Blog Backlog

Ok, so here is the rest of the info on my trip to CA. I will start with our backpacking trip. Joleen and I went backpacking in Lake Tahoe. It was kind of funny, because a week or so before I left to visit Joleen was when the ginormous fire was ravaging the Tahoe region. So I called Joleen and asked, "So, does this fire affect where we are planning on backpacking?"

"What fire?"

Ohhhkaaaay... She's always in the loop, that Joey.

Well, the fire was right around where we were supposed to go backpacking. We weren't sure what to do because you need permits and stuff to hike in the various areas, and other parts of Tahoe were already booked. We didn't want to backpack in our planned are if a) it was burning down or b) it wasn't burning down but it was covered with sooty air and stuff. We didn't know until like the day before if we were going to go or not. But the day we left was when they had it almost all contained and apparently the air in the area was fine. It was kind of nice because it was way less crowded than usual due to people staying away because...well, the area was on fire. But we never saw any trace of fire or fire damage while there, so that was good.

Anyway, I won't bore you all with specifics on our route, but it was in the Desolation Wilderness. Parts of it were very desolate. Hot and rocky. Very rocky. Annoying rocky, not big cool boulder rocky. I got gigantic blisters on a few of my toes. Both my big toenails are still red/purple and I'm just waiting for them to fall off. My right foot "pointer" toenail has already fallen off. But there's a little toenail already in place, so no worries. Poor toenail. It's fallen off 3 times in the last...5 years or less.

We took off a bit before lunch then hiked...8 miles or so to where we camped (Gilmore Lake). We stayed overnight there then hiked back the same way. At the end of the first day I was DEAD. Almost literally. I could barely move. After disposing of my pack I still walked around like a 90 year old arthritic man. Seriously. I woke up in the middle of the night and I hurt so bad I almost had a panic attack because I honestly thought that I wouldn't be able to walk the next day. Then I'd be stuck in the middle of the Desolation Wilderness with no food. It was bad. Seriously. But while I still hurt the next day, it was nothing compared to how I felt trying to sleep that night. I think laying down aggravated everything. the above pic is the Lake where we camped. Below are some more pictures from our backpacking trip:

The next night we stayed at a campground next to Lake Tahoe. Here's a picture of Lake Tahoe. I took in in CA and the land you see is Nevada. That night I chased a bear up a tree. Apparently, I'm that scary. I went to the bathroom and as I was leaving I looked over and there was a tree next to the bathroom facility. Standing next to the tree was a bear. Decent sized. I shone my flashlight at it. It stared at me. I took a step forward. It started to climb up the tree. Then it stared at me some more. We had a good ol' fashioned staring contest (in the words of Conan O'Brien). Then I moved again and it attempted to climb higher up in the tree. But it couldn't get higher than about 3 feet. Maybe it was too tubby or something? Anyway, that was exciting. I have good luck (?) with seeing bears while camping with Joleen (if you recall, we had a bear encounter in Yosemite last September).

As we were packing up the next morning, we had our cars doors opened as we walked back and forth packing stuff into our car. This little girl walks up to me and says, "Excuse me, but a squirrel ran into your car." Whaa? So I poke around in our car and, sure enough, a squirrel runs out. I just kept thinking how freaked out we'd've gotten if we were driving down the road and suddenly a squirrel starting running around in our car. "SQUIRREL!!!!!" *crash*

Also while visiting Joleen we went camping and hiking in Big Sur. It's along the coast of CA, south of San Francisco. Down to...Carmel, or thereabouts. It's supposed to be a super pretty drive. It was pretty nice. Nothing mind-blowing, imo. Unfortunately, we didn't take any pictures on the way there when it was a nice day. On the way back it was super foggy and misty so it wasn't that pretty and the views kinda sucked. So we don't really have any good pictures of Big Sur. The coastline, anyway. We went on some hikes. Saw a couple of waterfalls. Saw a lame-ass water wheel. Hiked up to Buzzard's Roost with a "superb panoramic view of the Pacific." Not so superb. And not really that panoramic. Whatev.

We went to the Napa County Fair on the 4th of July. The fair kinda sucked. They didn't have cheese curds, mini donuts, or funnel cakes. What kind of fair doesn't have funnel cakes?? They did have churros, though. There are lots of Mexicans in Napa. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it was an interesting change from Rochester. We saw fireworks there. They were pretty good.

We also went to see the newest Harry Potter and Ratatouille. And played Trivial Pursuit.