use real butter

Now it comes down to it… we are on the final segment of our trip. But wait, I haven’t told you about the rest of the middle section of our adventures! Again, this will be quick because I am running on fumes here. You might have guessed by now that vacation is the equivalent of being sleep-deprived for me (big surprise!), but I prefer it that way :)

Wednesday activities: Shot sunrise on Mono Lake. Drove to Mammoth Lakes and caught shuttle to Agnew Meadows. Backpacked in to Thousand Island Lake. Explored Thousand Island Lake.

sunrise over tufa

morning wildlife at mono lake

Wednesday observations: Mono Lake is bigger than you might think. Mammoth is full of yahoos even in summertime. Not a fan of boyscouts in the backcountry. The sun was brutal.

Thursday activities: Packed camp at 4 am. Shot sunrise over Thousand Island Lake. Hiked out to Agnew Meadows. Drove to Mecca Patagucci Patagonia Outlet in Reno and scored mad loot! Dinner in Truckee. Drove to South Lake Tahoe. Camped.

banner peak over thousand island lake

the kind of retail i can get behind

cooling off with a little caffeine in my sugar

pad thai special - not so special

thai beef salad with your yearly supply of sodium

Thursday observations: The wilderness is far more pleasant when boyscouts are asleep. Avoid the River trail in the future when it is going to be ass hot. Nevada is not my kind of place. Thai food in Truckee was overly sweet, salty, and everything else. Campgrounds are a perfect venue for observing how stupid people behave when they perceive they are “out in nature”.

Friday activities: Packed camp at 5 am and got the hell out of Dodge (Tahoe). Drove to Berkeley. Visited The North Face outlet. Met Cindy for lunch. Drove on to San Jose. Began weekend with Grandma.

cindy’s lunch

and salad

mi torta with amazing delicious fabulous pork

why are we standing here? why aren’t we skiing?

Friday observations: Bay area drivers suck at driving. The North Face Outlet is so ghetto compared to Patagonia’s outlet. One hour to meet Cindy for lunch is too little time. Love Berkeley. Before we rushed off in our separate directions, Cindy presented each of us with a box of… cookies! It was maybe 5 minutes in the car before I busted into a box and fed Jeremy (and myself) a wonderful homemade iced ginger cookie from Cindy’s kitchen. Such a sweetheart.

Well, I’m not really coherent anymore, but it was delightful to meet Cindy in person and I loved our lunch at Tacubaya. She makes me laugh just as much in person as she does on her blog! And now she knows one of my debilitating weaknesses… pretty lunch menus written in green chalk.

This is my last post of the trip. Plenty of pics coming up when I get home (and yes, more recipes). Until then, have a great weekend! End Communication.

We are now two for two on lodging that has boasted high-speed wireless internet to find that it is neither high-speed nor (in some cases) wireless. It makes for some painfully slow uploading of photos from the trip, so forgive me if my posts are getting brief on text after waiting far too long to get the pics up. We just don’t have the time.

I promise to answer comments when time permits - probably after we return home. But to answer some of the inquiries about my photos… yes, I do sell them. If you are interested in purchasing, contact me via email (see the About page for addy) and I’ll give you pricing info, etc. I haven’t had the time or energy to get a proper commercial site set up just yet, but it is in the works.

Now… where are we? We are currently in Lee Vining on the eastern side of Yosemite National Park. The Eastern Sierra is where it’s at for us. I first fell in love with backcountry wilderness in the Sierra Nevada. It’s a large mountain range with hundreds of miles of trails, days from the nearest road. Jeremy and I have spent several years exploring these mountains and we are still discovering new trails, new destinations, new wonders here. This morning we hiked out over Piute Pass after an overnight to Desolation Lake where I spent the wee hours of the morning shooting the Perseids meteor shower. I can’t process those images on my laptop, so you’ll have to wait for the results just like me when I get home. It’s hot here. We knew that. But it is worth it to get back into familiar terrain and smell the forests, the willows, the sage brush, the streams.

Monday morning, we left Pasadena at 4 am and drove to the ranger station in Lone Pine to secure a permit. Because flying with backpacking stoves has become a complete hassle (nearly impossible, really), we tend to make our short summer backpacks cold - as in stoveless or non-cook. We popped by a favorite bakery along the 395 corridor and scored some lovely ham and cheese croissants, then headed for the trail where we packed our gear and set off at noon - far later than we ever like to start.

wildflowers still in bloom

jeremy at piute pass

a dinner of croissants, apples, fresh lychees, and cucumbers

setting up camp at the lake

I managed a few hours of sleep before I had to get out of the tent and set up to shoot the meteor shower after the moon set at 1:48 am. I went back into the tent at 3:00 am after seeing about 40 shooting stars and perhaps capturing 10 that I was aware of (the camera can get more than your eye can see - so who knows what I will end up with). Sunrise was lackluster and not worth getting up at 5:30 for, but by then we were itching to clear out to beat the heat.

We didn’t beat the heat, but we hiked out in good time and secured our permit for tomorrow’s backpack trip. On the excellent advice of some of my field engineer friends as well as Todd and Diane, we stopped by the Whoa Nellie Deli in Lee Vining for lunch. It’s a Mobil gas station that serves up surprisingly amazing food. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it gourmet as many claim - but if you consider the setting, it’s as good as it gets for such a small town with so much thru traffic. And besides, food tastes infinitely better when you’ve been backpacking.

such modesty

jeremy’s lobster tacquitos

my fish tacos

After a lot of logistical tasks were taken care of, we returned for dinner (the Tioga Lodge Restaurant menu wasn’t tempting enough) and gorged on some baby back ribs and a burger. The ribs were good, but… my ribs are better ;)

Time to hit the hay, kids. I have a date with more meteors in a few hours and then we return to the backcountry. See you on the other side!

Do you remember the Go-Go’s song Vacation? It’s so 80s, I know. Hey - I wore the hot pink and turquoise. I watched Duran Duran on MTV. If I have any regrets in my life, it’s being a teen in the 80s. Whenever I’m about to leave on vacay, Belinda Carlisle’s voice enters my head and she is singing that damn song…

Yes, we’re shoving off. Cindy had asked me recently if I ever feel like I’m living someone else’s vacation. I laughed. She always makes me laugh. Believe me, I realize that we live in a fantastic place. I realize this because we spent over a decade’s worth of vacations in places just like our current surrounds! That’s why we chose to settle down here. But that doesn’t keep us from heading out to explore other awesome places.

I’ll still blog from the road when I can and perhaps you will see some familiar faces here… That’s all I’m saying for now.

My question for you: What is your ideal vacation? Is it spent with family, friends, strangers, no one? Is it a particular place? Is it travel, exploration, relaxation, eating, learning? On the water, at the beach, in the mountains, in the desert, in a posh hotel, riding a train, flying, exploring cities, art museums, listening to or watching performances?

I ask because I’m curious. I ask because a lot of people don’t care much for my brand of vacation which usually involves exertion, sweat, and dirt or snow. My friend, Fiona, calls that Fun #2. I am all about Fun #2. My ideal vacation: exploring alpine backcountry with Jeremy in preferably arid climates (wet climates are fine as long as the temp is below freezing).

I’m not asking this for the purposes of evil market research or other crap like that. Right now, the only sponsor of this blog is me. So if you answer my question in the comments section before midnight, August 14 (that’s my mom’s birthday), Mountain Time, you will automatically be entered into a drawing. Jeremy will randomly generate 3 numbers between 1 and the # of comments using trusted Python code, then we will let Kaweah select which of the three will win a matted photo from my gallery.

she’s going to work hard on this

The winner will be the comment # that corresponds to the number selected by the ‘weah. If you have problems with the outcome, you can take it up with teh dawg. Said winner will get to choose an 8×12 photo matted to 12×16 from the following:

the rockburn track, new zealand

the maroon bells, aspen, colorado

aspens, rocky mountain national park, colorado

dahlias at butchart gardens, victoria, canada

I’ll do my best to announce the winner on August 18th, barring any unforeseen disasters. I’ll ship this puppy (the photo, not the actual dog) worldwide. You’ve got a week - so tell me what your idea of the perfect vacay is!

I have been desperately trying to clean out the refrigerator because I hate to leave the house in a state of filth and rotting food. I also hate to waste food, so I handed off several lovely fruits to my friends in town yesterday when we met for lunch. Oy. Better that than exploding into a giant messy fruit salad in the middle of the living room… But I did manage to finish off the fresh figs in a scrumptious salad. I’m all over the salads these days.

pour olive oil over the greens

Arugula didn’t make it onto my radar screen until 5 or so years ago, but I love the stuff. I like the peppery, slightly bitter green prepared in the simplest way: tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper. I guess that’s the theme for summer here - olive oil, salt, and pepper. You can go quite far on that combination.

tossed

Fresh figs are nothing like dried figs. I am not such a fan of dried figs and I detested fig newtons as a kid. When the teacher would hand those out in class my reaction was, “This is not a treat!” That was a bad scene. Anyway, fresh figs are heavenly and they are available in the markets now. [I will also be visiting a tree that bears the fruit on our trip. I know I will get to gorge on them because the people living with that tree hate figs. Blasphemy, I know!!] Add some halved fresh figs to the greens.

luscious figs

And I cannot help but toss in a few strips of prosciutto. The whole ensemble is a journey through sweet, salty, bitter, spicy. It’s also incredibly easy to slap together without going near the bad bad heat.

some lovely prosciutto rounds out the salad

serve and enjoy

Arugula Salad with Figs and Prosciutto

5 oz. arugula
12 figs, fresh (rinsed)
8 slices prosciutto
3 tbsp olive oil
salt
pepper

Place arugula in a large bowl. Drizzle olive oil, salt, and pepper over the greens and toss to evenly coat the leaves. Slice the figs in half. Slice the prosciutto into strips. Divide the greens into four bowls. Divvy up the figs and prosciutto on the salads and serve.