there's a new bike shop in town. jg and i went to check it out yesterday first thing in the morning.
jg test rode several bikes. these two are my favorites.
they're dutch bikes. jg really liked the one with the wooden bin, which has a maximum capacity of 200 pounds. says he could "drive" while i knit in the cargo area. very tempting. too bad it doesn't have any seat belts. otherwise i would have traded the civic for it right there.
which is why i've begun riding my bike to work. i started two days before the official bike week. i did it for eleven straight days before my left knee gave in. i'm giving it some time to heal. i hope to resume biking to work this week. it's only 2.2 miles round trip but it makes jg happy that i use the bike.
that's the view from our kitchen window this past monday. nothing new except for this fella:
a baby hawk, i think. i had seen the black birds chase him around the day before. i don't think he lives in our oak tree though.
that car belongs to our neighbor's week-long visitor. jg and i got a kick out of watching him lock up his car cover. turned out he's from san francisco. poor bastard.
wednesday evening jg and i hiked up to saddle rock. how wonderful to have extended day light.
look what we found while scrambling down from the saddle:
matchsticks, some unignited
it was very upsetting to see. we looked around and collected every stick we found. wish i could shove them down the throat of the idiot who used them.
this couple hiked a different trail which merged with ours on the way down. i noticed that the woman was collecting poop bags even though they didn't have a dog with them. i wonder if she wished she could shove them down the throats of the dog owners.
thursday night at 10:46 pm
that's jg making like a headless gatsby at the end of stearns wharf. wednesday night was the clearest it's been for a while. plus the moon was almost full. we headed out to the pier just for the heck of it.
seen at the bait+tackle shop
i did not know that photo is currently in santa barbara. photo must be on tour. i wonder where photo will be next.
west beach
east beach
it was a calm and clear evening. hard to believe that it came pouring down some six hours later. it rained all morning friday, in fact.
two weeks until my birthday, everyone. here are a few things i am secretly wishing for:
1. camelbak classic (bpa free) bottles. in case green is out of stock, i would
settle for pink or orange. if you sent me all three, i shall forever be your
best friend.
2. suunto core in black and orange. i would love you equally if you sent me
one in black and yellow.
3. adidas classic sneakers in women's 7.5 or men's 6. any combination of
colors would work for me. the more obnoxious, the better.
4. marmot precip in virtual pink. the color preference for this item is
absolute. if you sent me one in any other color, i would have to terminate
our friendship.
is that all, you ask? no, not nearly! the list goes on in my greedy little heart, but i shall refrain for today.
it is now exactly ten days until my birthday, and the greediness that is the wish list has doubled in size!
5. canon sx200. i need a decent point+shoot camera because i'm tired of
lugging the fourteen pound dslr around on 9.5 mile day hikes. plus,
how can anyone refuse anything with a model number that begins with
S and X?
6. kor one hydration vessel. i love the bottle despite the fact that they try
so hard to call it something other than a water bottle. they shouldn't
let architects name products.
7. backpacking california. it doesn't have to be this exact book. any book
about backpacking for newbies wannabes would do. i hope to learn how not to become bear food.
8. i-thingamajig. i wouldn't be able to afford the data plan, but no one has
to know. it would make me look so totally hip just to pretend that i can't
be bothered because i'm working on an app.
that's all i have for today. i hope to double the list again in a few days. remember, it's not the thought that counts, it's the size of the gift.
that's jg saluting general sherman when we were at sequoia national park this past weekend. it was the first time either of us has been to sequoia+kings canyon.
and that's me my hiking skirt with the largest tree in the universe. there was a queue of people waiting to pose for a picture with old tecumseh but i didn't care. i just shoved myself in and made jg take that picture. very rude tourist of me.
that's a sequoia cone; it's about the size of a chicken egg. enormous tree, tiny fruit.
that was one of the major attractions in sequoia. i wasn't at all excited about this experience. people would drive real slow through it or park in the tunnel so they could have pictures taken. it made me a bit sick in the stomach.
site 94
and that's our set up at moraine, the campground farthest inside kings canyon. of the 120 sites available, at most 10 were occupied, which made us feel like having the entire park to ourselves.
that's me along with matt, brenda, amir, clara, and chris at the top of mount san jacinto yesterday. my friend chris in redlands organized this eleven mile hiking expedition. i'd like to think he did it just for me.
those were taken during the aerial tram ride in palm springs. chris and i met the group at the base around 9 am. for $22.25 each, we all got an exhilarating spin up the mountain.
the trail to the peak is 5.5 miles from the tram station. at the 2.2 mile mark, we were approached by a couple of women to take a picture with this seriously important sign. wish you could hear amir impersonate arnold schwarzenegger during this photo session.
how awesome that picture would be if everyone could fit inside that tree. i think they would have if that one canadian wasn't eight feet tall.
a modern day john muir
i took very few pictures on this trip. the hike was difficult for me because of the altitude. plus i over-packed my bag with food and junk. chris ended up carrying nearly everything i brought. in fact, he took half the weight off my back before we even got on the tram. what a guy.
we totally lucked out on the weather. there wasn't one single cloud in the sky all day long. the temps hovered in a very comfortable range, even at the peak. i was most appreciative of the breezes; my slow crawl up the mountain would have been miserable without them.
our man in redlands
the trip was serendipitous in so many ways, most notably these three:
1. i left my headlights on at rei in rancho cucamonga and my car battery went dead some 1.5 hours later. just as i realized this, a guy pulled into the parking spot directly opposite me. and he just happened to have jumper cables.
2. fifteen minutes into the hike to san jacinto peak, i managed to lose my camera. i felt simultaneously stupid and lousy for keeping the group waiting while i back tracked all the way to the tram station to recover my eighty pound dslr.
3. chris lost left his trekking pole behind three separate occasions on this trip, with the last time being on the tram ride off the mountain. all we had to do was wait fifteen minutes for the next tram to bring the pole down.
clara+amir
aka the israelis
on top of the great luck, i enjoyed hanging with everyone in the group. no one gave me grief for wearing cotton socks or side glances for wearing a puffy white skirt. no one grimaced that i was too slow. the best part: no one belongs to the sierra club. a perfect trip through and through.
matt the giant canadian
and brenda the petite canadian
i took a couple of panorama sets but i'm too lazy to stitch them together. but i did upload an entire set on flickr in case you care to see more.
that's me and karen, aka she-who-loves-me-most. karen generously threw me a double pie dinner party even though she's only in town for a few days.
the party goers
chee, karen, jeff, casey, and julie
the missing guest? waffles. she withheld her presence because i completely forgot about her birthday this year.
me+julie
dinner was delicious, complete with appetizers and hard liquor. i ate so much i could hardly finish my slice of pie. as if that wasn't enough, i got presents to boot!
that's me at saddle rock yesterday. it never stops to amuse me how absurd i look in those glasses. anyway, i took the day off work and wandered about town with chee. she took me to lunch at the crush cafe, complete with crush cupcakes. at about 4:15, i went for a stroll on my favorite trail.
looking west
scramble this!
it appears that the red wildflower group is currently in bloom. poison oak leaves are obscenely red right now. i didn't even dare come close enough for a picture.
i borrowed a load of field guides to california wildflowers recently and you would think that i'd have the names of these local varieties memorized. no. most disappointing.
the best part about that shot is the bit of sunburst. look at the flare at the bottom left of the picture. i love it!
sycamore fruit, i believe
after the hike chee took me to your place for dinner. there was another party in the restaurant which started singing happy birthday. i refrained from running over to announce that it was too my birthday.
...On the way back, the second time I left my hiking pole behind and
had to run back for it, I got far behind the group and got worried they'd
made a wrong turn, so I stopped the first people I saw and asked if
they'd seen a group of a couple guys and two or three girls. The guy
said "well, not that many, but there was a girl in a puffy white skirt
about thirty seconds ago!
introducing deller, the mellowest rottweiler on earth. i met him last night at casa lomeli, where there is no lack of red things to put on a dog's head.
thanks to chee for the hats and to her brother for letting me abuse the dog.
