday?
Big Basin, June 20-21, 2009
I had a wonderful time camping at Big Basin horse camp with Evelyn, Angela, Kerry, and Mark. On the walk down to the beach to
see if I could get cell phone reception there, there were so many bunnies:
The meadow between the horse camp and the ocean:
Mount Diablo, June 19, 2009
Fortunately, when we arrived at
Davis for the surgery, the surgeon decided that the procedure could be
done without general anesthesia, with Sonny sedated, but standing up.
The surgery went fine and I think Sonny actually enjoyed his few days
at the hospital at Davis, because he got so much attention. Plus there
was a camel there, which after he got over his initial fear, Sonny
found fascinating. After the surgery, Sonny needed chemotherapy once a
week, for five weeks. I declared 2009 the summer of Sonny. To head off
any resentment I might feel toward Sonny from all the driving required
for his chemotherapy treatments, I scheduled the first one for late in
the day on a Friday, and arranged to ride with friends Bob and Marilyn
at Mount Diablo before the appointment.
Nice rocks at Mount D:
Jack Brook Horse Camp, June 5-7, 2009
Poor Sonny has squamous cell carcinoma in an unmentionable place. The
veterinary oncologist at UC-Davis recommended surgery. Surgery on
horses can be tricky. Every once in a while, when a horse wakes up from
the anesthesia, he panics because he is so disoriented. We took Sonny
camping the weekend before his surgery. That way if after his surgery
Sonny panicked, jumped up, broke his leg, and had to be put down, at
least we will have had this wonderful last weekend with him. A little
smooch on the trail:
Crossing the water at Shaw Flat:
Beautiful trees on the trail:
Eastern Sierra road trip, May 22-25, 2009
We got going a little
late, but even so we couldn't resist the pull of Bass Pro Shops Outdoor
World. After all, this is vacation!
The timing
turned out to be perfect, because we arrived at Crane Flat to see a
mama bear and two babies in the meadow doing whatever it is that bears
do in meadows. I screamed "BABY BEARS!" at maximum volume, which
triggered in Noam an eardrum-protecting flinch which caused him to
swerve off the road into a parking spot. We watched them for awhile,
the babies climbed trees and wrestled, it was so cute:
It rained as we
drove over Tioga Pass and down into the Long Valley. Here's a lake
outside Yosemite on highway 120, maybe Ellery lake? Pretty, whatever
lake it is:
We turned off highway 395 on the June Lake loop:
Here is Rush Creek, at the Rush Creek trailhead on Silver Lake on the June Lake loop:
Saturday morning, we drove from June Lake to Bishop. Such a beautiful drive:
We stopped for breakfast at Convict lake:
The Bishop Mule
Days Celebration was so awesome. No less than the Olympics of mule
competition. Saturday morning was the parade:
A 20-mule team:
The 20-mule
team showed up later in the arena at mule days. The announcer was
pointing out how the mules are hitched in pairs along either side of a
chain. When they turn a sharp corner, the mules are trained to jump
over the chain as necessary to pull at the correct angle, which is
pretty cool. These are the three gigantic wagons they pulled, which are
apparently authentic wagons that were used for borax mining in death
valley and have been restored by a local rancher and muleteer:
Coon jumping:
In the
category of
giant-immaculately-groomed-horses-hitched-together-eight-at-a-time,
both the Budweiser Clydesdales and the Priefert Percherons "Texas
Thunder" hitches were represented. Though I found the Clydesdales to be
more dignified than the johnny-come-lately Priefert Percherons, this
guy riding Roman-style on the Priefert Percherons was pretty cool. Body
armor might have been more appropriate, but the sport coat was a nice
touch:
Sunday we drove around the Owens lake, which is no longer a lake since the city of Los Angeles takes all the water from the
Owens river, which would otherwise feed the lake:
Whitney Portal, the trailhead for the hike to the top of Mount Whitney,
the highest mountain in the lower 48 states, is just outside Lone Pine.
Below Whitney Portal is this weird, blobby landscape called the Alabama
hills, where a bunch of westerns were filmed back when, well, westerns
were filmed. Me in the Alabama hills, with the Sierra crest behind:
Noam in the Alabama hills:
We had lunch at Whitney Portal, which was jammed with people. Mount Whitney:
We stopped at the Manzanar National Historic site, where people of Japanese ancestry were interned during World War II.
There is not much left of the camp besides some foundations and a single historic building that the community
center of the camp. The building now houses the interpretive exhibits, which are excellent. What a shameful chapter in
American history, and how ironic that it happened while we were fighting fascism. The cemetery at Manzanar:
We managed to find the intake of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, and resisted the urge to pee in it:
We drove up to
the Schulman Grove of ancient bristlecone pines, at 9000+ feet. The
road in was a total vomit-comet and the altitude nearly killed me, but
we dutifully walked a few miles through the trees:
Sunset over Erick Schat's Bakkery, home of the original sheepherder bread (highly recommended, by the way), in Bishop:
Monday morning we stopped at Panum crater just outside Lee Vining, next to Mono lake.
Noam with some crackly pumice:
Weenie mac for breakfast by the shores of Mono Lake!
We drove north
to Bridgeport so we could take highway 108 home over Sonora pass. The
Travertine hot springs in Bridgeport were not super easy to find, but
three different people had mentioned them, so we persevered and
eventually found them. So nice. Other hot springs I have been to in
this country and in Canada tend to be diverted into neat, concrete
lined swimming pools, which I think takes something away from the
experience. Hannah and I went to a hot spring in Iceland which was just
a dock by the side of a natural burbling pool that was totally
unimproved, where you could literally boil yourself to death.
Travertine hot springs was happily in the middle: diverted into little
natural-looking pools with muddy bottoms and an unbelievable view:
Leavitt meadow, on the way up to Sonora pass:
Sonora pass:
Yosemite Valley, May 2-3, 2009
We headed to Yosemite Valley
with our horses to celebrate Noam's birthday. Two motivating factors:
1. Bringing one's own horses and riding them in Yosemite valley is
permitted, though it seems that no one ever does it. (In fact, at one
point during our visit, a real-live uniformed ranger asked *me* where
horses are permitted in the valley.) So, in the spirit of "if you don't
use it, they take it away" and maybe a little bit of "I want to be cool
by going to a place where other riders fear to tread, where I will no
doubt be treated by throngs of tourists as a rock star on horseback," I
was, of course, determined. 2. Noam and I plan to horse-pack a section
of the John Muir trail in Yosemite later this summer, including a
section that no one except nerds like me who want to sound like
Yosemite insiders refer to as the "Ice Cut" section. A mounted ranger
at Tuolumne Meadows last fall told me that the park service "lost" a
horse there last year, when the poor beast apparently spooked off the
edge of a cliff (the ranger riding the horse had the good sense to step
off the horse before the over-the-cliff part, and was uninjured).
Naturally, I developed an irrational fear of this place, and decided it
would be prudent to see it prior to tackling it during
Fourth-of-July-weekend traffic while towing a pack mule. Even though
the forecast got worse every time I looked at it, I remained optimistic
that the weather would be decent, so we headed out Saturday morning
despite winter storm warnings for Yosemite. It rained, a lot, but it
was quite warm for early May, and in the end we decided the rain
usefully cut down on the number of people on the trails. It turned out
the Ice Cut section was still closed for the winter, but who really
needs a reason to go to Yosemite anyway?
Saturday we tried to ride to Yosemite Falls but were turned back when
Juliet and Lukka both declined to cross some fast water over the trail
at a pretty bad spot. We made our way eventually to Mirror Lake, which
had lots of water over the trail but at least it was still. At the top
end of the Mirror Lake loop we crossed the bridge over Tenaya Creek,
which was really high and impressively loud! We rode as far as the
signs informing us that the trail was closed due to a rock fall up
ahead. I had hoped that the trail closure would be a giant pile of
rocks over the trail, like the "end of the road" in Hawaii Volcanoes
National Park, where you can drive right up to the spot where the lava
buried the road, and where I took awesome simulated pictures of my mom
fleeing the lava (she's such a good sport!). Unfortunately, there is
still a signficant quantity of unstable rock in the area, so the spot
where the trail is closed is marked not by a huge pile of rocks, but by
a boring sign and gate set some distance from the actual rock fall.
Check this out for "worst wife ever" award: we had planned to have steak on Saturday night, to celebrate Noam's birthday, but
I ran out of time to go to the store Friday night so instead we had weenie mac. Poor Noam!
Sunday
we rode up the Merced River canyon. There is the John Muir trail, where
horses are allowed, and a people-only trail, the famous Mist Trail to
Vernal and Nevada falls.
We rode to the Happy Isles nature center and consulted the huge map on
the board there (having destroyed our trail map by riding in the
pouring rain the day before), which showed the Mist trail and the John
Muir trail as one and the same until the bridge over the river at the
bottom of Vernal Fall. We started up the trail, which was beautifully
paved and lined with interpretive signs and felt like the kind of trail
that is closed to horses. After Noam confirmed to me, about fifty
times, that this must be the trail because there was no other trail
shown on the giant board-map, we bowled for humans as we headed up the
trail and Juliet, unfortunately, crapped right in front of a group of
Asian tourists before we crossed the Vernal Fall bridge and discovered
that the trail we wanted, the stock trail. The stock trail is not shown
on the map at Happy Isles (and I can see why, that map has a scale of
about one foot equals one mile, so it would be impossible to cram
everything in there [that was sarcasm]), is on the other side of the
river, has giant, awful rocks instead of pristine pavement, and instead
of interpretive signs, runs by a gigantic water tank, giving the trail
more of the "horses are allowed here" feel that we have come to expect
from our National Parks than the red-carpet-in-comparison trail we rode
up. Oops! Noam on the people trail:
We continued
up to Clark Point. The weather made it a really neat ride, because the
river was so high that you could hear it pounding through the canyon
wherever you were, but the fog drifting in and out sometimes obscured
our view of the river. Nevada Fall, hidden by the fog, is behind Noam
in the picture below. We waited a few minutes for the fall to reveal
itself, took a few pictures, then headed back down, on the proper trail
this time. Noam and the beasts at Clark Point:
On our way home Sunday, we stopped to admire Yosemite Falls and the very full Merced River:
Backcountry Weekend at Henry Coe state park, April 26, 2009
I
made probably three attempts to purchase the "Wildflowers of Henry Coe
State Park" brochure from the state parks website. Sold out! So many
beautiful flowers, and I was reduced to calling them "burgundy poofs"
and "purple danglies" and "those white popcorn thingies." I finally
found out why, the Pine Ridge association, the friends-of-Henry-Coe
organization that publishes the pamphlet, was hoarding them for the
backcountry weekend, the one weekend each year when they let you drive
deep into the park on the dusty, steep, rutted fire roads. We wanted to
go ALL THE WAY IN, for the sheer novelty of it, so we drove to
Orestimba Corral to hike the Orestimba Creek loop. At the corral, we
found a table staffed by a volunteer with things for sale! At last,
with my beloved pamphlet:
Purple danglies, I now know that you are Chinese Houses:
Larkspur:
Pebble Beach, April 24, 2009
Pebble Beach has some amazing, underused riding/hiking trails. Thanks Kelly for taking me and Evelyn on such a beautiful
ride! We rode down to the ocean, where we followed the famed 17 mile drive for a bit:
Nice tree:
These sand dunes were really neat. This trail went through a golf course. Almost pretty enough to make me want to take up
golf:
The diversity of landscapes is really cool, from beaches, to sand dunes, to manicured golf greens, to deep woods. This part
smelled like the mountains:
Backcountry Camping at Point Reyes National Seashore, April 18-19, 2009
We started at the Bear Valley visitor center (conveniently enough, where you pick up your wilderness permit) and rode
Horse trail to Sky trail to Sky camp, where we unloaded Tioga's packs. The woods on the Horse Trail:
After caching our stuff, we rode Sky trail to Woodward Valley trail to Coast trail to beach access at Coast camp. Coast trail:
Tioga looking skeptical on the beach, with friends Jeanne and Stephen in the background:
I
imagine Tioga has not been to the beach before, considering the lack of
beaches in Yosemite. He had that look like he just ate something really
sour, but he pretty much always looks like that, so I have no idea if
he hated it. We didn't try to take him in the surf, but after much
coaxing he did roll in the sand. He seems to take the position "as long
as the horses are okay with it, I am okay with it," so I wonder if he
would have been scared or would have behaved badly had our horses been
less ho hum. Here's to never finding out. Anyway, we rode back to our
home at Sky camp on Fire Lane trail to Sky trail. Tied all night to a
hitch rail as required by the park, Jeanne's mare and Juliet spent the
night flirting, then fighting, then pulling back. It was a LONG night
of listening to the "scree" noise they make when fighting and sitting
up to shine the light on them after hearing a flurry of hoofbeats, but
everyone made it through in one piece. A friend gave me the idea to
propose installing highline posts as a volunteer project so the horses
will actually shut up enough so we can sleep through the night, which
is good because (1) I like sleeping through the night and (2) I have
been trying to come up with a cool volunteering project. Next year we
are hoping to camp at Wildcat camp (hopefully AFTER a highline post
installation), which is right on the ocean! I love Point Reyes!
Tioga's Maiden Voyage, Henry Coe State Park, April 11-12, 2009
Easter weekend was beautiful at Henry Coe state park, it was nice and warm and there were a ton of wildflowers. We rode up
the Lyman Willson Ridge Trail, turned left at Steer Ridge Road, right at Serpentine Trail, right at Grizzly Gulch Road which
turned into Wagon Road, left at Vasquez Road, then right at Long Dam Trail (that's one long damn trail, har har!), which
rejoined Wagon Road. Noam, Lukka, Tioga, and Juliet's ears on Grizzly Gulch Road, one of the prettiest trails we have found
so far in the park:
We camped
where two creeks come together on the east side of Wagon Road in Coon
Hunter's Gulch, a beautiful, nearly flat site (saying a LOT for Henry
Coe) full of wildflowers. My favorite way to see a feral pig, exactly
as we found it:
Tioga has moved up to Indian Hills ranch and is the talk of the town up there. Tuesday morning, as I was walking him
to the place where he gets his mannies and peddies, we passed a stranger who took one look at his ears and couldn't help
but smile. Here is Tioga, resting on his highline at Henry Coe, and those magical ears!
Pretty much all camping food is not kosher-for-passover, but we did okay. Three-dimensional matzoh with jam for breakfast:
For the steep descent to Hunting Hollow, we took a new trail, Redfern trail. Poor Tioga, it was so steep his packs
ended up around his ears and his breeching kind of went up his butt to the point where the whole ball of wax was held in
place by Tioga clamping his tail down. *I* would have bucked until the whole thing came off, but he calmly plodded downhill
and waited for us to fix it at the bottom. So, riders of Henry Coe, take heed: when you enter Henry Coe at the Hunting Hollow
entrance, besides just riding the Hollow, there is only one way to go, straight up, and there are seven trails. We have
now ridden five of them and have no plans
to ride the other two since one, Jim Donnelly Trail, caused a RANGER to make a sound like a child eating spinach when I
asked about it, and the other, Phegley Ridge Trail according to the topo map is just as stupidly steep as others we have
ridden. There is only one good way up:
Lyman Willson Ridge Trail, and one good way down, Wagon Road. Middle Steer Ridge is unpleasant but do-able for going up, but
NEVER EVER go down Steer Ridge or Redfern. You heard it here first.
Spain, March 8-13, 2009
We flew to Madrid and met Noam's sister Ronni and mother Yehudit. We
rented a car (and a GPS) and headed south. First stop was Chinchon,
close to Madrid, where the city center Plaza Mayor was packed with
people out enjoying a sunny Sunday afternoon. A train of donkeys, some
labeled "burro taxi," took little kids on a spin around the medieval
square. Lots of motorcycle riders - Ronni and Noam admired the
treasures parked along the street as much as the historic buildings and
the balconies overlooking the Plaza Mayor. We had lunch at a restaurant
on the plaza, where we learned a useful lesson for the rest of the
trip: every single dish on the "appetizer plate" has pork in it, so if
you want olives, just order olives. After Chinchon we drove through La
Mancha and stopped at Consuegra, a small town on the vast La Mancha
plain with several traditional windmills on a hill above town, the kind
that Don Quixote "tilted" at, imagining them to be giants:
We spent our first night in Jaen, in Andalusia. Jaen is known, at least to Wikipedia, as the World Capital of Olive Oil.
From horizon to horizon every bit of space that wasn't occupied by something else was cultivated with olive trees. Spain has
an awesome chain of state-owned hotels called paradors, modern hotels located in historical buildings. The parador in Jaen,
where we stayed our first two nights,
is a (former) thirteenth century Arab fortress. Fancy! The view from our balcony in the morning (jet lag proved photogenic):
Later on the photogenic jet lag morning we drove to Granada to visit
the Alhambra, a fortress and palace complex built by Moors in the 14th
century when that part of Spain was known by the Arabic name
Al-Andalus. A view of the city from the Alhambra:
We had a yummy lunch at the square in the foreground, at about 4 PM which was the earliest we could pry Yehudit away from the
Alhambra. Yehudit to Moorish architecture is like Rachel to donkeys wearing little jackets labeled Burro Taxi: she could
bask all day in the glow of it, without regard to hunger or other discomforts. It really was beautiful. Noam at the Alhambra:
We had a
rather harrowing GPS experience on our return to Jaen that evening. We
decided to drive through city center Jaen, then let the GPS take us
back up the hill to our parador. The GPS directions did not distinguish
between nice comfortable American-style boulevards and alleys that were
barely wide enough for two people to pass through, much less a grande
rental car. Good thing Noam was driving, I would have taken out
building corners and left a trail of obscenities born of terror and
frustration in my wake. The next morning, we drove to Cordoba to see
the Mezquita, which is the Spanish word for "mosque" and has nothing to
do with tasty barbeque. The Mezquita was a church, then a mosque, then
both, when a church was built inside the mosque. Hey, reduce, reuse,
recycle, right? The beautiful arches in the mosque part of the
Mezquita:
The rabbi, physician, and philosopher Moses Maimonides, otherwise known as the Rambam, born in 1135, a famous son of Cordoba:
The Taberna La Bacala, where the cod we were actually served were not dancing, as on the sign, but were tasty!
Cordoba's 14th century Alcazar of the Christian kings. I omitted the
statue of Christopher Columbus being received by Ferdinand and
Isabella, since CC is the most overrated figure in all of history.
Anyway, the Alcazar:
On to Toledo!
Ronni and I decided Toledo was a lot prettier when viewed from the
outside. Once we got inside the city, it felt like we were always on
the outside of really high walls. Every nice, open, sunny space seemed
to be a parking lot, rather than a square with a cafe with outdoor
seating. Toledo from the outside:
Beautiful old bridge that we crossed when we walked into the city:
We spent our
last day in Madrid. Noam and I practically jogged through the Prado
museum, then met Yehudit and Ronni for the Museo Nacional Centro de
Arte Reina Sofía. On the way into the museum, I passed Jake Gyllenhaal
as he was walking out, so close that had I better reflexes, I could
have grabbed his wrist, spun his arm around, thrown him to the floor,
then licked his face. We saw Picasso's Guernica too, which I found
vivid and moving, but dude, Jake Gyllenhaal! Coffee in the Reina Sofia
museum cafe:
Noam and Tio Pepe in Madrid's Puerte del Sol:
Tioga Sings! Lakeview Stables, February 21, 2009
Proudly presenting the first video entry of Blogging Saddles:
Yosemite, January 10-11, 2009
Winter fun in Yosemite. The snow-covered Merced river, on the way in to the park:
Skiing on Tioga road:
FYI: heated tent cabins are still pretty cold in the winter. Bring your sleeping bag.
Milpitas, California arrived from 
Montevideo arrived from 