In our continuing pursuit of getting into appropriate shape for hunting season (which is only a month away,) we took ourselves another hike this weekend. In the last episode, we’d driven by the trailhead to North Dome but decided that it was a little too far for rookie hikers to start in the middle of the afternoon.

 

This time, we planned to get after it a little earlier, and boned up on maps and hiking equipment. We plan to do some overnighters starting next spring, so we went a little overkill for our day hike just to test some things out. We dropped off the kids at school and headed for Yosemite on Friday morning, turning up at the trailhead at about 11 AM.

 

It was a little bit of a cold start for me, with the uphills kicking my butt a bit. Still, I’m in much better shape than I was 30 pounds ago, and part of this trip was to see how I did with the asthma and the altitude. The first half of the hike was pleasantly shaded by the same kind of forest we hunt in, at about 8000 feet.  We came across a doe who couldn’t care less about our presence – those Park deer are totally immune to people – so we watched her for a while.

Once we got to a real uphill pull, I started to flag. Junior walked up ahead for a bit so he could push himself physically too, and eventually we came back together. His walking back and forth to me may have added a half mile to his weekend’s mileage total. When we rounded the point of that hill, everything changed. What was once shady forest floor was suddenly bare granite spotted with trees here and there.

 

We walked out onto Indian Point, at first thinking it was North Dome thanks to the great view of Half Dome to our left. But every time we came to what looked like the end of a dome, we’d look down and there would be more, accessible just over the crest. We were off the trail by then but found it again as we kept going down. I hated to look behind us, because every step down means two or three back up for me. Once we could see North Dome, we obviously had to drop off even lower and come back up it, so we paced ourselves, had a little chocolate fortification, and got to it.

 

It happened to be that everyone on the Dome at that time was coming off of it, and we were the only ones going up. So once we got there, we had the entire thing to ourselves, spectacular views and all. Now, views are nice and all, but not usually my driving force, but this was incredible. It’s just like us to stumble upon the most fantastic vista in all of Yosemite on our first hiking trip. How are we going to top that next time?

We circled the dome. You’ve got a 360-degree viewpoint from there which encompasses the Yosemite Valley, the Merced River, the front face of Half Dome, Glacier Point, Nevada Falls, Basket Dome, and a whole hell of a lot of high country wildlands beyond. For once, the air was pretty clear up there; I’ve seen Yosemite with such a haze that the mountains are hard to pick out, but this was almost as clear as after a scrubbing thunderstorm, but without the lightning hazard.

 

We must have spent an hour up there, all by ourselves save for a bold chipmunk and a red-tailed hawk flying below. We could see other trails headed other places, and immediately swore to ourselves that we’d be on them.  As crowded and annoying as the valley floor gets, this was as far along the scale towards peaceful.

 

On the way back, Junior carried my pack through the worst of the climb. Pride was going to stop me from that but common sense prevailed. We found the trail back up Indian Ridge that didn’t go straight up the nose, so it wasn’t quite as hard going as it could have been. When we hit the breakover point between up and down, we sat down and tested out one of our backpacking stove options with a little freeze-dried lunch. We learned a couple of lessons with that that I’m glad came to us on a day hike and not in the middle of nowhere; namely that my belly really does not care for a full meal while still hiking and that small snacks are the way to go until we make camp. Good to know.

 

By the time we got back to the truck, we’d gone nine miles. Our legs were both tired but we weren’t exhausted. Neither were we ready to call it a weekend, so in spite of only having packed day packs, we pointed the wheels east instead of west. We thought we’d try to get a room in Lee Vining, but ten minutes of circling that town twice (in a summer squall) made it clear that that wasn’t going to happen. As a last resort we spotted Lee Vining’s Chamber of Commerce office and bookstore, and popped in there. The lady working there was a jewel; she told us to head for June Lake, ten miles south, and gave us a flier with hotel phone numbers on it, and suggested one to try. Sure enough, they had plenty of rooms, so we booked a lakeside king and handed our phone to some also-stranded Italian tourists so they could book one too. Then we dropped some money as I discovered that my husband, who is not much for recreational fiction reading, has a serious jones for reference books. I’m happy to play along with that game, so we came out three books and an atlas richer, as well as a complimentary membership to the Mono Lake Committee complete with a neat steel canteen.

 

We seem to have a gift for leaping blindly and coming up roses these days, and June Lake was exactly our sort of place. It may have been a little touristy, but it’s fishing-touristy, not city-touristy. Only thing was, we rolled in after the sole minimart had closed, so we had to scramble to find a toothbrush the next morning. At least we weren’t out of place in our camoflauge in a higher-end restaurant at dinner. That’s the sort of town where they wonder if you’re bowhunters (that season is open) rather than wonder if you’re crackpots.

 

Our token reaason for going east was to see the Devil’s Postpile National Monument. I vaguely remembered seeing it when I was a kid, so it was on my list of road trips to be taken. We really weren’t all that far away, so off we went. I hadn’t realized that to get there you have to catch a bus from the very crowded Mammoth Ski Resort, which is a serious mountain bike place in the summer. It was a little bit of a shock, going from peaceful solitude to a sardine can, but there wasn’t any point in turning around.

 

We hiked down to the Postpile, which was pretty damn cool, and then kept going down to Rainbow Falls. Apparently you can see rainbows there almost any time of day, but not on a day threatening to storm on us. Still, it added another four miles to our weekend total, and got us to see some things which we otherwise wouldn’t have. But every time I see Yosemite, it just makes me want to see more of it, and I think I got my fill of Mammoth in the one shot. Too many people.

 

Come late afternoon, we were sore and ready to start heading home. Back over Tioga Pass we went with another stop in the Tuolumne Meadows Visitor’s Center for some more reference books and maps. Junior intends to learn to use a compass if it kills us, and I’m having a hard time remembering exactly how to teach it, but we found a good started book on the subject.

 

He wanted to see the Tuolumne Grove of Giant Sequoias on the way home, so that was our last stop. It’s a two-mile round trip hike, but the first mile is all downhill. Unfortunately, that of course means the last mile is all uphill, and after we saw our very large trees, I got the bit in my mouth and may have become a little stubborn. I was damned if I was going to let the last mile of fifteen kick my ass, so I put it down into granny gear, breathed like a freight train, and huffed and puffed my way up that trail without stopping once. I didn’t even need my inhaler; at this time last year, a hundred feet uphill would have had me wheezing. 

So our trip was an unqualified success. We did more than we’d intended to do and had a great time doing it. Now it’s time to plan one last hike before hunting season starts and our hiking reverts to involving dogs and firearms and dragging large amounts of weight behind us. This will be the most prepared for any season I’ll have been, and I plan to get to twice the number of trees as I did last year, all the better to take the pictures.

Sometimes, being the boss sucks the big one.

I’ve had a guy working for me as a backup operator for a couple of years now. He’s great: unflappable, capable, and hardly ever goes anywhere so he’s available. I need him to take emergency calls from the system on the weekends so I can keep my sanity. Otherwise, I’d be on-call 24-7 for three years straight. I would never get to go further than an hour from the job, and I sure wouldn’t get to do any hunting.

In the fall, I use him pretty heavily. Every weekend, if possible, I’m up there doing my thing. I couldn’t do it without him and he likes the extra income. It’s obviously not a full-time job, but as side work, it’s pretty easy. He’s only been called out once in the whole time he’s worked for me.

But the company he works for during the day just lost their contract, and the new company’s not hiring. So he was scrambling for a new day job. I’ve been sending him links to whatever I can; it’s in my best interest to keep him employed locally so he doesn’t up and move. He’d threatened to move to Texas if he couldn’t find another job. I was sort of hoping to give him full-time work for a week if he was still unemployed in November, so I could go to Colorado to hunt with Junior.

Turns out that his original company has offered him another job. In Afghanistan. Joy. Good for him, but now I definitely have to scramble for another backup operator. He leaves right around hunting season, and at the same time, my big project kicks up again.

So I’ve been calling around. I work with one of the local city guys sometimes on my side job, and I know he holds the correct licenses. I called him up and offered it to him, but his boss is giving him big flack about conflicts of interest. Seems his boss thinks that their City provides my water too, and therefore he can’t work for the agency twice. That’s news to me – I run this system and I know exactly where my water comes from and where it’s going. You’d think the manager of another system would know the same about his.

I hope he works it out; he’d be perfect. He says he’s a real homebody, and he’s got more experience than I do at dealing with emergency repairs. He does work for a bigger system, after all, and often they can’t just shut a bad section down to deal with during the week like I can. He works Fridays, while my previous guy did not, so I won’t be able to skate out of here early, but late is better than nothing. I’d hate to lose this hunting season, and I’d hate to spend my anniversary alone in the Valley while my husband is up hunting in the hills. I’m supposed to be there too.

So I’m holding my breath. He seems really interested and may push it with his boss, with his union’s help. If not, I’ll hit up the guys at the other local agency. I doubt that they’re as strict with the side work, but I also don’t know those guys as well. I need to be comfortable leaving my livelihood in someone else’s hands. I’m rather unsettled about the whole thing.

It was time this weekend for another short adventure. I had planned to go to Bodie several years ago on my own, but that sort of fell by the wayside. Then Junior and I meant to go last month, but again, life interfered. This time, however, things worked out beautifully.

It’s been unseasonably cold lately, and I wasn’t up for our usual routine of sleeping in the bed of the pickup if there was a chance we’d get hit by a thunderstorm, so I called up to reserve a room in Bridgeport on Thursday for Friday. I didn’t have a problem getting one, but when we got into town, every hotel had “no vacancy” signs lit up, so apparently I just got lucky.

I’d seen on the internet that there are a few hot springs in the area, so we packed our suits just in case. A friendly guy at the fly shop we were browsing in gave us directions after dinner to the Travertine Hot Springs, so we changed and drove up and watched the sun set over the eastern Sierras while sitting in a tepid pool of murk with several strangers. It was a new experience for Junior, and a little weird, but I liked it. I prefer it to be a little more peaceful in my pools of murk, but since the King of Everything was there, that was not to be. The hippies were much more pleasant to be around, and the rock climbers and the hikers, the three groups not exclusive. No pictures of that, as I had a clue that it used to be a clothing-optional sort of place and probably still tended that way. Cameras are frowned on.

Luck continued to be on our side, as Saturday turned out to be a special Bodie day, with reenactments and activities and a barbecue. We’re sort of morning people, so we got up early and had breakfast in Bridgeport and were only several cars back in line at the entrance at 8 AM. This turned out to be outstanding timing, as while we were there, the people kept pouring in, way more than usually go there. The parking lot overflowed well out onto the road.  As early as we were though, it made for some great picture-taking. The light was beautiful, it was nice and cool, and there weren’t hundreds of people to dodge every time you wanted a shot.

A group of Model A’s was parked in front of the museum and there were several wagons and horsemen and women in costume. We were very surprised to take a look at the driver of the mule wagon and recognize him as Junior’s friend’s grandpa George. Junior has helped him with his hitch before, but these were different mules, so he didn’t recognize him from a distance. I swear, that man knows someone everywhere we go.

We took a tour of the stamp mill that’s still standing there. The tour guide was great and being early was in our favor again, as it was a really small tour. Tours of mines and processing equipment was a really big part of my childhood, and I was surprised at how much of the information I’ve retained from those. This particular place crushed gold- and silver-bearing ore and extracted most of the metals through chemical processes. The town was driven by this industry, and it was really interesting to hear how it all tied together. You really should go if you can, but be quick about it, as the state’s shutting the park down (thanks a lot, budget people) on September 8.

We had us a lunch in the parking lot and decided to leave early enough that we could go home via the other pass in the area, Tioga through Yosemite. What we’d do exactly would be up in the air, but it didn’t matter; we’d be seeing new things no matter what.

It turned out that we saw Mono Lake from an overlook on Hwy 395, and then stopped at the visitor’s center down by the lake itself. I would have liked to take a little hike and see the tufa formations up close, but we wanted to get some walking in at Yosemite, so we pressed on.

I’ve never seen the eastern Sierras from either the Sonora Pass or Tioga, so I kept marvelling at how pretty it was. We decided that it was too late in the afternoon to start the 9-mile hike to North Dome and back, so we postponed that to later in the month, but we did go down to the Valley and admire Bridalveil Falls. Sadly, summer is the absolute worst time to go to Yosemite; it’s populated by some of the rudest and most obnoxious people on the planet right around now. I much prefer the park in early, early spring, when there’s still snow on the ground, or in the fall when the trees are turning colors and the weather runs the tourists out. I can spend a lot of time there at those times of year, but in high tourist season, my limit is about an hour.

We’re planning to spend some time next year doing a little backpacking though, and the Yosemite High Country will factor strongly in our destinations, as well as the Emigrant Wilderness, which has all of the scenery and none of the people.

You know, just like a mechanic doesn’t work on his own cars, it seems that people who live really close to tourist attractions don’t actually go to them unless they have some distant guests that need entertaining. I do hit Yosemite up about once a year, but popping in for an hour isn’t exactly standard. We live in a state that’s just crawling with beautiful places, tons of them within a few hours’ of driving and yet haven’t seen nearly enough of them. I have the advantage that my folks were great summer wanderers when I was a kid, but I like to see some of these things through adult eyes too. My list keeps getting longer, but as long as I have a partner that also enjoys getting out and exploring, I don’t worry that I’m going to miss them. We’ll see some every year, and have a great time doing it.

Since our neices were in town with their grandparents for a few weeks, Junior’s mom wanted to throw a party for all of the more remote members of the family to see them. Usually parties are at their house, but since we’ve got this big backyard that’s finally somewhat suitable for entertaining, we offered up our place.

Having it at our house was really easy, it turned out, as she still did most of the planning. I only had to show up, clean a little, and make the same dish that I would have made if we’d had it somewhere else.

We kept the neices for a few days before so they could bond with their cousins, and those kids spent every available hour in the pool. I’m surprised they’re not permanently pruney.

So after furiously cleaning on a coffee buzz, the party got off to a good start. It stayed that way the whole time, actually. I think we had eleven kids in the pool and several adults. There was plenty to snack on and the burgers only caught the grill on fire a little bit. Once they moved it out from under the patio cover, there was nothing to worry about.

There were a few cutthroat cribbage games and some game played like horseshoes but with golf balls on a string that I’ve never got the hang of. We didn’t break out the dice game or the poker table, but there will be plenty of time for those another day.

Most of the guests were from Junior’s family (of course, since it was to see the neices) but some of my people came too, and I really enjoyed hanging with them. In fact, I let loose of all my usual uptightness that comes with party-throwing for me, had some beers, and did not stress at all. Hell, I even let other women into my kitchen, which usually gets my panties in a bit of a twist. You know it’s a good party when you are still upbeat on the whole concept of parties the next day.

We’d like to try to squeeze another one in before hunting season starts, but that may not happen. That’s OK; we have Thanksgiving and Christmas here too. The pool might be a little chilly though; bring your wet suits!