“Rare in Yosemite, and now confined to hidden sites where plants have not been subjected to detrimental flower gathering.” – An Illustrated Flora of Yosemite National Park, Stephen J. Botti. These crazy elegant flowers! Searching for them was quite the adventure. We followed the most incredible treasure map, hand-drawn for us by a generous and … Read more
Dogwoods are peaking near our house in Yosemite West. Picture taken from our deck.
Dogwood trees have a particular niche of its own in the passing of seasons. In the spring, their large white blossoms (actually sepals) decorate the forests and mark the arrival of spring. Photographers of all levels focus their lenses on them – against a backdrop of dark red cedar bark, the deep grey blue of the Merced River or back-lit against the brilliance of the sky. They are stand-alone beautiful, and I love them for that, but I also love them because they’re now associated with people and memories that are fun to revisit as well.
It’s been too long since I’ve been back to MN to visit my parents. This morning, we went for a walk around the yard to see all the new things since I’ve been here last. There are so many things. There are more flower gardens than there used to be, and more things in the … Read more
I know, everyone else starts this game in January, but now it’s May, which is really a time of beginning things, and I can’t even remember if I made New Year resolutions, much less what they might be, so I’m starting again with a couple of goals for myself.
After 14 years together, Tom and I finally went to visit Tom’s parents in VT for a week during fall foliage season. Foliage season in VT is a little like the Holiday season in other towns – the hotels fill up and are charging peak rates, there’re a million people running around with cameras, snapping … Read more
Me - near the summit of WhitneyThere was a lot of adventure in our household the week of 9/9/09. We moved our stuff out of the crawlspace so that our new contractors would have some room to work on finishing out the downstairs unit in our house Saturday and Sunday. Tom climbed the Nose in a Day with Hans on Monday, and then we drove across to the East Side and hiked Mt. Whitney in a day on Wednesday, returning tired but happy to our little place in the Valley Thursday night.
Celebrating our Anniversary atop Mt TyndallI promised myself that this is the very week that I would (finally) put something on this blog about the vacation that Tom and I took the week of Aug. 10th for our 11th wedding anniversary. We’d tossed around some other ideas, and we may have even gone to Hawaii if we’d planned ahead a little further (for people that know us, the beach vacation is a radical departure from our typical vacation mindset). It turned out that a shorter vacation to the East Side of the Sierra was absolutely perfect. Our trip had three parts. We had time to finish up some projects ahead of time so that they weren’t hanging over hour heads for the vacation, and then hiked to the top of Mt. Tyndall, wandered slowly through the Bristlecone Pine Forrest, and climbed in Clark Canyon.
Tom among the wildflowersWe took a somewhat abbreviated backpacking trip out past Ostrander Lake June 25-27 to try out some of our new gear. The short version? We love it, and we had a great time. I also learned and re-learned a lot of stuff about backpacking. For a first trip, it was just right.
We left Thursday night around 9pm after getting off work and cooking up a yummy dinner the comfort of our own home, and hiked out to Horizon Ridge before setting up camp. In some ways I like hiking in the dark – it’s usually very quiet and peaceful. Plus, this was an out and back trip, so we got to see the scenery, and the flowers that we walked past in the dark on our way out.
The Double Rainbow Tarptent on Horizon RidgeIn the morning we finished our somewhat circuitous route to Ostrander Lake, and circled around to walk along Horse Ridge. It was a lazy day, filled with many stops and a bit of napping. We had plenty of water so we camped high with a bit of a breeze and fewer mosquitoes, filling up when we hiked down in the morning.
For more random notes about our trip, in no particular order
Bird's Eye GiliaTom and I dodged down to Hite Cove to check up on the flowers there and get a little run in. The run was marvelous. We went all the way to the Cove, and I felt great – although my legs were cramping a little toward the end (not sure why). Plus, the flowers were spectacular.
A friend had been a little worried that the poppies were past. True, they may not be as abundant as they have been, but there are still plenty spectacular. Right now, it seems like the best display is further up-canyon, near El Portal. For my money, the hillsides have gotten even more interesting because instead of uninterrupted carpets of orange, the orange is punctuated with many other flowers and colors. I think the show stopper this trip, were the beautiful patches of Bird’s Eye Gilia (of which I got the Gilia and the B, but had to look up the rest).. or the RedBud. RedBud is always amazing when it is in bloom.
Many of the people that I stopped to ask about flower names could only shrug. To my, “Ooo – do you know what kind of flower that is?” one guy smiled and said, “The pretty kind”. True enough. Still, for those who are interested in this kind of thing (and are understanding of my imperfect flower identification skills)…
California NewtHiking the first bit of Hites Cove this weekend reminded me of what a wonderful run it is -beautiful rolling terrain, with great views of the S. Fork of the Merced and, of course the wildflowers. Plus, now that it’s daylights savings, there is enough light at the end of the day that it’s possible to really get out and do things after work. Losing that extra hour of sleep goes down easier when you think of the after work activities that open up. So, today, we drove down the hill and went for a jog at Hites Cove.
