Horses to the meadow

Ma and Pa ready to ride the range:  up to 8500' plus.  For years we have wanted to take day rides in the nountains above Lake Edison and this year we saw the sign.  Day rides were now available:  from an hour to all day.  We chose 4 hours, thinking, we have done this.  Yeah. Right.  Years ago.  I was last on a horse with Barbara last summer and was terrified at the steep trails.  This was similar and yet, very different - we were in wilderness and climbed up and up and more.  When we crossed a small meadow, bees attacked us and my guy had front and back legs underneath him and I thought we were going to have a buck off.  It was dry and dusty climbing up - a huge difference from last year with all the flowers and underbrush.  Robert fell in love with horses.  I took lots of Ibuprofen and had trouble getting off the horse as my legs wouldn't work.

Graveyard Meadow was our trip destination and had a lovely little stream in it - and loads of cattle.  I was concerned at how the cattle got up to the meadow as the trail was pretty much single file from the horse lodge, and uphill.  The other trail needed a ferry or the cows swam across.  Their travels remained a mystery.  Robert is standing on part of the Pacific Crest/John Muir trail which continues to the low point in the trees and then up into a pass to more lakes.  We are across the lake from our camp and loving it.  years ago we hiked up to the pass and were pretty happy we had horses this time.  Until I had to get off it back at the lodge.

 

On the trip down the mountain, I asked Robert to stop so I could photograph the river below the hot springs.  Last year, the rocks on both sides were underwater.  There are small pools from the hot springs on the hill to the left.  Driving down to Mono Hot Springs is one of the terrifying part of the trip back down and it seemed to be as good an excuse as any just to get out of the car to take some long breaths.
I always hate to leave Vermilion Valley - and was glad we were able to do the trip this year, even a fast spur of the moment trip.  It was not the same without Dave and Bridget - perhaps next year.  I used to make fun of people who vacationed in the same place every year - but it is always new and different up there.  The tranquility, the fruitless search (sometimes) for fish, the sunsets that color the valley scarlet and purple, and the lake - all worth the awful drive.  It is a place that fills my soul.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stairway of sorts ....to heaven

Philosophers say the journey is part of the destination and with Lake Edison, so true.  We have been coming up the road from hell, and don't mean Fresno/Clovis, but the road with single lanes, treacherous drop offs and steep turns for over twenty years.  Some years I scream a lot from acrophobia, but this year I determined to look out across the valleys and down the cliffs and to breathe.  It sort of worked.  From 10,000' at Kaiser Pass, each familiar turn in the road led to another and we began to relax and wonder at the lake level.  Last year it was in front of the bare tree shown in the middle of the photo.  This year, ominous words of "low snow pack" had us concerned.  No matter, it is always blissful when we get here - and a spur of the moment trip from the noise of Marina Del Rey had us back in a small slice of heaven.  Both for us and the dogs.

Mono Creek,  is where I caught my first trout years ago, and not knowing what to do, just got all female and kept asking what do I do.  Ian, who was along with little  Ali, dryly suggested I reel it in and not having the right equipment he wrapped it in a dry diaper.  Suggested wisdom is to allow the bait to run down the river and slowly reel it in.  This year, I fell in, trying to get to my favorite spot near a deep area where I have always found trout in the past.  That gave the six, yes, six, guys who were crowding my favorite site some good ammunition about women.  The camp ground is one of our favorites, off the main road - but horrors, the rough areas had been smoothed out and the place was crowded.  I think the six guys spent all their time untangling their lines.  The sense of freedom and remoteness has been mitigated with concrete dust to level  around the larger boulders in the road.  Anybody can go there now.  I am not good at sharing secret spots.

One of the things that is a huge challenge to a painter is to paint moving water and get it to look translucent.  This small treasure of fish hole is upstream and we saw a woman trying to fish it.  I had visions of tangled lines when trying to reel in anything.  I didn't want to fish it, and thought it would make a fine watercolor.  Besides, after falling and having a tough time getting out of the current, wet and cold meant a warm shower and wine back at camp.
Everytime we leave here, we wonder if we will ever return.  Our lifestyle is such that no matter where we go, this place calls us.  We were supposed to be in in Panama at this time, suffering in heat and bugs.  This year, we were blessed with family "stuff" and were able to make the wild trek back to this beloved place.  Thank God.

These photos were loaned to us by a boat broker here in Marina Del Rey - he raved about sailing Shockwave years ago when the IOR class was supreme.  I was afraid to take them out of the frame, thus the reflection.  Racing took fifteen guys - and it looks as if they had "coffe grinders" oon board.  When we bought the boat we tried to take it back to original and a good thing we did.  We found that foam "batten"s had ben added to the hull to beat the IOR rule, but the battens were not glassed or sealed in.  If we had bumped something and took water through that klugy, idiotic  mess, we would have been in big trouble.  The second owner did a lot of things we changed and now feel a lot more secure in our hull.

I'O used to be Confrontation, but before that, was the first Shockwave:  built in New Zealand to get the then owner's money out of NZ.  Currency restrictions were fierce then, and he brought the boat to  Hawaii and then to San Francisco.  It won the (Hawaii) Round the State Race, was dismasted off of the southern part of the Big Islan but went on to victory.  It wond most of the Big Boat series in San Francisco Bay and was so infamous that the crew was called "the twisted sisters".  NZ humor.  The original paint job was the one I saw at the Waikiki Yacht Club when invited aboard years and years ago.  The spinnaker is about to round them down - you can see the action of the crew trying to get their weight on the high side.
That spinnaker was cut down to make a cruising spinnaker for us - yet to be flown.  We might be chicken.