What Noam and I Have Been Doing . . .

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Rancho Oso, Santa Barbara, December 29-31, 2007

When we got up Saturday morning and left for the 6 hour drive to Santa Barbara, I worried we would drive all that way only to discover that the trails weren't that nice, or that the weather wasn't much better. Thank goodness I was wrong wrong wrong. The trails were great, good views and good footing, and the weather was incredible, so warm that I roasted in the winter-weight breeches that I bought for the occasion. The Kendalls drove up to meet us, and some friends from our boarding barn also decided to celebrate new years at Rancho Oso, so all kinds of people were showing up. Saturday, we took the Kendall kids for a pony ride around the ranch. Savannah has declared her intention to be a horse trainer when she grows up, and she did great with Juliet. Though I was quite impressed with Charlotte's upper body strength, it was not quite enough to keep Lukka's head out of the grass, so she stayed on-line. Sunday, Kathy took us to Lake Cachuma to ride:

Monday we took the wee Kendalls for another pony ride, then rode with Kathy on the trails from the ranch into the Los Padres National Forest.

Monday evening we stewed in the hot tub until several hours before midnight, then I went to bed at 9:20: my idea of a good new years.

Paris, December 15-20, 2007

We had a such a great time at the Bracebridge dinner in Yosemite last year that my uncle Denny and aunt Ellen declared we must get together every year. For more than four weeks during November and December, they rented an apartment in Paris, and invited us to join. Who can say no? It was a bit cold, perfect weather for long lunches. Sunday, we walked from Montparnasse, where the apartment was, toward the river. Here is Noam, during the obligatory stop at Notre Dame:

The Seine:

Monday we went to a new architecture museum (with a lovely view of the Eiffel tower), then to lunch, then to the Picasso museum. At the Picasso museum, they were celebrating the 70th anniversary of the painting of Guernica, which was painted in Paris but was not at the museum. Wikipedia tells me Guernica-the-painting is in Madrid. Anyone want to go to Madrid? After Picasso, we took the train to the Champs d'Elysees, then walked to the Arc de Triomphe:

Monday evening we had crepes and boozy cider at a neighborhood creperie. The air was thick with browned butter. What could be better? Noam left Tuesday morning. Sad! Mom and I went to the Rodin museum and saw the Burghers of Calais, one of Rodin's most famous sculptures. All the talk of burgers made me hungry, so we met Denny and Ellen for lunch at Au Petit Tonneau, an excellent little restaurant recommended by Noam's boss (thanks!). The Boeuf Bourguignon there was killer. After lunch, we shopped for a bit, then mom and I walked back to Montparnasse, where I bought a children's book about Biglouche, a near-sighted cat. I discovered this is an excellent way to learn a little vocabulary. I will never forget the highly useful verb "loucher," to squint. On Wednesday, we went to see Sainte Chapelle, amazing! We went to the Grand Palais, decided not to go inside to see more art, then to the Petit Palais, where we saw this in the lobby:

Straw, lovingly wrapped in PVC, artistically arrayed under this ceiling:

It fits perfectly, don't you think?

Sonny moves to San Jose, November 25, 2007

Sonny has moved to San Jose, to Maureen's house. During dad's visit to the bay area, I decided to pull out all the stops: we took him to the feed store, then down to San Martin to move Sonny. I'm the best hostess EVER!

New Orleans, October 27-28, 2007

As their last hurrah in the states before heading back to Germany and Israel, Ronni and Yehudit whisked us to New Orleans for Shai Ingber's wedding. We arrived just in time (almost) for Friday night dinner at the top of the world trade center building, overlooking the river. Saturday, before the evening wedding, we wandered around the French quarter. Excellent street music:

Mandatory stop at the Cafe du Monde. So good:

Just after the wedding ceremony, there was a "second line," a sort of mini-parade around the block, complete with brass band and champagne. There is something so deeply satisfying about walking down the street with an open container. I salute the fine culture of drinking in the crescent city. Below is a shot of Yehudit and me at the wedding. Please note my extremely elegant Ironman watch:

Point Reyes, October 20-21, 2007

Yehudit and Ronni dropped by for a visit, so we packed the car and headed up to Marin county. We stayed at this house (the green one) on Tomales Bay (thanks Yehudit for this beautiful picture):

Saturday we drove down to the Palomarin trail head near Bolinas, and hiked the Coast Trail to Alamere Falls, one of the few falls in this country (at least according to the hiking book) that falls directly into the ocean. Well, sort of. It was low tide. In any case, it was beautiful. Alamere Falls:

Sunday we took a little driving tour that ended up at Foreign Cinema in San Francisco, where we had dinner, then the Shendars dropped me off at the Caltrain station since I had to work on Monday. We stopped in San Rafael to check out the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Marin County Civic Center. It was interesting, but seemed to have a bit of deferred maintenance. The pavement was buckling in places, and some minor chunks were falling off (not load-bearing chunks or anything, but still). The spire at the Civic Center:

A view of San Francisco from Mount Tamalpais state park, where we did a little hiking:

Clayton Fall Fun Camp, September 28-30, 2007

Noam went to Israel, so I actually got to ride Lukka. Yay!

Pretty:

Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite, September 15-16, 2007

On Saturday morning, on the way to Yosemite, we drove through a parade in Groveland! The parade was in the westbound lane, while traffic crawled by in the eastbound lane.

Tioga road was not as bad with the trailer as I imagined it would be, but you do have to pay attention. There is almost no shoulder for about 45 minutes of driving to Tuolumne meadows. On Saturday we rode a teeny portion of the John Muir trail to Cathedral Lake. We rode with our good friend Becky, and her friend Sue. Becky is a newly-minted Wilderness Rider, which is a leave-no-trace stock use training program run by the Backcountry Horsemen of California and the Forest Service. A big part of the wilderness rider program is being a good ambassador for stock users, so Becky was cheerfully greeting every hiker and offering them water, it was really sweet. Here is Juliet posing in front of Cathedral Peak:

Wow, what a beautiful spot. Noam and Lukka at Cathedral lake:

On the ride back into camp, we saw our first bear, just off the trail, so heart-stoppingly close. He walked in the same direction as us, toward camp, until he paused as we crossed a creek bed and we really got a good look. I took a few photos, but he was so close I was a little, uh, distracted, so they didn't come out. Becky snapped this shot of the bear in the creek bed:

To my surprise, our horses did not seem concerned. When we first saw the bear and stopped to see what he would do, the horses seemed to be thinking "dude, what's the hold up? There's hay back at the trailer." Thinking about it now, this bear is a little scary, because given the time of day and the amount of campfire smoke in the air, he was obviously headed to the campground to "forage." Black bears are generally not dangerous to us, except when they become habituated to eating human food. Later in camp, as we were preparing dinner, I saw another bear walking behind the camp. Noam and Becky got their cameras and chased after that bear, but thankfully didn't catch him. Now that I know there are real bears in those mountains, not just theoretical bears, I really have to get the trailer in order. I did take out some horse treats and my emergency can of pineapple, but that attempt to remove bear attractants was really half-assed, given that the trailer is packed full of edible-smelling things like fly spray and Juliet's afro-sheen. By next summer I need to get that stuff organized together into something that can easily be shoved in a bear box.

Lordy it was cold that night. I did that camping-sleep thing where you sleep with your head in the sleeping bag until you start to suffocate a little, then you wake up and put your head out and sleep until you get too cold, then repeat until the sun comes up. We put blankets on both horses (Lukka looked pretty comical wearing a Juliet-sized blanket) but their fur was still totally puffed up in the morning. There was a skin of ice on both water buckets when I woke up at about 7. It was so cold that even though I got rid of the ice and filled the buckets, the skin of ice was back at 9. Sunday we rode across Tuolumne Meadows, then along the Tuolumne River toward the Glen Aulin High Sierra Camp. Wow, there was some challenging footing on that trail. We may have lost hope, had we not seen equid poop everywhere, and a whole mess of tourists out on rented mules from the Tuolumne Meadows stables. I think this stuff is called riprap. This is actually the trail:

Becky talked to the guy at the stable, who told her they will pack your junk for you while you ride your own horse to the High Sierra Camps. Yes! Backcountry horse camping for the lazy and/or uninitiated. Here is the Tuolumne River:

We will probably be back to Tuolumne Meadows next year, as there are a few more trails to ride. Also at Yosemite there is a horse camp at Bridal Veil, which my friend Karen tells me has the most scenic trails at Yosemite. The first block of summer camping reservations at Yosemite opens in January, I have the dates in my calendar!

Our 7th Wedding Anniversary, September 10, 2007

For our anniversary, Noam and I went out for kaiseki, a sort of Japanese tasting menu, at Kaygetsu in Menlo Park. Yum!

Unrelated to our anniversary, Noam grew this tomato in his garden. I think he picks his tomato varieties solely based on looks. Who knew he was so shallow?

Idaho and Random Utah Stuff, September 7-9, 2007

Back at the car in the outfitter's parking lot, Noam and I grabbed Victor, said goodbye to Mike, and hit the road to Salt Lake City. We stopped in Green River, UT, melon capital of the west, to say goodbye to the river and to get gas and some truly delicious melons. On to Salt Lake, where we dropped Victor at the airport and headed north to Idaho to visit my college roommate Heather and her boyfriend David, who live in Idaho Falls. Noam, eager to prove the utility of his recently-purchased GPS, pulled over in Malad City, Idaho, one of those quintessential American small towns where everyone looks like how I imagine serial killers look, where we drove around checking out the various dinner options listed by the GPS before we settled on this awesome car hop place. The place was like a training ground for turning bright-eyed teenagers into those chain-smoking, wise, uniform-wearing diner waitresses who call everyone "hon" that I see in movie-diners. Noam ordered a glamour burger and onion rings. The difference between a "glamour burger" and a regular burger (and, therefore, the source of the glamour): pickle relish. I had the best chocolate malt (super malty, yeah!) and grilled cheese sandwich four bucks can buy. We played the Lethal Weapon III pinball machine. At this point, I was ready to move to Idaho.

We stayed in Pocatello, apparently named "pokey" by those who know and love her, then drove the last hour to Idaho Falls on Saturday morning. We made a pilgrimage to the farmers market and other splendors of downtown Idaho Falls, made a peach pie, then Heather and David took us to Yellowstone Bear World, a drive-through safari. We were muddled on the ethics of the drive-through safari, but it was pretty cool to see all those bears. A grizzly!

Wrestling baby bears!

Break time at Yellowstone Bear World. Please note the large lump of Ursus americanus just outside the car. Right after this photo was taken, the bear bummed a smoke from the teenager in the Geo Tracker.

Heather and David have a real live dairy just a few minutes drive from their house, home to yummy hand-packed ice cream and the itchiest little blue roan colt ever born:

Sunday we watched the Packer game, shopped for cowboy boots at a huge western store, said goodbye, then drove back toward Salt Lake City, where we would catch our flight home. I wanted to make a pilgrimage to Preston, Idaho, where my horse trailer was built, but instead we spent our last hour at a Thiokol gallery of rockets and weapons we found from a road sign, and at the Golden Spike national monument. Here is Noam standing in a solid fuel booster for the space shuttle:

Noam at the golden spike spot where the two pieces of the first transcontinental rail line first came together.

The golden spike itself, I am told, is at the train museum in Sacramento. Most of the track in the area is gone, since this rail line hasn't been used for decades. But it is still cool for train geeks like us.

Canoeing the Green River through Canyonlands National Park, September 2-7, 2007

"Green river? Where the hell is that? How do you come up with these schemes?" says you. This one actually has a story better than "I don't know, I found it on the Internet." Or maybe it isn't such a good story. In any case, here it is: One of my favorite professors in college taught in the geography department, where I was taking classes to fulfill the requirements for my Environmental Studies certificate. I don't remember the class he taught, or his name, but he was awesome. This is the guy who, when discussing the problems with the National Park Service's dual mandate of access and preservation (stated here), uttered the now-famous-in-my-house words "John Muir never envisioned the six pack, the recreational vehicle, the satellite dish tuned to reruns of 'Dallas' deep in the heart of the Yosemite Valley." Mr. Super Professor also said the confluence of the Green and Yampa rivers in Dinosaur National Monument is one of the most remote and most beautiful spots in this country. Since then, I have been meaning to go there. Of course, the patch of the Green River where we canoed is over a hundred miles away from the confluence with the Yampa, but whatever, close enough, Green River. As soon as my friend Mike mentioned taking a trip on the Green River, I was ready to sign up. Well, sort of. Mike first mentioned it maybe five years ago, and it took us this long to get organized enough to do it. But I took that geography class in probably 1994 so five years isn't so long.

Sunday morning Mike, Victor, Noam and I left the cars at Tex's Riverways in Moab and hopped on a decrepit 1960s-ish Bluebird school bus towing a trailer full of canoes and other junk, to be trucked out to Mineral Bottom on the Green River. As the Tex's people loaded our stuff onto the trailer along with the gear of another group (we referred to them as "the magnificent 7"), one of the trip's themes emerged: "where is the rest of your stuff?" Noam and I learned to backcountry canoe in the boundary waters and Isle Royale, places with little lakes. On a river, with no portaging, you can take a lot more junk. For example, we brought those dehydrated meals in foil pouches, made for backpackers. The magnificent 7 had beer, abalone, cheese, and other fresh food, packed on ice, as well as a gas-powered blender for Tuesday margarita night. (Were they kidding about margarita night? I didn't think they were kidding, but I tend to be gullible.) When the magnificent 7 launched, their canoes had not more than a couple of inches of freeboard, they had so much stuff. They even had a garbage barge, an inflatable raft that they towed behind a canoe, that carried their trash and the welded aluminum box each group had to take for a toilet (it wasn't as bad as it sounds). Though abalone sounds pretty good, the only extra thing I would bring is one of those $5 folding camping chairs from Target.

The road down to Mineral Bottom was a series of switchbacks carved into the canyon wall. They had us get out and walk down (those old buses aren't as reliable as they were in 1969) and I was happy to do it. The bus, making its way down:

On the river at last, a baby arch:

Sunday we made it from Mineral Bottom, mile 52, to Saddle Horse Bottom, mile 47. Monday morning, we packed up and paddled just a couple of miles to Horsethief Canyon, where we got out to take a look around. There was some quicksand in the mouth of the canyon, that is cool stuff, it felt like cornstarch in water, like you can make it act like a solid or a liquid, depending on how you apply pressure to it.

From Horsethief Canyon, at mile 46, we paddled to Fort Bottom, at mile 41, where there is a ruin you can hike to. The river changes so quickly that the sandbars we encountered on the river did not match two different maps we had, nor the GPS. At the bottom of Fort Bottom, near the river, there is thick tamarisk, an invasive species that was introduced to control streambank erosion. We bushwhacked for a bit, but could not find the trail to the ruin.

Monday we camped at Queen Anne Bottom, near mile 34. In the picture below, on the right, is the Buttes of the Cross. In his first expedition down the Green River in 1869, John Wesley Powell thought this was a single butte in the shape of a fallen cross and named it the Butte of the Cross (it is actually two buttes).

Just before running the "rapids" at mile 32:

Tuesday we stopped for a long break at Anderson Bottom, a spot where the river abandoned a big bend and shortened its course by about two miles. Victor, with his air guitar, in Anderson Bottom:

On the bus, one of the guys in the magnificent 7 told us about a slot canyon in Anderson Bottom that is a fun climb. The slot canyon is the first canyon on the right, as you follow the river's old course downstream. You swim through a pool to the back, then climb up through the canyon to the top of the mesa, where you can find a livestock herder's trail, marked by a few cairns, that goes down the canyon wall to a gate near the entrance to the slot canyon. In his description, we had to "finesse" our way up the slot canyon, which I now know means climbing slick rock ledges that are over my head, with no footholds. Bring hiking boots, at least one good rock climber, and rope. Thank God for Victor, and Noam. Noam because he had a little piece of cord in his pocket, and Victor because he was able to climb up the slick rock ledges, then basically drag me up by the cord. I skinned both my knees and one elbow, but it was SO COOL to be in that slot canyon. Victor and me, in the pool where the climb starts at the back.

Tuesday night we camped beneath Turks Head, near mile 22. In all my canoe trips, no one has ever unintentionally dumped a canoe (on one trip when we were teenagers, Luke and Heather and I intentionally swamped the canoe a couple of times, because it was hot and, for whatever reason, we wanted to make the dog swim), until Victor and Mike got to the rapids at Horse Canyon below mile 15 on Wednesday. They hit a rock, the canoe turned broadside to the rock, then swamped. Victor and Mike leaped from the canoe to avoid a horrible death by drowning, to find themselves standing in about a foot of water. (In all fairness, Noam and I were only saved from the same fate because a guy ran up and shouted "keep to the left!" as we approached the rapids behind Mike and Victor.) No harm done, Mike's watertight camera bag actually WAS watertight and saved his camera, everything else dried, and the only item that we lost to the river, a water bottle, we found about a mile downstream once we dried off and started paddling again.

Looking back at Horse Canyon:

Wednesday night we camped near mile 12. Here are some ruins, at Jasper Canyon near mile 10:

A dragonfly:

Our campsite near mile 3 on the last night:

Our last morning on the Green River, paddling the last couple of miles to the confluence with the Colorado River.

At Spanish Bottom, a couple of miles below the confluence, waiting to be picked up by the jet boat.

Arches, September 1, 2007

We flew to Salt Lake City on Friday evening and drove for a couple of hours, then drove the rest of the way to Moab on Saturday morning. We spent Saturday poking around Arches National Park. First thing, we hiked to the Delicate Arch. It was hot. The last time I was there, with Andrea after high school, we hiked to the Delicate Arch at noon on a sweltering summer day. One of these years, I am going to go to Arches at a time of year where the risk of death is not so high. Me and Noam, obscuring the Delicate Arch:

A desert frog:

Landscape Arch, the longest arch in Arches. A huge chunk of it fell in 1991, conveniently enough on videotape, and nearly smushed some tourists as they scrambled out of the way.

Wrights Lake and Desolation Wilderness, August 25-26, 2007

Noam and I did another smash-and-grab Sierra horse camping weekend at Wrights Lake Equestrian Campground, off highway 50 before Echo summit and Lake Tahoe, just outside the Desolation Wilderness. The campground flyer includes a set of elaborate directions where you leave highway 50 well before a road called "Wrights Lake Road," which turns left off highway 50 just south of Wrights Lake. The Forest Service does not recommend trailers on Wrights Lake road. Come on, really? Google earth showed a pretty impressive hairpin turn right after you turn, so we took the elaborate directions. Holy crap, I have a new respect for the Forest Service, especially for what they considered "not recommended for trailers." The recommended route was challenging enough, I can't imagine doing it with something bigger than we have. Of course, we get there and there are massive RVs everywhere. So I'm a driving wuss who gets routinely bested by retired people driving massive RVs despite the fact that they are no doubt partially blind and have reflexes slowed with age? I'm over it.

At the horse camp, we discovered that about half of the available trails are closed to horses, including the Twin Lakes trail and the Tyler Lake trail. I wish the Forest Service would post this information online; I looked for it before we left and did not find it. I think you tend to have better luck calling the local ranger district, though they can be hard to reach. Anyway, now that our plan to ride to Twin lakes was foiled, we set off down the Bloodsucker trail to the Lyons creek trail, which took us into the Desolation Wilderness to Sylvia Lake. One thing to note about the Bloodsucker trail, you do not get a chance to get a day use wilderness permit (required to enter the Desolation Wilderness) once you leave Wrights Lake, since you join the Lyons Creek trail a couple of miles beyond the trailhead. Theoretically you should be able to get a permit at Wrights Lake, but the campground host we asked didn't know how to get one. You could ride about a half mile from the horse camp to the Dark Lake trailhead and get one there, then backtrack and pick up the Bloodsucker trail. We rode to Bloodsucker lake, then to Sylvia lake, then back to camp, about 12 miles total. Here we are at the wilderness boundary:

Noam at Sylvia Lake:

This is what a lara bar tastes like after it rattles around in a saddle bag all summer:

The horse camp is not quite on Wrights Lake and horses are not allowed near the lake, so Sunday morning Noam and I walked over to Wrights Lake to take a peak. At the bulletin board near the main campground a sign said the campgrounds were full. Only two of the twelve sites in the equestrian campground were occupied. Too bad, because the rangers surely look at this situation and say (rightly so) "if the horse people don't use the campground, and the non-horse campgrounds are full, why don't we open the horse campground to non-horse users?" So file this one under if-we-don't-use-it-they-take-it- away. Wrights Lake, one stop shopping for morning Jesus light AND artisticly parked canoes:

After pancakes on Sunday morning (yum), we saddled up and rode from the Dark Lake trail head to Beauty Lake, then into the wilderness on Rockbound trail until we got tired and turned around. Lukka and Juliet are masters of tricking us into thinking on the trail out that the altitude is getting to them, or they are dehydrated from the trailer ride, or the trail is too rocky. Invariably, once we turn back toward the trailer, they miraculously recover. Rockbound trail:

Gee, this entry sounds so grumpy! Sorry for that, I don't know why, we loved Wrights Lake!

Big Basin, August 17-19, 2007

I love Big Basin state park. It is so close, and so beautiful. We left my office around 5 PM on Friday, and by 7 we were sitting around the fire ring at our camp site, enjoying a good blaze. Saturday morning we got up early and hiked to Buzzards Roost, a 1200 foot elevation gain over 2.3 miles, but nice views. The top of Buzzards Roost:

Noam was disturbed by my need to sort the trail mix. I think most troubling to him was the use of my sock as a sorting tray for the chocolate chips:

Saturday afternoon we hiked the East Ridge trail, nice big trees and few other people on the trail. East Ridge:

John Muir's House in Martinez, CA, August 11, 2007

After wandering the Sierra Nevada for years, John Muir married and settled in Martinez, CA, on a large orchard owned by his wife's family. In a room he referred to as his "scribbling den," Muir started the environmental movement in this country. Here is the house, huge!

Though the house is now about 100 feet from a highway, there are still fruit trees on the grounds. Noam ate a decent looking pear he found on the ground. Mmm . . . pears:

Hiking at Mount Diablo State Park, August 11, 2007

Oh cruel universe, at the height of the summer trail riding season, a few horses at Indian Hills came down with strangles, a highly-contagious-though-not-generally-deadly upper respiratory disease where the horse develops giant puss-filled pockets at the throatlatch that generally burst and drain near the end of the illness. Fun! I was ready to party when the sign said the quarantine was voluntary, but then I made the mistake of talking to my vet, who advised that the damage to my karma if I ignored the quarantine could be extensive.

So what do horseless people do on a Saturday morning? We went HIKING! At Mount Diablo! Where it's hot! And steep! I'll never make that mistake again. Actually, only kidding, despite my general plan to avoid carrying my own weight at all cost, it was kind of fun. There are some benefits to leaving the horses at home: It is a lot easier to park the car than the horse trailer. When Noam stops for no apparent reason in the middle of the trail, I can say "why did you stop?" and he will actually give a meaningful answer. I don't have to worry about Noam leaving big poo piles in the parking lot. Noam doesn't wipe his mouth on me after taking a drink.

Here is Noam, with a slightly obscene Mount Diablo tree. Note his new, very stylish glasses.

At home with Dinah

I have no explanation for this:

Riding with Pat, August 4, 2007

Wow, my friend Pat lives in horse heaven! She is nearly surrounded by open space preserves. She took us on a ride to a place she calls the enchanted forest:

There were lots of thistles, which Juliet always enjoys. I always stop and let her eat them too, because I enjoy the dramatic way she peels her lips back to bite off the flower without getting stabbed by the thorns. Juliet + Lips + Thistles:

Camping at Graham Hill in Santa Cruz, July 14-18, 2007

Joann and I drove from our class at Parelli-land in Pagosa Springs, CO, to Santa Cruz. Friday afternoon we drove to Flagstaff, then Saturday we drove from Flagstaff to Santa Cruz, a long drive for one day. Sunday morning I went on a trail ride at Henry Cowell state park in the morning, then Noam picked me up so I could go home and shower and see the kitties. Juliet-cam shot of the trail on Sunday:

Monday we took another trail ride in the morning. The trails were really pretty, deep woods, single track trails, good footing, and enough roots and rocks on the trail to make the horses look where they are going. We got a bit turned around on one ride and ended up under a railroad trestle where the Roaring Camp railroad goes. We could hear the whistle on the little steam engine in the distance, it was so cool. Below is a picture of the group on the trail on Monday, at the Observation deck. There was a little horsey water fountain up there where the horse had to press down a paddle to make the water run. Juliet nearly licked the paint off that thing, it was cute.

We had class with Sandi Parker on Tuesday. Me and Landa in class:

Liberty and Horse Behavior Course at Parelli-land in Pagosa Springs, CO, July 1-13, 2007

I wrote up my notes from the course, with some pictures, here. Warning: like watching paint dry for non-horse-people.

The Continental Divide, June 30, 2007

More hiking today. We stopped near the top of Wolf Creek pass to do some hiking on the Continental Divide, the backbone of North America. On the last day of June, there was still snow on the trail!

Please note Noam's highly appropriate snow footwear:

After hiking for a while through forest, wishing someone had cut down some trees so we could see the view, we went back to the car and drove to an overlook. The view is amazing!

Fourmile Trailhead, June 29, 2007

This morning, our horses just looked a little spent. Juliet has a hole in her fur under the saddle and Belle seems a little back sore, so Joann and I decided to carry our own weight and hike today. But first, here is one of Belle's and Juliet's neighbors at the Inn at the Springs where we are staying:

We drove to the Fourmile Trailhead and hiked to a little falls on Fourmile Creek.

V-Rock Trailhead, June 28, 2007

The V-rock trailhead is at the end of a long drive down a gravel road. After a scary barbed-wire gate, the trail headed uphill, through a steep section at the beginning then switchbacks until we reached a mesa where the views were fantastic:

We followed the trail along the top of the mesa until we lost it in this meadow, which was still quite wet:

We rode back down to the trailhead, then followed a flat trail to Buckles lake, then to Harris lake. Here is Buckles lake:

There are tons of flowers still, beautiful!

Canyon de Chelly, June 25-26, 2007

Joann and I left Saturday morning, June 23 for our big trip to Parelli-land and stops in between. What is Parelli-land, you wonder? A horse training center, founded by our guru, Pat Parelli, in Pagosa Springs, CO. Saturday we drove to Kingman, AZ, where we stayed at lovely Blake's RV Ranch, right off the highway (and when I say right off the highway, I mean RIGHT off the highway. There was a Petro station in our front yard. But the proprietor of Blake's says the Iron Skillet restaurant there has a nice steak and shrimp special, if you ever want to check it out). Sunday morning we set out for Flagstaff, where we picked up some supplies we forgot. I am still enjoying the novelty of this traveling with horses thing. Joann and I kept saying things like "I'm at Safeway with my horse! I'm sitting at Starbucks enjoying a frappucino with my horse! I'm sending a fax from Kinko's with my horse!" Of course, the horses actually had to stand in the trailer in the parking lot in the 90ish degree weather, so I'm not sure they enjoyed the novelty as much, but they are, after all, horses. After taking care of our business, we drove toward the Grand Canyon and did a quick ride in the Kaibab national forest.

After our ride in Kaibab, we drove to Chinle, AZ, at the mouth of Canyon de Chelly. We stayed at Totsonii Ranch, the ranch belonging to the Bigwater family, who was taking us into the canyon on an overnight trip beginning the following morning. We were greeted at the ranch by Shorty, the fragrant but charming ranch caretaker, who felt we were better off tying our horses to the trailer rather than using the ranch pens, since there were two studs in the pens who would have to share a fenceline with our mares, and Shorty didn't feel the fence was too reliable. We tied our horses to the trailer and got little sleep, between howling dogs, our horses rubbing on the trailer and periodically trying to kill each other, visions of mustang rapists behind rickety fences sneaking into our dreams, and the occasional wild horse, not belonging to the ranch, who would trot by for visit. We all lived through the sleepless night, and got up Monday morning to admire the Totsonii ranch horses, mostly mustangs bred by the ranch. Nate, our Navajo guide, later told us that there used to be roundups of the wild horses in the canyon, and at one of those roundups, Lee Bigwater bought Chase, a mustang stud the family trained, who went on to sire much of the Totsonii herd. On Tuesday we would see Chase, still a stud, out for a day ride, being ridden by a tourist, while the guide rode another stud. Now that is a well behaved stud.

Late morning we set off for the canyon with Nate and de Chelly, his aptly named mustang mount. We rode through sagebrush to the rim of Bay canyon, a side canyon off Canyon de Chelly:

The trail then took us down into Bat canyon. The trail was narrow in places, steep in places, and rocky everywhere. Our horses trucked along without a problem, that made me so happy.

The canyons are indescribably beautiful. On the floor of the canyon, the trail took us by the spectacular vertical walls of the canyon, and through non-indigenous olive trees and native cottonwood trees. The cottonwoods were shedding their cotton from green seed pods. In places the cotton was so thick it looked like snow on the ground. We rode through Bat canyon until it ended at Spider rock, at the intersection of Canyon de Chelly, Bat canyon, and Monument canyon. Here is a nice stripey rock near Spider rock.

According to tradition, Spider rock is the home of the spider woman, who taught the Navajos to weave. The spire between Joann and me is Spider rock:

It was hot. Though there were a few water holes left, the canyon was very dry. Nate said the river had finally stopped running and dried up about two weeks earlier. He said April was a better time to visit the canyon, when the water was still running and it wasn't so hot.

In the afternoon we ran into a small herd of horses hanging out in a grove of cottonwood trees. The canyon is open range, so there are wild horses roaming around, as well as horses that belong to people but have been turned out to forage on the range. Joann and I were thrilled to see a herd of wild horses, until Nate noted that they were all young studs, the bachelor band who were too young to have fought for and won their own mares. When one of the horses started to approach us, Joann and I prepared to panic, but Nate and his gelding de Chelly ran interference until we got far enough away and they left us alone. The bachelor band:

We camped for the night on land belonging to Totsonii ranch. The campsite was right next to a steep, vertical canyon wall, on a little plateau that looked over a big fenced field where our horses roamed for the night. At one point, some riders came through herding a group of horses down the road, outside the fenced field. After two days in a blazing hot trailer, and about six hours of riding to get to the campsite, our "tired" horses ran around like lunatics, just for the fun of it. Here are our horses and de Chelly, hanging out in the shadow of the canyon:

Nate spent his summers as a child living in a little hogan across the road from the campsite, learning from his great grandmother skills like weaving and herding sheep. Nate's sister Vicki cooked dinner and breakfast for us. Dinner was a Navajo taco, fry bread with beans, meat, cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes. Yummy! Nate's cousin John hauled our stuff and everything else into the canyon, set up the camp, set up our tents, and built us a fire. When I was dozing in the morning, heard hoofbeats, and opened my eyes to see John bringing our horses up to eat and drink water, I thought I could really get used to camping like this. Nate and Vicki told lots of great stories, like those awesome mocking stories from childhood that only a sibling can really tell well, stories about celebrities they had met when they took them into the canyon for movie shoots, and stories about other tourists they had taken into the canyon. It was really cool how the entire family was involved with the operation. I slept outside so I could see the stars. Joann and I were wondering if our horses would still be there in the morning. A few times, a whinny woke me up, and I could fall back asleep assuming that the whinny was Juliet or Belle, and they were still there.

In the morning, we rode out from camp to our first stop at White House ruin:

We stopped again near First ruin, where we saw the truck going in to pick up Vicki and John and our stuff from the campsite. They told us to take our time, so I poked around a cottonwood grove to find another herd of horses we could hear whinnying. This group was branded, and included a stallion and a group of mares and foals, including a pinto mare who was hugely pregnant. I also found these horse bones:

We rode from a deep part of the canyon toward the open mouth of the canyon near the town of Chinle, so as we rode on the second day, the canyon got wider and the walls shorter. After seeing not a single human soul the first day, we ran into lots of people the second day, mostly on jeep tours. All told, I enjoyed the first day more. We did see a lot of petroglyphs the second day, including this hunting scene.

I loved this carving in the rock of a scorpion, placed to warn children not to go in this cranny in the rock.

This ride was amazing, and the people at Totsonii Ranch were all wonderful. Go make your reservations now: www.totsoniiranch.com

Jack Brook Horse Camp, June 8-10, 2007

Presumably because the horse expo (affectionately known to us as "the sexpo," because the URL is www.horsexpo.com, which contains the word "sex" and therefore triggers HR emergencies at some companies) was in Sacramento, we had the entire horse camp to ourselves. We arrived Friday night and rode for about five hours on Saturday morning. There were so many banana slugs! We counted probably 50. Some slug glamour shots:

I never get tired of these trails:

Wawona Horse Camp at Yosemite, June 2-3, 2007

Noam and I got up at 5:45 on Saturday morning to pick up the horses, meet Jeanne and Stephen, and drive to Yosemite. I thought we were maybe a little bit nuts, but when we got to Yosemite about 1 in the afternoon and had the rest of the day to ride, it felt worth it. On Saturday we rode to Chilnualna Falls, about a five hour ride round trip to the top of the falls. A lot of the trail was through forest, bordered in many places by dense plants that smelled like artichokes. When the trail left the forest, we could see Wawona dome and the falls. The top of the falls:

The last bit of trail before the falls was rocky steps with a rock wall on one side and a drop off on the other. Juliet, who was in front, lost her courage there so I got off to lead her. Can you blame her?

On Sunday, we rode on the Alder Creek trail, which is exposed at the beginning and was hot! Despite the heat, it was early enough in the season that wildflowers were still blooming. We cooled off as soon as the trail went into the woods. Noam and Lukka:

Big Basin, May 26-28, 2007

Noam likes to spend Memorial Day weekend at an event dubbed "Geeks Weekend," where he gets together with a bunch of friends and plays tank killer for 14 hours at a time, and lord knows what else. Memorial Day weekend has thus become a girl power camping weekend for me. Like last year, I went to Big Basin with a bunch of horse friends. Saturday we rode up the Skyline-to-Sea trail to the sign that says no horses or bikes beyond this point. We tried to make a loop by coming back along Henry Creek trail, but the first water crossing was very treacherous, sheets of rock with snotty algae grown over them. Lukka lost her hind end a little as she crossed, but Sally's horse Barry fell completely on his side, drenching Sally and cutting Barry's foot. So we backtracked.

Sunday, Joann, Jeanne, and I set out for a long ride. We took Skyline-to-Sea to McCrary Ridge, joined Hihn Hammond fire road, turned left on Gazos Creek fire road, then down Chalks Road to Westridge to the switchbacks on Clark Connection back to camp. I eyeballed it on the map and estimated it to be maybe 15 miles. We got out there and discovered it was much longer, probably more like 20. We left at 11 and things looked a bit bad at 3 in the afternoon, when we hadn't made it very far. Joann suggested we commission a t-shirt with a big red circle and line through it superimposed over a photograph of me reading a map, then stopped talking for a little while, but we trotted for a long time to catch up and when we came to a sign that said just nine miles back to camp, all was forgiven. Here is the view from the McCrary Ridge trail:

A photo taken by an axe-murderer (by appearance anyway, according to Jeanne) that we met on the Gazos Creek trail:

Rolex Kentucky Three Day Event, Lexington, KY, April 27-29, 2007

The Rolex event is one of only four (or maybe three, or maybe five, we couldn't agree) events worldwide at the very top level in the sport of three day eventing. Friday was dressage day:

Saturday was cross country day:

Saturday we were blessed with perfect sit-on-the-grass-and-drink-beer weather, as illustrated here:

Sunday was stadium jumping day. This is Karen O'Connor riding the pony (!) Theodore O'Connor. They went double clear in stadium, and came in 3rd overall.

Germany, April 5-7, 2007

On the way home from Israel, we stopped for a few days in Cologne to hang with Ronni and Till. On Friday we visited Noam's friend Cesar and his wife Silke, and their house full of kids and animals. Silke loves horses but is allergic, so she has Curly horses, which are hypoallergenic. Her Curlies are descendants of a herd of Curlies in Utah. I love the ringlets in this guy's mane:

On Saturday we walked around Cologne and took in the sights. Here is the Dom cathedral:

Some extremely sophisticated and mature behavior in a pub:

Israel, Passover, April 1-5, 2007

There is a great schism in the Shendar family. The source of the schism: dessert. In particular, a frothy lemon dessert served by Grandma Inge at worthy events. Half the family thinks the lemon creation is haute cuisine, the other half wonders if the main ingredient is dish soap. Noam and I arrived in Israel the night before the passover seder. The day of the seder, I was given the distinct honor of helping Inge prepare the lemon surprise. We had a lot of fun, Inge is the kind of fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants cook that I admire. Here we are at the seder at Yehudit's house:

The day after the seder, we set out for an overnight trip to Sde Boker, the kibbutz where Ben Gurion lived, in the Judean desert. On the way, we stopped in a couple of places to look at wildflowers, and at the Bet Guvrin caves that had been inhabited since the 3rd century BC.

In the distance is the shell of a Byzantine church:

We arrived in Sde Boker in the evening and had dinner with some old friends of Yehudit and Dan. After breakfast the following morning, we tasted wine made from grapes grown on the kibbutz, then went hiking in the Ein Akev canyon nearby. I love desert landscapes and this canyon was beautiful. Hiking:

At the spring we were hiking to:

Our last day in Israel, Noam and I went to visit the Safe Haven for Donkeys, a donkey rescue run by a British woman. The last time Yehudit visited the US, just before she arrived, someone posted the safe haven URL on a message board I read. I decided the timing was the universe telling me to do something for the donkeys, so we stopped at a tack store and loaded up Yehudit with deworming medicine, wound care stuff, and other donkey supplies. Donkeys are so inexpensive in Israel that it is less expensive to get a new donkey than to provide even the most basic vet care. As a result, there is a lot of neglect. Lest you think I am turning into the equid equivalent of a crazy cat lady (since I just spent way more text on the donkeys than on any other part of the trip), I realize there is great human tragedy in this part of the world, but the donkeys also deserve our empathy. Donks!

Backcountry Horsemen of California Rendezvous, Turlock, March 24, 2007

Noam and I went to a packing 101 class. Joe, a backcountry ranger from Sequoia national park, taught us how to pack Feather, a mule. Joe spends the summers at the Hockett Meadow ranger station in Sequoia. The ranger station is an eight hour horseback ride in from the nearest parking lot. Joe's wife rides in from time to time to resupply him. He rides out for three or four days at a time doing trail maintenance and greeting people in the backcountry. He actually gets paid for this! Feather was pretty tolerant of Noam and I fumbling around on her. We learned a lot of knots and techniques that will probably not stay with me past Wednesday, but the most important thing we came away with is a vague feeling that this is actually something we could do. Noam wisely made me promise not to buy a mule in the near future. Here I am with Feather:

Sunol, March 17, 2007

DeeDee and I traded horses at Sunol, she rode Lukka and I rode her Sonny. We rode in the Ohlone Wilderness to the border with Mission Peak Regional Preserve. Here is Lukka, taking a rest under a tree:

My first endurance ride, Quicksilver park, March 10, 2007

Several months ago, I signed up for a stupidly expensive clinic, then at the last minute had to drop out because of work. The clinic organizer couldn't find someone to take my spot, so I called my friend who boarded there and told her to go ahead and take the lesson, since it was already paid for and I couldn't make it. In exchange, I asked if she would take me on a limited distance endurance ride, since she has some experience with endurance and I had no idea what I was doing. We decided on the Shine and Shine Only ride at Quicksilver in March. The name of the ride sounded nice and noncommittal, and Kathy assured me it nearly always got canceled. On the Monday before the ride, I looked at the forecast and in a panic realized that the ride was probably NOT going to get canceled. We arrived at the park on Friday afternoon and camped overnight. Juliet of course had no idea what she was in for, but she did not seem to mind having a number written on her butt and she heartily enjoyed all the eating involved with an endurance ride. She stood all night tied to the trailer, merrily chomping her hay and beet pulp. Even with two horse blankets beneath my air mattress and one horse blanket over my sleeping bag, I nearly froze to death sleeping in my trailer. No matter, since the ride started at 6:30, there was not much time for sleeping. I got up, tacked up in the dark, and after a little freak out when the cavalry started up the hill at 6:30 sharp, we were off, one of the last two groups of riders. Here is a Juliet-cam view of the camp:

We were promptly passed by the last group of riders, but after the vet at the vet-in on Friday evening said "plenty of groceries on this one," I felt like Juliet deserved to take it a little easy. We trotted most of the first ten miles to the vet check, and arrived there just after 8. The vet had me trot Juliet out on ground that looked like a gravel pit, so of course she looked a little off. The vet did not pull me, but told me to watch her left front. Kathy, my guide, my chaperone, my champion, got pulled! Kathy's friend Jackie and I had to go on alone. In honor of the gimpy left front, I put Juliet's new easy boots on, which I paid a fortune to have overnighted to me at the last minute, only to discover that they are a tad too big. For the rest of the ride, we got this nice loud farting air sound coming out of the boots at every step. Jackie and I rode together for about the next ten miles, then I told Jackie to go ahead without me, so I could ride the final downhill sections at a flat walk, again in honor of the gimpy left front. When Jackie and her horse left us, Juliet whinnied and she wanted to run after them, but I kept disengaging her, and she listened to me. Eventually she calmed down enough to really walk. It wasn't pretty, and it wasn't light, but we were safe and we rode alone. That experience alone was worth the price of admission. Here we are at the finish line. Please note the gigantic rip in my pants, courtesy of a low-hanging branch on a part of a single track trail where Juliet was particularly frantic to find another horse. Thanks Noam for coming to see the finish and taking this picture!

South Lake Tahoe with the Kendalls, March 3-4, 2007

Huzzah! It snowed all week and as a result, there was tons of new snow. We skiied at Kirkwood on Saturday, it was great, but note to self, avoid the traverse in the middle of the trail map. It sucks! Sunday we skiied at Heavenly, it was heavenly:

South Lake Tahoe with Abby, February 23-25, 2007

We fought the traffic and drove to South Lake Tahoe on Friday night with Abby and her two dogs, Ellie and Dodger. On Saturday, Noam and I drove to Reno to the American Endurance Ride Council annual meeting at the Nugget casino there. We talked to some people, had lunch with my friend Kathy, bought a helmet for Noam and some reins for Lukka, stalked the Nutrena man until he gave us a coupon, then left. It was fun. On the way back to South Lake Tahoe, we stopped at Mount Rose and skied for a couple of hours. We are below average in terms of snowfall this year, so though it was mostly nice hard packed snow, in some spots it was bare ice. We did find some nice runs, and it was cheap! Sunday morning we woke up to a snowstorm. Interstate 80 was already closed, highway 50 seemed about to close, and the lifts at Heavenly were all on hold because of the wind, so we packed up and headed back. Here is Noam, driving Abby's sweet Subaru Forester, in the snowstorm.

Noam's trip to Israel, President's Day weekend, 2007

While I was galivanting around county parks, Noam was in Israel. Noam, fortunate guy, loves everything about flying. He loves airports, he loves planes, and he seems to even love sleeping in a coach class seat, because he does it extremely well. I am not quite as enthusiastic, but I do pretty well. This lack of irritation at the whole process makes it possible for us to take five day trips involving transatlantic flights, two days of travel, three days on the far side. Noam went on one of these insane five-day trips to Israel for Presidents' day weekend. The red anemones in the northern Negev desert were in full bloom after what was likely the last rainfall of the season.

Ride at Almaden Quicksilver county park, February 19, 2007

Joann, Jeanne, DeeDee, Noam's cousin Sarah, and I spent Washington's birthday (observed) riding at Almaden Quicksilver county park in San Jose. Nice park! Lots of mines and old junk from mining around, notated by (be still my heart) informational placards! YAY! Sonny enjoyed carrying someone who weighs probably no more than 60 pounds (Sarah), and Sarah enjoyed galloping on the flat parts of the trail. The other horses seemed unsure of what, exactly, Lukka is, but ultimately found her non-threatening. We rode up to an old cemetery, poked around, and ate some grass. It was a good day. Standing on Lukka:

Ride from Ed Levin park to the Sunol Regional Wilderness, February 18, 2007

Joann and I left from the parking lot at Ed Levin a little after 8. Our natural horsemanship group had a play day at Sunol, and we hoped to catch rides home with the departing play day participants. DeeDee said she would wait for us until 3:30 at the latest, so we had seven and a half hours to go maybe 13 miles. Enough time to make it even if we had to drag ourselves by our lips, but you can't be too careful. There is no such thing as overplanning. The trail in Ed Levin hops up into the hills at the beginning, then skips along the side of the hills to the boundary of Mission Peak Regional Preserve, where you start a long, unrelenting climb up to Mission Peak. The views were nice, but it was cold and foggy. At the top of Monument Peak, we could see two towers disappearing into a cloud that was parked over the peak. The ride to Mission Peak is pretty open and windy. There was a lot of grass, and a lot of bovines. We saw at least two bulls. From our highest point in Mission Peak Regional Preserve, we were completely alone in a wild place, but surrounded by freeways down below. The trail into the Ohlone Wilderness on the back side of Mission Peak has more trees and is beautiful. Or maybe I was just so thankful that it was finally starting to get warm and sunny. I stopped to pee under this tree:

Juliet, in the Ohlone Wilderness just before the boundary with Sunol Regional Wilderness.

Connecticut and New York's Hudson river valley, February 1-5, 2007

On Friday Hannah and I made the required pilgrimage to the Whitney donut shop and were served donuts as perfect as I remember from last August. We had lunch with Hannah's friend Rebecca, looked at the Gutenberg bible at Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, drove all over creation looking for a liquor store, then drank our liquor while John made us dinner. On Saturday we set out at the crack of noon for Franklin Delano Roosevelt's house on the Hudson river. Here are Hannah and John, welcoming you to Springwood, FDR's estate:

FDR was an interesting guy, a total blueblood, yet he left us the social safety net as we know it. Given the current state of politics in this country, I want him back. Saturday night we stayed at the Belvedere mansion, in the attic. We sat in our parlor and drank wine, it was very civilized. Here are Hannah and John again, reading the paper Sunday morning in a sunny room at the Belvedere:

Sunday we went back to see the rest of the museum at FDR's house, after driving down to the river to watch this coast guard boat crunching through the ice.

On the way home Sunday, we stopped to taste wine in Millbrook, NY. Our pourer criticized my beloved California chardonnays as being over-oaked! Gasp! Sputter! The outrage! Despite the insult, we did enjoy the wine there (except the chardonnay, which was incredibly boring due to a lack of oak). Sunday evening the Bears got creamed in the super bowl. Monday, back to California.

Play Day in Hollister, January 21, 2007

Action shot:

Ed Levin County Park and Mission Peak Regional Preserve, January 20, 2007

I have it in my head that I want to do a 25 mile endurance ride, known as a "Limited Distance" ride (!) this year. To this end, Noam and I have been going on some LONG trail rides. I enjoy this, Noam enjoys this, and for the most part Juliet enjoys this, but Lukka really suffers. I think a quarter of her body weight is fur. Her fur is so thick we have to brush her with a human hair brush to get the dirt out, a bristled horse brush just skips along the top. Even after making her an air conditioner by clipping away some of the fur on her chest, when the temperature is balmy (any temperature above -35 degrees) she pants and sweats. When the temperature was below freezing at night for over a week, when it was so cold that the governator declared a state of emergency and billions of dollars worth of citrus, avocados, and strawberries were destroyed, she was finally comfortable. We set out with the plan to ride toward Mission Peak from Ed Levin park, for as far as we could. We did cross the boundary of Ed Levin park and Mission Peak Regional Preserve, but we didn't get much further. Lukka had to stop for several heart attacks on the way up, but she made it back. This cow in the Mission Peak preserve would not shut up, she kept mooing and mooing. Does anyone know what causes those evenly spaced lines in the hills? That is cool:

Juliet, enjoying a drink of leaf tea:

Henry Coe State Park, January 7, 2007

It is cold outside! Noam with a frozen leaf in the parking lot at Coe. When we got back from our ride, at maybe 2 in the afternoon, the water in the tire ruts was still frozen.

Me and Lukka and Kathy and her horse Beau on the trail: