So on my walk last night through the rain, I passed an old 2-story Craftsman and I could see through the open windows to the upstairs bedroom where a ceiling fan whirred away, and jogged my memory of a classic, über-cool ceiling fan I noticed in a catalog I was paging through a couple of months ago (the only one in the world - all other ceiling fans are either corny or ghetto) from Restoration Hardware that now I will be ordering for my bedroom - which I get to start very soon since I'm on the final stretch (yea!) of my guest bath remodel.



This totally reminds me of the ceiling fans you'd see in old school houses or buildings with super-high ceilings run down in the middle of places like Cincinnati (in case that seemed too specific, it's because I did in fact see fans like this in a really old building with super-high ceilings totally run down in the middle of Cincinnati).

Oregon =
more speed limit changes than anywhere on the planet =
no one pays attention and just drives 70 =
California =
radar-enforced speed signs everywhere =
no one pays attention and drives at least 80 =
the Trees Motel has phones! =
Bishop, CA =
104º is too hot even if it's a "dry heat" =
A/C-induced head cold and altitude don't mix =
Advil a necessity =
absolutely stunning quiet in Kings Canyon =
the sun is intense at 11,000' =
45-SPF sunblock doesn't cut it =
sunning around lakes and under jagged granite peaks =
splendor =
beauty =
solitude =
watching Julian play among granite boulders and amazing scenery =
worth everything in the world =
now half a world away =
REM =
this could be the saddest dusk I've ever seen turn to a miracle high alive my mind is racing as it always will my hand is tired my heart aches I'm half a world away here =
can't wait to go back and hike more Sierra wildernesses

OK, so I wanted to quick blog about Matthew's and my climb of Mt. Daniel this past weekend. As I immerse myself in Muir's Mountains of California, particularly the chapter about his climb up Mt. Ritter (in his mind, the first summit - which apparently is true) - I re-immersed myself in my North Cascades. The way Muir writes, eloquently and stately, it hardly comes off as harrowing (although for a few paragraphs I was drawn in, hanging onto his next word and next word to see if he made it up and back without incident). But reading other accounts, it sounds like his ascent in 1872 was an extraordinary achievement, made even more so by the fact he climbed it solo with no rope or crampons or ice axe (or jacket, for that matter). Muir comes off more in his writing as a poet than a hardcore mountaineer, but it would seem he was both.

And so with that in mind I set off with Matthew on another adventure into the North Cascades, more accurately the Alpine Lakes Wilderness of the North Cascades - my favourite place on earth (except now for the granite and thunderstorms and high lakes of Muir's Sierras). We stopped on Friday night in the town of Roslyn (where the town will remind you at every corner that this was where 'Northern Exposure' was filmed what - fifteen years or so ago? I told Matthew I got the impression the town was sort of like that dude you know who still talks about how back in high school he was prom king except, well, now he's thirty-three, fat, bald and working the counter at Blockbuster). Anyways, we ate at the local tavern called The Brick, which - as a couple of highlights - had a real, honest working spittoon (Matthew had to clarify to me exactly what the long trough of running water under the bar was) and a couple of pool tables. So he and I played a game of pool while we waited for our burgers (he went for the onion burger this time, after learning his lesson from the Heidelburger's bacon cheeseburger).

Then, after contemplating - in honor of The Brick - of coming back after dusk to take the pallet of bricks we saw a couple of blocks down the street for my intended landscaping borders around my flowerbeds, we were off down the Cle Elum River road. It was a wonderfully scenic drive in the early evening light, and we got to the trailhead maybe around 6:30 after fording the Scatter Creek crossing in Matthew's Subaru. He of course opted for his usual statement against the idea of paying to hike via the Northwest Forest Service Pass and so - passless - we headed up the 2.5 miles/1500' to Squaw Lake where we planned to camp that night just to get a bit of a jump on the climb the next morning (i.e. rather than starting from the trailhead).

We got to the lake in an hour and boy, was it buggy. Matthew quickly set up the tent and dove in, but since mosquitoes apparently despise me I opted to hang out by the lake and listen to the group of people across the lake decide whether or not to roast s'mores. They decided not to, and I wanted to yell I'd have a s'more but instead sat contemplating life's bigger issues to myself - namely, why somebody would actually wear a hideously-annoying shock yellow jacket hiking like the guy I could see across the lake from when he was inside his tent. Then, as it started to get dark, I headed over to the tent and just about stumbled into a deer.

The next morning, my internal alarm clock went off as set at 5:25AM and - leaving our tent and gear behind - were off and up the trail by precisely 6:04. It was a beautiful trail, and we hit the PCT just southwest of Cathedral Pass in about an hour. With Cathedral Peak looming above us (and, although a spectacular peak, nothing like the similarly-named peak in Yosemite that Muir speaks of as being in the Crown of the Sierra and that Julian and I glimpsed on our hike to it and Cathedral Lake that was unfortunately cut short due to time constraints) and passing a couple of perfectly still alpine tarns, we headed up and over the pass, then descended down for a bit with a stellar view of Deep Lake far, far below us before climbing back up to Peggy's Pond. Or what Matthew was convinced was Peggy's Pond (and, for the record, I was not). He got some water and we made our way up the hill that was to become the Southeast Ridge up Daniel.

After a good thousand feet or so, the ridge became more of a ridge (i.e. much narrower, with dropoffs and views to either side - to the south, Circle Lake at first then lots of other lakes - and to the north, the Hyas Glacier, both far below us high on the ridge). We went up and up the ridge until it made sense to drop down on the glacier and wind our way up towards the West Peak (which, at the time, we though was the Middle Peak - only, um, because we couldn't see the Middle Peak because it was behind the West Peak). So we basically summitted the West Peak only to find on the other side it was completely crumbly rock and quite a ways down to the upper Daniel Glacier. I led our way over this loose sh*t until a spot where we could downclimb a bit and hop across a moat onto the glacier, then we descended a ways to a col between the upper Daniel Glacier and a ridge that bisected it with the Lynch Glacier. We headed up and onto that ridge before realizing oh - what we now saw ahead of us was the Middle Peak, that we had pretty much summitted the West Peak, and there was the East Peak (i.e. the true summit) still a little ways further off in the distance. We dropped all our stuff except my G2 and headed up a rocky ridge to the top of the Lynch Glacier, peered down into the rather large bergschrund that we thought would be bad to fall into and way, way down to Peasoup Lake still mostly covered with pieces of ice not yet thawed at the base of the Lynch Glacier before quickly scrambling up to the summit.

I think it was around 10:30 when we got up there, then we sat down and chilled out for a while, just soaking in the view.

Completely surrounding us in our solitude were the North Cascades - and south we could of course see Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams. Along with all the peaks of the North Cascades, we could look down on at least a dozen lakes - Venus, Circle, Deep, Spade, Jade, Peasoup, Rowena, Vicente and countless other nameless ones. They were either the deepest, purest blue imaginable (Venus Lake) or a shimmering green, turquoise (Peasoup Lake) from all the glacial silt swimming in their waters.

After a good half hour on the summit and signing the register for both of us, we headed down - passing lots of people on their way up (some climbing, and farther down some just heading up to Cathedral Pass for the view to Mt. Hinman and Deep Lake or to Peggy's Pond to camp for the night before maybe setting off in either direction on the PCT). We erected a few cairns high up to help others find their way on the often indiscernible and sometimes disappearing trail through the scree and then quickly descended the ridge.

By 2 o'clock we were back at Squaw Lake taking down the tent and gathering our stuff for the last bit back to the car and the thought of a Cruise In burger. We were back to the car just after 3 because we had stopped to give some advice to a couple of women intending to climb Daniel the following day and who had apparently gotten misleading/incorrect info from the rangers in Cle Elum. We told them no need for crampons and not a lot of snow. They wondered where all our stuff was since we pack über-light. Then we were off, us down - them up.

Matthew's marvelous and perhaps unbelievable string of good luck continued as he found no ticket on his windshield for having stuck it to The Man and foregone the trail pass. I know if I didn't have a pass I'd have a dozen tickets from a dozen rangers on my car, though we both wonder just how they enforce them. Anyways, after a bit of cleaning up (which entails donning cotton shorts and shirt and of course the requisite flip-flops) it was back down the road towards Roslyn to relive the memories of Northern Exposure (actually, I've never seen that show) and experience a five dollar Cruise In burger which turned out to be pretty good.

I was back home by six o'clock that night - in time to (yea!) water my lawn and put on a coat of drywall mud in my bathroom. What a way to end an awesome trip - which was seriously awesome.

What I actually love the most is the work - the work of climbing, laboring up ridges and trails and across glaciers and over scree fields and rocky slopes high above deep blue crystal lakes still half-iced over from the past winter's heavy snows and harsh conditions. Love breathing hard in crisp, cool mountain air. Love sweating and feeling a chill from the breeze that whips across the ridges and catches you off-guard. Love being tired from it all - the climbing, the sun, the views. Love sitting alone (or, in this case, with a good friend) on the summit of a mountain surrounded by the summits of other mountains in the middle of the North Cascades and we play the game together (or I would alone) of trying to figure out which mountains are which and can we name that one and is that Eldorado or would it be farther north, maybe out of view?

It's all so incredible, and of course thinking on the way up and while on the summit and then heading down of Muir's explorations and how he writes about his forays into wildernesses untamed that seem hard to believe even now in the untamed North Cascades filled with its own jagged ridges and granite peaks and countless lakes but still nothing of what he speaks of - or, maybe not nothing - maybe almost the same. Thinking how cool it is to pick out a route on our own, to make the mistake of accidentally climbing the West Peak of Daniel and having to pick our way down horribly loose rock to a glacier far below instead of just walking up in the bootprints of others - that's what makes an adventure.

Maybe not on the scale of Muir alone in the middle of the Sierras picking his way to a summit never climbed before him, but maybe close. Maybe close.

After running and of course laying in wet grass, I had to go for a walk in the pouring rain because I think everyone should take a walk through a pouring summer rain. And for some reason found this song by Placebo where Brian Molko sings -It fit with the pouring summer rain.

Went running tonight. Found new theme song. Tiesto. 'Forever Today.' It has the perfect beat to run to, and a lull about 2-and-a-half minutes in that gives tired lungs and legs a chance to respite before the kick drum comes in and you're forced to pump it up a few notches with the though-somewhat-cheesy-theme that just works really, really well to run to. Then when the hi-hat comes in, you kick it up a few more notches until you're literally sprinting up a flippin' hill still in time with the kick drum.

For audio, check this out on YouTube (the video is just a still that doesn't change, but that's the song - and no, it's not actually the theme to The Terminator ... ).

This is just crazy beautiful ...



Love the Fender Rhodes organ ... and the orchestra ... and the voice ...

So I introduced Julian to the cult classic flick Top Secret!, and now I must get the Val Kilmer songs which include such classic tracks as:

1. Skeet Surfin' (02:58)
2. Are You Lonesome Tonight? (01:32)
3. How Silly Can You Get? (02:48)
4. Straighten The Rug (01:56) - one of the all time greatest songs ever!
5. Tutti Frutti (01:38)
6. Spend This Night With Me (03:26)

But so far I've only been able to find it on cassette (Amazon - $14.99 - not bad) and record (Ebay - get this - $49.99!). The dude selling it on Ebay says this no doubt in regard to the astrophonomical price:This last statement truly is a wonder of modern physics, given the fact that the CD is, well - you know - made directly from the LP. Just amazing!

I'll start this blog entry of Julian's and my vacation with this oft-used Muir quote -The legacy of this man is everywhere in the Sierra. And rightly so.

But anyways, this was our vacation down to sunny California to backpack in the Sierras.



Except for some dayhikes in Yosemite the three times I've been there (twice while living in LA), I've never hiked in the Sierras and I really wanted to. So off I dragged Julian with me to hike what turned out to be about 25 miles in four days (along with nearly two miles of elevation gain). I just want to mention first and foremost that I am so proud of him - he did absolutely amazing. Seriously. There were a few things I learned on this trip:

1) The most amazing part of the whole trip was watching Julian scramble and play around in the middle of the flippin' Sierras after knowing he had gotten to where we were on his own power with his own strength. Just incredible.

2) The thing that made me most proud was turning around to look behind me and watch him tramping up the trail behind me, full backpack on his back, never complaining and just trucking along. Seriously.

3) Photography is more or less worthless cos being there in either of those two moments cannot be captured by any camera.

So, along that last point - I didn't even shoot a single piece of film. Sure, I did take a bunch of snapshots for memories (like the one above) but that's it. I also came to the realization it's not worth lugging twenty pounds of photo crap to maybe take a picture, so I only took my little Canon point-and-shoot and even left the tripod in the trunk (along with the five grand worth of Mamiya equipment a friend from work let me borrow that never even saw the light of day the entire trip).

This was a trip to be shared with Julian, not to be bothered with trying to take pictures that have a) already been taken and b) much better than I ever would.

And shared we did. We had the most amazing time. So ...

We started out early Saturday morning, our intent to make it to Sacramento for the night (which we did, after a pretty smoky drive through the San Joaquin valley from the Shasta-Trinity fire - enough that we had to stop at K-Mart in Redding to get some Visine cos my contacts were killing me; I eventually just took them out and put on glasses cos the smoke was so bad).

But we made it Sacramento and we ate dinner at some Shari's/Denny's-like restaurant, then went swimming in the pool. It was, um, awfully hot in CA so every hotel we stayed in I had made sure had a pool.

Sunday morning then we were off, down to Stockton and then over CA-41 to Yosemite. Ha, we made a left on 120 after entering the park and left all the RVs and crowds behind working their way into the valley and headed towards Tolumne Meadows for a dayhike to Cathedral Peak. I wish I had planned a little better and made more time (although that would have been mostly impossible cos every day we had except one was booked pretty solid) - so we didn't make it all the way to the lake, and instead scrambled up some huge granite dome where I proceeded to drop my G2 and watched it crash and bounce it's way down the rock. It ended up with a cracked back to the LCD and some pretty good scratches but thankfully was still operational. At some point it's just going to crumble to bits.

Anyways, after that little hike we headed up and over Tioga Pass (perhaps the greatest pass of all mountain passes - via auto - with the one possible exception of Washington Pass here in the North Cascades). Anyways, it was gorgeous cos it was late in the afternoon. I took a picture of Julian up there cos I also have a picture of him up at Washington Pass. We then headed into Mammoth Lakes to opt spending the night at a campground right next to the ranger station (where we had to pick up our permit the next morning) instead of the Motel 6. The importance of that might make sense at the end of this little story.

We had dinner at the Basecamp Cafe which was completely mediocre, but did have exactly what Julian wanted which for some reason was a cheese quesadilla (instead of his usual cheese sandwich, grilled of course). Then we had shakes at the McDonald's and he played on the play stuff there. Whatever, I let him have his fun.

We woke up early on Monday morning and got our permit for our intended hike to Thousand Island Lake via the High Trail (i.e. the PCT) which was 8+ miles. The intent was also then to return via the John Muir Trail (10+ miles) that wrapped around some more lakes before descending back down into the San Joaquin River valley. Um, as was also evident on my plan for our next hike, this was a bit ambitious given the fact I was hiking with an 8-year-old.

So we hopped on the shuttle from the Mammoth ski resort to the trailhead at Agnew Meadows. We got hiking about 11AM and it was hot as we made our way up the PCT above the forest and into the open. Then the trail just stretched on and on and up and up. Julian was a trooper, but we were definitely not making the same awesome time we normally do. We stopped for lunch at 2:30 at this perfect spot looking across the valley to Banner Peak and Mt. Ritter, along with the entire Ritter Range. Thousand Island Lake looked a ways off, so we decided we'd camp at the first lake we came across (which I knew would be Badger Lakes after about 7 miles). It took us until 5PM to reach the lake, but we made it. Neither one of us really cared whether or not we made it to Thousand Island Lake or not - we were just glad to be able to take off our pack and relax.



The place was so quiet. Not a sound but the bugs. Julian scampered off to climb a 60-foot rock while I set up our camp. When I was finished, I sat down on a rock next to the lake and watched him climbing up some pretty steep stuff across the lake from me. It was so quiet I could actually hear him breathe despite he was a good 1/8th of a mile away. Anyways, the thought came across my mind that someone might have asked me "don't you worry about him climbing stuff like that all by himself?" To which my answer - which struck me as odd - would be quickly "no." The thing that was odd was that seriously I didn't worry about him climbing far across the lake from me because I totally trust him, but I can't trust him to actually remember to brush his teeth or turn off a light on his own. So life-threatening stuff he's fine - but it's the little things he needs to really work on.

But then again I know I'm pretty hard on him. That was one thing I made me promise myself was to not be hard on him this trip. So when he left his nice REI sunglasses on a rock somewhere on the hike out from this lake I didn't get upset, just told him maybe someday he'd learn his lesson cos if he didn't at some point he'll end up losing something that's really important to him (like his frog, Stanley - more on Stanley in a bit).

So anyways, we had a blast that evening just relaxing in the complete silence. I climbed up that rock with him to look out over the Sierras (this was part of the Ansel Adams Wilderness just southeast of Yosemite). We took a self portrait together. He ran around. I smiled to myself watching him marveling at our surroundings. It was pretty perfect.

The next morning then it was time for the hike out, which was long. We caught the shuttle back to the ski resort, then I paid for a couple of climbs up the rock wall where Julian proceeded to walk up an overhanging route and I downed a ton of OJ cos I was sick of water. We then headed out of Mammoth down into the Owens Valley to stay the night in Bishop.

I must say - we hadn't really gotten a dose of the real heat until getting to Bishop. It was probably close to 100º even at 5PM, so we immediately took to the pool before going to the Pizza Factory ("We toss 'em, they're awesome!") for dinner. Not a ton of time to relax, but it was a nice evening. Oh, except for the fact since we don't really use A/C at all in WA I'm totally not used to it and get sick in its presence. And the maids had turned it on to full blast probably after they finished cleaning our room that morning so it was like a refrigerator and I proceeded to instantly get a head cold. This would make for an interesting day to follow ...

In the morning we were up and off to the ranger station in Bishop to pick up our bear canister for our hike into Kearsarge basin in Kings Canyon. When I was planning the trip, I had originally looked at hikes in the park from the west side - but soon realized going up and over Kearsarge Pass was the way to go (much shorter distance and less elevation cos the trailhead was at 9300'). So, to illustrate my point that all my hiking plans for this trip were, um, way too ambitious - this one originally was to hike to Rae Lakes (on a map, it looked like 10 miles - it turned out it would have been close to 12). Then we were going to dayhike into the Sixty Lakes Basin (4 miles), then back to Kearsarge Lakes to camp (another 7 miles from there, so 11 total miles that day). Then back out the 6 miles to the car up and over the pass the next day. Totally doable, but maybe not so much with an 8-year-old with 8-year-old legs (despite being an awesome hiker).

So anyways, I knew full-well before we even left the car at the trailhead we'd only be going to Kearsarge Lakes and plopping ourselves there for two nights before heading back out the same way we came. And I was a little worried our little Tercel (Oliver) wouldn't make it all the way to the trailhead but he did - props to him.

So then off we went, around noon. Up and up. Around 10,500' the A/C-induced cold I had started to compound with the altitude and began to kick my ass. So I was getting slightly dizzy and when I'd stop I'd hear a pounding in my left ear. But Julian, he was just rocking it. I kept asking him if he was getting a headache or if he was dizzy from the altitude but nope. And when I climbed Rainier I got pretty sick at 12,500' (granted, we climbed from Paradise to the summit without stopping so I had gone from sea level to 12,500' eight hours later and up to 14,411' a couple hours after that with no acclimatization) - so I knew my ceiling was around there, which is why I blamed the head cold for why I was getting knackered at 11,000'.

But we made it up to the pass at about 4:30, along with some guy from Indiana who was going to head up to Washington after a stop at Lassen and Crater Lake to do some hiking on Rainier. We wished him a safe journey as he turned and headed back down to his car and we turned and headed into Kings Canyon National Park, down to the lakes 800' below in the Kearsarge basin.



I must say, this was the most spectacular place I have ever been except for The Enchantments at the end of September when the larches are ablaze in yellow. Granite boulders strewn everywhere, with these glacial lakes and jagged granite peaks surrounding us. As John Muir said -It was just as I imagined, but even better for real being there. Of course, I was totally hammered so I quick set up the tent and downed some Advil and crashed in the tent for half an hour until I started to feel a little bit better. Good enough to get up and walk around a bit, watching Julian play and jump around the rocks. I grabbed the camera and took some shots as the golden hour approached.



Then made some dinner. I must say, this was the first trip I tried dehydrated stuff and we both agreed - it rocked. Seriously. We had lasagna and spaghetti and stroganoff and they were all amazing. Granted, I wouldn't make it for dinner at home - but backpacking it was awesome. Even the über-picky son of mine loved it. So this was Wednesday.

The next morning we woke up early knowing we had the entire day to just relax and lie around and swim in the lakes when we got hot and relax some more. I proceeded to toss a pad on the ground next to a creek flowing between lakes and lie down. It was maybe 10AM, and I had the hint of a thought that I would normally be at my office but there I was lying under granite peaks in Kings Canyon under a hot sun just doing absolutely nothing. We had the entire basin to ourselves, so we swam in the lakes in our underwear (which Julian thought was really funny) and climbed back onto warm granite rocks to dry off. It was totally awesome. Best day ever.

Then it clouded over a bit in the afternoon and thundered some, which slightly concerned me since I had made the gamble to leave our rainfly and rain shells back in the trunk - but the rain never materialized and all of a sudden - just at the end of the day - the light came out really intense (I was sort of expecting it to, like Jeff and I had seen in Yosemite).



Then it faded almost as quick as it came, leaving a beautiful wash of light over the basin before completely fading and giving way to the halfway-full moon.





That last shot is a great example of the fact that I didn't even want to carry the tripod I had brought - so I was using this stick as a sort-of monopod (which is why it's, um, a little blurry). Julian was sweet and put two hiking poles and the stick together to make me a real tripod, but it wasn't very mobile so I thanked him and went running off with my stick.

I was up by 6:30 the next morning cos I wanted to be heading back up the pass by 8AM, and quick took a parting shot of the Kearsarge Pinnacles as the sun crested over the 13000' ridgeline to the east -



Then we were off, and made it to the pass by 9:15. Julian had put Stanley in his pack so his head would stick out and he could look around. Stanley went everywhere with us on this trip. Stanley played with Julian at the lakes, in the car, at the hotels - everywhere. It's really pretty adorable. What's weird is he never took to this stuffed frog until about a year ago, and now he's totally attached. I'll miss it when he no longer plays with a stuffed animal, cos that'll mean he's grown up. Or maybe not - I still talk to my car Oliver.

Anywho, on the way down, we flew - and even after talking to a really nice couple with German accents for quite awhile and the guy said he had climbed all over the world and he was 62 and had climbed Whitney on his 60th birthday and they were doting over Julian and telling him how impressed they were with him which obviously made him feel good and they were great - we made it down in just over two hours after we wished each other safe journey. They headed up while we headed down. Oh, and we met another woman clearly in her sixties on her way up to Whitney (from where we met her, it was a 50-mile hike that she was doing solo cos her hiking partner had to bail at the last minute - now that was respectable!) - she was also impressed with Julian and thought it was amazing that he had backpacked all the way to Kearsarge Lakes (she told us she took kids out on trips to get them to experience the outdoors and usually had to entice them along the way).

We finally saw a couple of kids heading up the trail with fishing poles, but we assumed they were only heading for the first lake and not all the way up and over the pass. I told Julian he was the only kid who had done it, and that had done the hike to Badger Lakes (no kids on the PCT). He was gleaming, which he should - he deserved it. I'm totally not one to give saccharine praise, even to my own kid - so when I was doting on him I think it almost embarrassed him. What can I say, though - I was so impressed.

We made it back to the car by 11:30. It was so hazy you couldn't even see the White Mountains across the Owens Valley from the trailhead at Onion Valley. Back in Lone Pine, it was well over 100º and pretty unbearable. We stopped for ice at a gas station where some lame yahoo proceeded to yell at his pregnant wife to keep washing the windshield and that she should wash the whole car while he stood smoking in the shade. It was pretty ridiculous. As I got back in the car I shot off to him that he must be kidding. Then we both had grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch before heading south to cross over the to the west side of the Sierra (we got within less than 2 hours to LA before turning and heading north on CA-99 back up to Visalia for the night).

It was another evening of swimming before going to grab dinner. I told Julian we had to go to In-N-Out Burger which he half-heartedly agreed. He's not a big cheeseburger fan, but apparently In-N-Out has the best burgers (duh) cos after he engulfed the first one he wanted another. Awesome, I was so proud again.

In the morning, I let him swim again until we took off for Sequoia NP around 10:30. We winded our way through the park up to the Giant Forest (named so by Muir) where we got out and walked around. Holy cow, I know we're slightly jaded by huge doug firs and red cedar trees here in WA, but the sequoias were enormous. It was awesome. I got Julian a souvenir, and bought myself Muir's first book entitled The Mountains of California. We hiked to the General Sherman tree and stood in awe at the largest living tree. Just amazing stuff.

Then we officially ran out of time, and it was just a matter of getting back home. So it was north then up just past Sacramento to Woodland (after stopping at our last In-N-Out in Modesto cos Julian demanded it again) where I proceeded to the Days Inn to stay the night, but Julian decided the pool was too crowded so he wanted to go somewhere else. Our only other immediate choice was a Motel 6, so it was there we went. Granted, it was already 8:30 and he only had about half an hour to swim. But he did enjoy those thirty minutes, and I enjoyed the fact that the beds had real Motel 6 comforters that had drawings on them that looked like something you would find on a 5-year-old's bed, there was no fridge, no free breakfast, no curved shower bar, the bathroom faucet shot water out of the side when it was turned on, the TV had rotary knobs (OK, just kidding), etc. etc.

So OK, now I can say I've stayed in a Motel 6. I told Julian no more picking out hotels based on how crowded the pool was. He apologized. We both laughed. Then he told me he was sad and didn't want to go back home. I guess I was a little, too.

We were off by 8AM to drive the distance back. It took until 9:30 to get home, after running into traffic in Portland, Chehalis/Centralia, and finally Tacoma. For some reason, I think it should be illegal to have to deal with traffic while on vacation - no matter the circumstances. It just shouldn't happen.

Anyways, we had an awesome trip. It was pretty crazy, with that one lazy Thursday to hang under jagged peaks and swim in lakes all to ourselves in the middle of the eastern Sierras under the CA sun. The pics are just snapshots meant to remember the places we saw, and they'll do that nicely. Julian amazed me. I hope he'll remember for a long, long time lazying and playing under mountains far away from civilization, and take that with him.

I'll certainly remember sharing it with him for a long, long time.

Whee, looks like it'll be a little warm next week ...