Houn's Journal: August 2010

To save you the Googling, it means “Flyday,” and is an event hosted by Red Bull about four times a year at various venues around the country (was last in Minnesota, I believe, where the distance record was set). The idea is that local teams prepare their own craft that, with a push launch off the thirty-foot high ramp, are supposed to, um, fly as far as they can. From what we saw yesterday, that’s about thirty feet straight down.

We were supposed to do this as a group scooter ride with the L.A. club, but as the date approached virtually all those who signed up bagged out, leaving us and one other to do the ride to Long Beach. And he lived further downtown, so we ended up going most of the way by ourselves, and meeting up in the South Bay. When we got down to the Long Beach Harbor, we met a mob scene. From the account in the Times today, there were 105,000 spectators. I think that was no exaggeration. We cajoled a parking structure attendant to let both scoots in for the price of one, since we’d only be occupying one space. At $12 a pop, a good deal.

First stop was the staging area where we could view the contraptions. It was sort of like previewing floats at the Rose Parade; a very low-rent parade. Part of the judging is for “performance,” which means the crew has to do some dance or whatever prior to the launch. Costumes were the order of the day. We had rainbow men, lost men, cave men, and infantile men, to name

only a few. The “craft” (loosely termed; see the rock above) were a bizarre assortment. There were flying pink biplanes, flying Obamas, flying pianos, flying Nascars, and, hey, real Coast Guard flyboys!

We spent too long examining the lunatics. By the time we made our way to Rainbow Harbor, most of the 105,000 had already gobbled all of the available real estate. No seating; just squat wherever you could find a spot. We ended up sitting on the rocks (ouch!) that lined the banks of the peninsula opposite the launch pier. Good sightline, but I wished for binoculars. And, of course, Summer finally decided to arrive. No fog; no cool temps; no cloud cover. Those rocks had been baking all morning. We felt like fish on hot coals.

Ah, but the idiocy was worth it. The Flying Sombrero:

The flightless stork, baby in mouth.

The ever popular shark and porpoise ballet.

And the cave dudes and their rock.

I have some neat video of the launches, but after a frustrating hour trying to upload it I’ve given up. Don’t know whether to swear at the program, the computer, or Verizon. Actually, I vote for Verizon.

It’s that time of year again when we head north to Fallen Leaf Lake and SSC. We first started this in 1982 when John was 5 and Michael was was 4 . . . months! Egads, can all that time really have passed? Maybe that’s why we keep going back year after year. Camp seems timeless. The staff changes each year, and things get refurbished, but the lake and the mountains are their familiar selves, immortal.

Yikes. Where’s that coming from?

Anyway, we loaded the car, fired the GPS (didn’t really need it, but it’s fun to have a mileage countdown, etc.), and headed north out of L.A., 405 to I-5. It’s about 400 miles or so to Sacramento, where we were going to overnight near the airport in order to pick up my two nieces, Rachael and Kate, who were flying in from Bloomington, Indiana, to join us. When making this trek on I-5, it is de rigueur to stop at Harris Ranch, the approximate halfway point, for whatever meal is appropriate. For Loni and I, it was a late breakfast. For Mom, it was salad and . . .

a chocolate malt, of course. Hey, when you’re 87 . . ..

More than adequately loaded with carbs and fats, we pushed on, with digestion fighting for blood resources with my driving attention span. I managed to stay awake and we made our way to the Hampton Inn and Suites to the west of Sacramento, about 6 miles from the airport. It’s a new facility, with a great breakfast bar included, and was perfect for our purposes. I even reviewed it for TripAdvisor.com. Saturday morning we went over to the airport and met the Bloomie Girls at Southwest. We’ve been flying SW for many years with nary a hitch. But we seem starcrossed this summer. First, Mom came out a couple of weeks ago, and had a plane change in Phoenix. SW canceled that connecting flight. They made an announcement during her first flight on the overhead p.a., but she can’t hear those things, so she disembarked and made her way to the gate (quite a ways away) only to find that it wasn’t posted for L.A., but something else. Fortunately, she has all her wits, if not her leg strength, and checked a monitor which gave her the change which, of course, was all the way back where she had come from. She got here ok, a couple of hours late. Now, in Sacramento, we waited, and waited, and waited for the girls’ checked bags. They never arrived. Off to the SW baggage department, fill out the forms, give them the camp’s address, making sure they know it’s about 100 miles away up in the mountains, and getting assured (cough) that they will overnight the bags by Fed-Ex when they arrive on the next flight from Indy. Oooh kay. Off we go, and made it up to camp without incident, got unloaded and put away, and killed time mugging for pictures

until the dinner bell. Ah, food. For many the principal motivation for coming to camp. Ignore this barmy vegetarian,

the rest of us had excellent roast beef with a zillion side dishes and salad fixings. Oh, yes.

Ah, the luggage. There was a phone message waiting after dinner (this is Saturday, remember) in which SW casually stated that the bags had arrived and would be delivered . . . TUESDAY evening. NOT! I spent 3/4 of an hour on the phone haranguing three different reps. They finally capitulated and said they would have a local courier bring them up tonight. Rachel stayed up until 1:00 in the vain hope of intercepting them, but had to go to bed then. Apparently the courier got there at 3 a.m., left the bags at the office, and faded into the night. All’s well that ends well, I guess, but fie on SW for their first response.

We spent Sunday getting acclimated to the altitude (6,400 feet at the lake) and trying out the watercraft. The girls tried their hand at Hobie sailing

while I stroked around in a sea kayak. The life jackets

are mandatory, but I unzipped mine when I got out of sight of the dock. It was too hot. We had great weather the entire week, with just occasional cloud cover and no rain. Actually, I wished for more cloud cover on the hikes. That’s not Fallen Leaf in the picture at the top, but rather Half Moon Lake, the destination of the alleged “medium” hike the second day we were there. A twelve mile warm-up at 7,000+ feet. I brought up the rear, but made it. I thought I was moving at a good clip, but our hiking leader was a cross between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jim Fixx, as in carrying a huge pack and moving fast. I didn’t feel too bad. After all, he’s 1/3 my age and has been up here two months doing this every day.

On Wednesday, Loni and I ditched the games day at the beach and headed for our favorite hike in these parts, the wildflower hike to Lake Winnemucca. We drove twenty miles to Carson Pass at 8,650 feet, which is the trailhead for the 3 mile hike to the Lake. Since this was a late Spring, we were hoping for a good bloom. We weren’t disappointed. Loni got swallowed up:

We rated this as the number 2 year out of all the years we’ve been coming up. We found plenty of color:

The best of the flowers are about 2/3 of the way to the lake. We finished the hike in and had lunch on our favorite rock lakeside.

There were a number of people there, but so spread out that we felt we had the place to ourselves. Some hero on the far side (those are full-sized trees across the way) was climbing up a cliff side and doing Acapulco cliff dives into the lake from about 40 feet up. Brrrrr. Too far away for my puny telephoto to capture.

My favorite activity at camp is sculling in the early (6:30) morning. It is dead quiet, no motorboats, no kids’ groups, with the water like glass. I like to go out in the middle about 1 mile, drop oars, and sit and look at the mountains. Now that’s peace.

The Grail of the masochist set is the Long Hike, held on Thursday. After my less than stellar performance on the alleged medium hike, I should have been somewhat more cautious. Ah, at the beginning of a hike, everyone is full of beans and raring to go. These smiles

would eventually fade. Our destination today was Freel’s Peak, the highest point in the Tahoe Basin at 10,881 feet. It’s a 14 mile hike round trip, starting at about 7,200 feet. We had tried this hike a number of years ago, but with one mile to go a storm moved in and the threat of lightning (which did hit) forced us to retreat back down the hill. Blue skies today, with no threat of storms. For most of the hike, it’s steady up, with long grades and switchbacks, with the views starting at about the 5 mile point.

It’s quite a mountain, totally bald at the top, with decomposed rock making a sand-dune like slog for the last 700 feet of elevation. This is the view up with a mile to go. The ”trail” here essentially disappeared for the most part, and we picked our way along.

I have to say, I was feeling every one of my years. I hadn’t adequately prepared for a hike this strenuous, and the steep pitch (45 degrees) and altitude had me gasping with every step. Once again, I brought up the rear, moving in slow motion up the last slope. That’s me with the light hat at the tail end. Max, our leader, hiked back down to escort the geezers up the final hill.

At the top, the Bloomie Girls celebrated with far too much energy. Apparently, this (something) Waters store in Bloomington will give them a freebie if they take a photo of themselves in a distant locale while waiving these towel thingies. Meanwhile,

Unc collapsed on his rear and contemplated a white flag of his own.

That’s the southern end of Tahoe to the right (you could see all the way to the North end). Fallen Leaf is the little slice of blue to the left. We had a 360 degree view from here, and could see the Carson Valley in Nevada, and the mountains around Yosemite to the South. The group was pleased with itself: