Fallen Leaf and San Francisco: From Sunburn to Frostbite

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The end of July annually sees us trekking north with family for our stay at Stanford Sierra Camp. Not to slight our RV experiences, but THIS is the way to camp! Modern "cabin" rooms, three outstanding meals per day of all you can stuff, beautiful Fallen Leaf Lake (just SW of Lake Tahoe) and nestled in the best hiking country of Desolation Wilderness. Do it all, or do nothing. I usually hike my legs off, but I found at Mammoth that doing that burned off all my hard-earned pounds that I'm trying to replace after the Big C episode. So, this year I plan to loaf around camp, eat myself silly, and see how much I can increase the poundage. Plus, my degenerative disc disease is acting up and giving me leg tinglies. Time to slow down for a while. Mom has been out for three weeks, and the three of us made our way to Sacramento airport to pick up my niece, Rachel, the illustrated woman. Rachel is a motormouth doll with a body full of tats, including a new one that sports the family coat of arms, stag and all, across the top of her chest. She is an amazing sight in a sleeveless tanktop and a megawatt smile. We hustled up Highway 50 to get to camp before the dinner bell rang, and encountered surprisingly little traffic until the last climb over the pass before descending into the Tahoe Basin. The view of the devastation left by the big fire last year is still sobering, but there are a lot of new houses going up right in the middle of all the blackened terrain. Guess they'll be safe from fires for the next 50 years or so.

I kept to my plan and reluctantly passed on all the great hikes and the camaraderie that goes with them, but sculled every morning at 6:40 when the lake was like glass and everything was silent. It is the single most relaxing and soul-refreshing thing that you can imagine. I spent the days reading and doing arts. Turned out a nice charcoal drawing using the "Drawing On The Right Side Of Your Brain" technique (use the left hand if you're a righty), and a couple of watercolors that had the passers-by gasping (or was that retching?). Anyway, I met a number of campers that I ordinarily wouldn't have come in contact with and had a lot of fun. Loni, of course, outshined me in the art department. She has a natural talent that she is just now starting to pursue. The boyos bought her an art box with supplies, so hopefully she'll get to do some when we next take off in the RV. With Mom holding down the first place in the dining room line every meal, we scored outside tables every meal on the deck overlooking the lake. I truly oinked through every meal, cholesterol be damned. It's only a week, right?

We did go on one "hike," although it wasn't much more than a stroll. It was the nature hike to Lake Winnemucca, one that we've taken many times before. It starts at the Carson Pass, which is around 8,500 feet or so, and wanders south over rolling terrain filled with wildflowers and scenic vistas. This year it was only "good" for wildflowers due to the lower snowfall and early melt-off, but a nice hike nonetheless. I took along enough lunch to compensate for whatever calories I was burning and managed to keep my neck steady enough to avoid the leg tremors. Sigh. And to think just nine months ago I was scaling Half Dome without a care. Moral: DO IT ALL NOW!

Camp was over far too quickly and it was time to head back down the hill to Sacramento to drop Rachel off for her return flight, and then on to San Francisco to see the boys. We saw the annual huge motorcycle charity ride procession heading (thankfully) up highway 50 to Placerville as we were heading down. I calculated our relative closing speed at 90 mph, and it took seven minutes before we passed the end of the procession. Mom always gets a kick out of seeing the sight of all those headlights coming toward us. San Francisco was relatively sunny, but with a ferocious wind blowing. We had to be careful opening the car doors so that they wouldn't blow into the adjacent cars. We met up at John's apartment adjacent to the Buddhist residence facing the Panhandle park, snagging the last close parking spot just as Mike & Alia cruised past. Ate dinner at a quirky Chinese place that definitely didn't do the chow mein routine. Very delicious and interesting, and "only" cost old Dad $200 for the six of us. The next day dawned grey, overcast, foreboding, and cold. Mark Twain was right: the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco. This was the last day of the "Tall Ships" festival, so we all met up again and headed to Fisherman's Wharf. After twenty minutes of the San Francisco dance to find street parking (the lots had jacked prices to $25), with success defined as ten blocks away and up a steep hill, we walked around the festival. We went on a beaut of an authentic 19th century cargo ship, which was huge and had a hundred or so exhibits below decks, saw a replica of the Nina (authentically built using 15th century techniques up the Amazon river), and toured the local submarine that is a permanent exhibit. Mom first had to stop for the obligatory hot dog to keep her alleged hypoglycemia at bay, which was enough fortification until dinner time. The festival also was going on at two other locations along the S.F. waterfront, but I think we saw the most interesting of the lot. The Nina looked absolutely tiny at only 95 feet, and we couldn't imagine 35 or so men living on the deck (there was virtually nothing below) for the voyage to the New World. It was steered by a huge tiller, not a wheel, which must have taken two men at least to handle. Despite the cold and the wind, it was an excellent outing for everyone.

We reconvened back at Mike's this time, joined now by John's lady friend, Mehgan. They met the new-fashioned way earlier this year: on-line. It's a brave new world for us old farts. From Mike's we walked to a nifty Italian restaurant with dark wood, low lights, and a very sympatico owner-host. The food was excellent and the company even better, lubed by a couple of bottles of wine (one good and one not, or so I was told, seeing as how I'm still not up to speed taste-bud-wise). Good times were had by us all and old Dad got away for only $250 this time, for seven. In San Francisco, for good quality, this actually was not bad at all. Besides, it's the boyos' inheritance.

We left the next morning for L.A., shooting down the I-5, one of the more dreary rides in all of California. Can't believe that the gas prices haven't slowed the traffic one bit. We still managed to eke out 26+mpg out of the old Sienna in its 11th year. L.A. embraced us with the usual traffic, and we were home.