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.

Up close and personal.....



A park is across the channel where sailing and rowing lessons are given.  The channel also leads to public access and we get some wild  waves from boaters who think 5mph is code for go like hell.  In the middle of the night.  We rock and roll and it isn't romance. We heard opera from the park last week and found that they are putting on classical concerts every Thursday - so we will dink over with dinner and freeze while getting some culture.  When reading in my bunk sometimes I will yell at Robert to go see who is about to crash into us as I can see masts a little too close for comfort out of the overhead hatch) and if I can see the masts, then the boat hull is right behind -er, below.  So far the only thing threatening has been a huge dory with kids trying to learn to row while texting.

He/she calmly watches as I walk down the dock and we have a conversation about not pooping on the dock.  Me, talking to it.  A night heron seems to hang around at the same time, hoping for tidbits.  The whole channel is covered with the pelicans when the fishing boats come it.  As they pass our side tie several times a day, we are used to them, but never used to the "carpet" of pelicans.  They follow, dip,  and hang onto the fishing boats and ignore the passengers when returning.  The crew uses shirts and hoses to try to get them to leave, but they manage to get into the bait buckets or steal the fish.  A man on shore was yelling, "Bag, bag, bag" while I was walking Murray.  I was about to get pretty insulted when I saw a huge bird walk up and steal a bag of fish while the fellow that paid lots of dollars to have his fish stolen was the subject of a lot of laughing.

Dagny Taggard comes to town.  It just kept passing us by, and passing and passing.  We thought the Queen Mary was going to be hauled out.  What a great name.  We get a daily show of before and after as the boats have to pass us to get to the yard.  Good fun.

The Fourth



All day we we were having what is known as June gloom here, in July with low clouds and sort of fog.  Then it lifted, so we hoped to see the fireworks in more than blue and red fog.
Robert ran up our flag.  Those are our spreaders in the background.

Ian and Janice skunking us at cards.  Evan and Aaron were out scouting the many channels of Marina Del Rey.  We at least had some sun, but later were handing out coats and big towels to keep warm.  Dinner was late - incredible barbecued chicken from Ian, Ian's good beer, corn and fruit.    We all wanted to go to sleep but had to make it until 9 for the fireworks. 
The parking lots were jammed with cars, we were free, thank heaven as people had to pay $20.  The park across the way looked like and sounded like Disneyland.  When the fireworks went off, you could hear thousands of voices....but when the incredible finale exploded the sky - it sounded as if we were in a huge amphitheaterwith people clapping and cheering.  The explosions echoed  and boomed around the bay - we couldn't see all the people but hear this enormous crowd cheering and yelling.

Evan and Aaron waiting for nightfall.
The fireworks had been cancelled in the past couple of years, and the 20 minutes we had were full of spectacular explosions.  Does  this mean the economy has improved?

More Norton Simon

Whoever designed the garden is a painter, also.  Purple trees against pure green trees, large leaves against small leaves, a lily pad pond (Monet lives) and constrasting and complementary colors.  It was awe inspring and a wonderful place despite hearing the freeway close by. 

Natural lady with nude and bamboo.  A male friend, who has never said anything complimentary to me in his life, (a sure sign of friendship) asked what happened to my "beautiful, long red hair."   Time, honey.  Time.  That and living on a boat..........
Nearby is the Huntington Gardens/Library where other incredible paintings are displayed and the garden is huge.  I am more attracted to the scale of the NS as the layout is a painting with surprises around each curve.

Most young girls have a fascination with ballet - well, perhaps young girls from another age as Justin Beiber has taken over the young female consciousness.  I drew and sketched famous ballerinas  as an early teen and when cleaning out stuff for a move, found  drawings of Maria Tallchief and other famous ladies in my hopeless chest.  Degas had more than a fascination, and with the  amount of small statuary and paintings in the collection, it is safe to say he  was obsessed with them.  Or Norton Simon's curator was - as they dominate the Impressionists room.  We spent more time circlelling and staring at these until we looked like potential burglars.

Cultsha.....

This is a new model for Henry Moore.  Years ago I went on one of Robert's business trips with him to Toronto.  Froze, but found a museum that was packed with Henry Moore sculpture - so much so that it was hard to move between them.  It was more of a store house than a museum, on  a second floor which had to have been reinforced to take the heavy weight.  At the Norton Simon, the sculptures are all over in a garden and inside the building, in such a way that they appear to have always been there.  The paintings were astonishing for a collection that had been built over 30 years - dating from the 1300s to the 1990s:  names and images that are famous and fantastic.  We were in awe - and were able to get our noses right close  to the work.  Photos were allowed, also - without flash - we loved the place.  We had been to an exhibit of Diebenkorn at the Orange Country Museum and the guards kept telling us to keep three feet away from the work.  Back away from the work, lady! Of course some of the precious stuff had barriers but we were able to breathe in the colors and sense of the work.  Awe doesn't cover our feelings - it was almost religious in there.
As an aside, the brochure said the museum was remodelled in the 1990s by Frank Gehry.....couldn't tell at all.  He must, with his giant ego, have sublimated something to make the whole place magic and serene.  And then we had to hit the traffic on the freeway to come home but were high on the experience until Lincoln Blvd.

Monet's work is so famed for the water lilies that this garden was another fascination spot in the museum.  People would get so close and then just stand there.  I did, too...this isn't one that is seen very often and is joyous in color, but painted in a time when he had all sorts of life changing events that were not positive.  I tried to talk to Robert about why shadows are blue, why concrete is pink and got nowhere.  He looked at a painting by Ingres, and said "this is real art."  Humph. 

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My new bff. People were enthralled with this guy - called simply, A Peasant. Me, too.  The color is so vivid that it glows in a room with limited light.  Not one that is found very often in books about the artist.
I have been in the major museums in Washington DC, but was not as excited and thrilled as I was yesterday at the Norton Simon.  The Art Institute in Chicago is another emotional art experience with all their Monet's....but the entire setting of the NS, with the beautiful garden and exhibit galleries is pretty hard to beat. I may just like this area, after all.