Sycamore Canyon (aka Brush in My Underpants)

I finished a quilt last night, finished the binding. I’ve been calling it Bathtub 2 because it’s the second drawing I did of the apparent bathtub series. Even though I don’t think Bathtub 1 will ever be a finished quilt. But when I was getting ready to measure it this morning, it named itself…finally.

This is In Deep. Yeah, there will be official pictures taken eventually…like when I get the other one done that’s supposed to be finished in July. It’s cheaper to do two photos at once. Money is tight.

Then I cut out Wonder Under for a while…I think this one is actually going to be pretty quick.

It better be. I don’t have much time. I was watching Helix while cutting. Still trying to figure out what the freak is happening in the second season. I should pay closer attention. Or not.

I have a list of tasks today, but mostly want to finish the Wonder Under and start picking fabrics, since I’m going to lose most of tomorrow to driving to LA for the Diverted Destruction 8 opening at The Loft at Liz’s.

The opening reception is tomorrow night from 7-10 PM. The exhibit is open through September 5, 453 S. La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90036.

So yesterday we hiked in the middle of the day. Kinda crazy, although today it would have been awesome, because NOW there are clouds everywhere dammit. So I’m sunburnt even though I put sunscreen on twice. Bastard sun.

We went out to Sycamore Canyon…it’s been on my list for a while, but never got out there or it was too hot or it closes too early. There were lots of people there…

As you can see (that is my car). Very busy on a Thursday.

It was warm…we analyzed this sign and saw no evidence of anyone but us and the park ranger, who apparently lives on the property.

This is on the ridgeline trail, looking back at the lonely car in the parking lot.

Most of the ridge trail was very rocky, to the point that having poles going up and down the hills would have been helpful. You can see part of the trail going up the hill to the left.

This is looking down towards the valley we might eventually get to…it was warm, over 90 degrees by the time we got back to the car.

Boychild found this on the trail.

There were many signs of the Cedar Fire that came through here in 2003…the lower plants have come back, but a lot of tree damage.

Well, honestly, not a lot of trees at all. There was this crazy chainsaw bug that annoyed the crap out of us.

The trail continues (kids had ditched me by now).

Evidence of the fire at one of the trail intersections…

Here we headed down into the valley.

It wasn’t a super-steep descent…but again, poles would have been helpful because of all the rocks on the trail.

Down there, you can see where we’re headed…into that valley.

The area has a lot of colorful rocks.

And a very very dry river bed…

We found this sign amusing. I don’t think I could have gotten to 5 mph even if I started running downhill (obviously for the bikers).

We got down into the valley and told girlchild there was a windmill, and she took off skipping. She likes destination hikes.

But not poison oak. Not a lot of it (too dry up top), but down in the riverbed area, definitely saw it.

The random, creepy-sounding windmill…it creaks really scarily.

The meadow of the valley…

The original Goodan ranch house built in the 1930s…

Burnt in 2003…

Sad to see…but this is desert…we forget as we water everything that it’s supposed to burn…

Apparently we were on a special trail (it did not feel special)…

OK. Julie. I know you’re reading. What the hell are these? Wells? We saw about 6 or 7 of them, all different heights, with elevation on them and some codes. These two were making clanking sounds, like chains were in there banging around. Girlchild actually said “hello” like there was something alive in there…

What? We never saw evidence of this…but this was the start of the service road that climbed back up to the car. Because when you go down? You have to go back up.

It was not as bad of a climb as the other direction would have been (notice no rocks), but it was a mile long and HOT.

Another one of those weird concrete baby bunkers…

The kids got way ahead of me…well, the girlchild waited for me at one point. I don’t do heat well…

Looking back at the valley…

And again…as we climb higher…

Up the hill…on the top, is my car. Really. I know it’s there.

From the top. One thing you can say…even the desert view…it’s beautiful.

Gorgeous summer blue sky and mountains across the whole horizon. I don’t think I could live somewhere else.

That said, we’re sticking to night hikes if it’s warm from here on out…until? I don’t know, maybe October (both kids will be gone then). The hike only took about 2 hours, although the heat made it feel like longer. It’s about 4 miles with a 600-foot descent, apparently. Not sure if I believe that. The trail info is here. Oh NOW I look at the map and find that the last section is called Cardiac Hill. Nice. Oh, and there’s a porta-potty at the trailhead off State Route 67. Me? I peed off the trail behind the bush. There’s also a nice bathroom down in the valley near the ranger house. For future reference…you don’t have to have pieces of brush in your underwear like I do.

Yeah. You wonder why you don’t have as much fun as I do (sunburn, brushy underpants, and recovering from heat exhaustion)…

Two Peaks, Some Art, and Two Books…

No matter how much screaming and arguing seems to be happening here, we have now managed a second “family” hike. This time, they ditched me (it’s OK…I’m out of shape…and they waited at the tops of mountains, which is all I asked) and walked and talked together. I’m OK with that…

We hiked up the back way to Cowles Mountain with the million people who always do that (there actually weren’t that many last night)…

Where they beat me up by 10 minutes, but missed the rattlesnake (I didn’t stop to take a picture of it)…but then girlchild spotted a California Horned Toad (not a toad at all)…

They’re so adorable and so hard to photograph. This is on the trail past Cowles down to Pyles Peak, because we don’t do easy. We climb mountains. OK. Not big mountains…there’s a view of Cowles looking back from the saddle between the two peaks. You can see the trail we’ll have to take back UP.

Sometimes I don’t think through the suffering part of these until I’m doing them.

I’m amazed that with little rain and drought conditions, there are still flowers everywhere…

This is from the base of Pyles…with Cowles in the far distance.

And looking up at the “peak.” It’s kind of a lame peak…more of a rounded thing. But you do have to climb to get up there. Trust me.

We saw maybe 5 other people on this part of the trail…here’s the top, overlooking most of San Diego County…

We tried to time it so we would hit sunset when we got back to Cowles, so hopefully we wouldn’t need to use the headlamps. The marine layer always makes for interesting pictures into the distance.

And Cowles to the south…

Another interesting flower…

I was behind the kidlets again (they walk fast…youth plus lack of injury), so the sun started setting as I was heading back up that long trail.

Looking back towards Pyles…

Beautiful sky…

Definitely worth the pain…

When we got back to Cowles, we actually ran into someone I knew, so she came back with us. We pulled the headlamps out for the last 10 minutes (we’re blind old ladies…the kids were fine) and had a great conversation about life, art, and hiking.

I’m smart about these hikes…I made dinner (casserole) and stuck it in the fridge so it needed about 20 minutes when we got home…just long enough for a shower to wash off the worst of the sweat. Of course, then it takes me an hour to get my butt off the couch. Ah, old age. And a good workout. There’s conflicting reports on the mileage. I call it 6 miles, but it might have been more.

I eventually got up. It took a lot of willpower. I haven’t finished sewing the binding on yet, but girlchild was going to bed, and I wanted to watch Elementary, which has to be on the television in the living room…so I started tracing the next one. My ex-Cousin-in-Law (I think that’s what she is) requested a cat with a heart, so I drew an extra piece for her…

Very anatomically correct, of course. And I kept going, although standing was exhausting.

Kitten was no help (as usual). I managed about 100 of the 500+ pieces, and then I looked at the clock…

It’s a good thing it’s vacation…that was a late night. I’m feeling it this morning, because I didn’t sleep well. Trash trucks and birds chirping and sunlight and cats hurdling me and dogs whining. Ugh. I don’t do mornings well.

I finished three books in the last week…I need to write a separate post about one of them, but the other two…Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie…

which I read for book club, but then didn’t make it to the meeting (grades were due). This is actually a common occurrence for me. I don’t mind, but in this case, really wanted to discuss the whole confusing gender thing in the book. I didn’t think it added to the story at all, and although I finished the book and gave it an average rating, I don’t want to read the rest of the series because of the gender confusion. It was never really explained satisfactorily and just annoyed me. I don’t mind gender commentary. Just explain it before I’m 150 pages into the book.

The second book was recommended by a friend, The Story of Owen by E.K. Johnston…

This one I liked…a current-day dragon-slayer. This is a YA novel, but I think easily reads as an adult novel. I love the connection to historical stuff and the environment. Definitely a good retelling of the dragon story. I’m reading the sequel to this one.

Yes, summer is about reading and hiking and art. Surely there’s other shit I need to do (and I will), but I’m still in recovery mode.

Hiking It Off…

Ah. Grades are done. For the year. No more grades for at least 2 1/2 months. No more lesson planning for…um…a while (teachers work unpaid over the summer, in case you didn’t know that). I just have to survive a field trip to a bowling alley, one day of “teaching” (who thinks that’s a good plan?), and trying to entertain my kids during graduation because they’re not allowed out of my classroom for two hours.

Sounds fun, doesn’t it? But grades are done. That is a relief.

I planned a hike with my kids last night because one said he’d never been up Iron Mountain and because I want to test my foot out and make sure the pain isn’t coming back before my podiatry appointment. Plus I’m totally out of shape, so it makes sense to kick my physical ass when it’s 80 degrees out (I survived…tomorrow, I will be significantly sore, but I will survive). We did Iron Mountain, which claims to be 7 miles (I swear I thought it was only 5)…

I was uber-smart and made dinner the night before and put it in the fridge. I always forget how long this takes, and doing it after work is exhausting sometimes. I had a good long conversation with the boychild though…

I pissed off the girlchild (again) on the drive there, so she took off…

Whatevs. She got back in the car with us at the end, so I guess she hasn’t disowned us yet.

It was a little warm (OK, a lot warm) at the beginning, but a nice temperature by the end. And it was a relief to do it. I had two muscles cramping, and my knee is fussy, but the foot didn’t hurt. I’m planning more for next week too.

This week is more of a survival thing (I keep saying that…because it is). That said, I managed to finally get off the couch after 10 PM and head into the office…

Oh wait. That’s not an office picture. Oh well. I did quilt…

And whoever the dingbat is who thought I could do the background quickly? She forgot that I needed to go in and around all those branches and leaves of the tree. Which took me over an hour last night. Argh. I’m at 7 hours and 40 minutes. I might get some time tonight, but Wednesday night is the girlchild’s graduation and Thursday night is something else. So I’d like to be done, but it’s highly possible I won’t be. And I might run out of thread (I should deal with that, shouldn’t I? Have a plan? I always have a plan. I put the color number in my phone. There’s the plan. I put a reminder in my calendar for after school)

How is it possible that the neighborhood mockingbird never sleeps? I hear it again now and I heard it when I went to bed. I hate that thing.

Anyway, I suspect there’s another couple of hours of quilting in this (at least)…so I underestimated the time. Oh well. It’s not like I can finish it sooner just because I want to. And I will get it done.

I’m Just Doing It Different…

So I made it home yesterday, and then to pay for taking 2 1/2 days off of my life, I spent the next 8 hours running around like a crazy person, trying to catch up. That part wasn’t fun. At all. And at some point, around 10:30 at night, I quit. I am still feeling overwhelmed this morning…back to negotiating with my brain for a day at a time. “Today we will do this.” And trying not to think about the 70 trillion other things that need doing, but that I can’t possibly deal with right this second. Or even next week. And apparently I’m doing it all wrong anyway.

Giant ass sigh. Today we dissect frogs. Big lab day. I am leaving here early to set up, because I never got there yesterday. Ran out of time. The alarms are on at school at 11 PM, or I would have gone over then. Seriously, I was shopping for dog food at 8:45 last night.

That said, I did have a relaxing weekend (too bad I ruined it with real life, eh?), so that’s kind of a tiny buffer against all the crazy right now.

It was really cold on Saturday, but this was part of the walking view…

Bizarre broken panes of glass in the middle of trees…flowers everywhere…

Birds wouldn’t shut up.

My parents’ dock with dad’s canoe (took that out on the water on Sunday, when it wasn’t so cold and choppy)…

The ever-present fog this weekend…or cloud, really. We spent a lot of time driving in clouds.

There it is creeping into the valley…

Sunday was nice out on the deck. I drew a whole picture and got sunburnt in the weird places where I forgot to slather on the sunscreen…

Like the part of my wrist that is normally covered by a watch. It’s burnt now.

Coming home was a lot of putting stuff away, cleaning stuff, washing stuff, making lists, buying stuff, planning stuff, typing stuff, printing stuff.

And around 10:30, I sat down and started cutting these out again…

I had to stay up pretty late to get the laundry through, so I’m tired this morning. Then again, I’m always tired in the morning, so this is really nothing different.

I know there are lots of people trying to help me, but sometimes the help comes out as criticism. And there was a lot of that yesterday, some of it crazy-from-the-teen’s-mouth criticism (really? How many times do I have to ask before you will just do it?) and yeah, I sat in my office and cried for a bit, because it was all too much and I was obviously doing it all wrong.

Or am I? Because I’m the only one sitting in this chair, carrying all of it on my shoulders, and if there is a lack of understanding, I can’t really do anything about that. I have this huge job that sucks up so much time and energy, and then I try to be an artist on top of that, and woven through the whole mess is this parenting thing, which I do by the seat of my pants and with very little support. And when I get it wrong, I apologize and move on. But it seems like even with all I get done, there are still expectations that I’m not meeting. And yet I know I’m not doing it all wrong…I’m just doing it different. I have to remind myself of that, that my experience is mine…and they’re not seeing what I’m seeing.

You could just take one look at my art and realize that, I guess.

Getting through this week will clear some of this out, I think. Meanwhile, I’m still making art. There’s no magic that fixes the rest.

Ahhh…Peace…

How to clear the mind: read, write, draw, walk, canoe, drink some tea and some wine (not together, yuck), have some good food, watch some apes on TV, and don’t think about school at all. Just push it out and let it fester in the corner for two whole days. It will still be there tomorrow. Nothing will have changed between now and then.

I can’t tell you how much I needed a break, and because I’m not home, I don’t feel required to pick this up, put that away, run that errand, finish that task…I can’t do any of those things until I get home tomorrow, and then I won’t have enough time to finish all that anyway, so I’ll do what I have time for, and push the rest aside until I have more time. My life is such that the crazy expands to fill all my available time if I let it, and I was determined not to allow it for the last two days. I’ve been pretty successful. Well done, child.

I’m probably sunburnt. Oh well. I used sunscreen. We canoed today, not super far, because we’re both out of shape, but it was a good distance to remember how to steer (though some would argue I never remembered that). And the sun was out today, unlike yesterday, when temperatures were dropping to 44 degrees during the day, so it was a much better day to be on the water.

We walked around a small part of the lake yesterday. I wanted to go on a real hike in the wilderness, but we couldn’t find the damn ranger station and I left my Adventure pass in my car, which is still at the shop, being torn apart. And then it kept getting colder and colder and later and later, so I settled for a few miles on lakeshore paths and roads. Oh well…we got exercise, and that was the important part. My foot was OK, although twingey, so I’ll probably have to test it with a real hike sometime in the near future.

We brought a pile of movies to watch, but the parental DVD player seems dysfunctional, so we picked something off real live TV…not ideal, but it works. I’ve worked on my quilt, cutting pieces out. I’ve drawn.

I’ve finished one book (Feed by Mira Grant, definitely worth reading…a much better zombie tale than most of them) and started another. I’ve read some blogs and had the news read to me (wtf Josh Duggar?). I’ve cooked. I’ve eaten. I’ve slept. I figured out that mom was in charge of purchasing the showerhead in her shower, but not the guest showers. Um…Dad? Did you really have a guy who installs bathrooms for a living take a miserable shower with that showerhead? You did, didn’t you. It’s interesting how much difference a good showerhead makes to my mood. I should remember that for future reference. Ten Things That Will Make You Happy: 1. A Damn Good Showerhead. 2…well, I’m still working on the other nine things. I’ll get back to you.

It’s all good. It’s amusing to me how many of my teacher friends got the hell out of San Diego this weekend. It’s cool to see all their posts and photos from all over.

And now I’m looking forward to Mexican food for dinner, reading more of my book, and who knows what else. I think I’ll actually make it through the rest of the school year…at least it’s looking more positive than it was Friday at 3:30 PM.

The Two Sides of Kathy

OK. Let’s not joke about this. There aren’t just two sides. I’m a dodecahedron…at least. But titling my post “Kathy: a Dodecahedron” would probably just overemphasize my geekdom. Geekness. Geekosity.

Yeah.

Yesterday I quilted for many hours, then went to the beach and jumped through a bunch of waves at the beach, then showed up at my appointment in a towel and bathing suit (eliciting much amusement to those in the waiting room, and even a bit of applause after I emerged from the bathroom fully dressed), then to dinner at my parents, and then I went back to quilting, this time tiny fussy bits of blue that showed through between elephant legs and bird wings.

In the morning, I had the whole left side of the quilt and a bit of the top to do, so I just sat down and quilted until I wanted to scream and tear my hear out, I was so sick of blue and stippling and did I mention blue?

I kept hoping and praying the phone would ring and I would be able to leave to go to the beach, but they spent more time than they thought they would at the Midway, and it wasn’t until late that I got the call, and by then, I was done with the main part of the background and was in the apple tree branches, still wanted to tear my hair out and scream and rant and rave about stupid crap and filling in fucking tiny spaces and gaargh.

The beach was fun, jumping in the waves and getting salty water in my eyes, just like in high school and college.

After all that and dinner with my Belgian sister and her kids and my parents, I came back, tired, exhausted, up since holy crap in the morning to take the girlchild and her dad to the airport to go visit college, the one where she might actually go, but I wanted to be DONE DONE DONE.

I even did the clouds…

They needed something.

And then, after 19 hours and 34 minutes of quilting this week, starting Sunday, I was done.

Done. It’s done. OK, I still need to trim it and bind it, so another 6 hours or so, because it is a big beast of a quilt…but done. Almost.

OK. I’m still trying to get my head around that. I mean yes, that was my goal over break, and yes, I blew off a ton of other things (grading, cleaning, yardwork) to get it done, but it’s done. A month and a half early. Whoop! I can work on something else. OK, yes I have to finish that other recycled quilt, but it won’t take long. And yes, I have two that I need to do early in summer, or maybe one is later, can’t remember. Time to sit down with the schedule again.

Then this morning, my exchange sister Claire and I went on a hike. Much as we went our separate ways after the year she lived in our house, my senior year of high school, our lives are not that different. She hikes in Europe and I hike here. We both try to figure out how to eat healthily when kids are there and then gone to their dad’s houses. We both try to figure out what happy looks like from here on out. And we both know part of it has to be outside.

We hiked Iron Mountain, which I’ve done before, but never in full daylight…always night hikes. It’s the big mountain in the picture.

It’s a local favorite, but less crowded than Cowles Mountain, because it’s longer.

The weather was nice today… mostly cloudy when we started and not too hot…

The views were a little hazy, but still nice long views to all the compass points…

The yucca have started to bloom…

It’s a dry hike, but there were lots of wildflowers by the side of the path…

And as the sun burned away some of the cloud cover, you could see all the way to the ocean…

And south to the Mexican border…

(Yo Julie…what is it?) Julie says it’s called a Silver Puff…what a dorky name. It’s quite soft…not as spiky as it looks.

A rare sighting, a California horned toad (aka lizard). Sweet little one…

And more beautiful views…

California poppies…

And Claire staring off into the landscape…

And here’s the panorama that shot came from…

Beautiful day, great time with a long-time-no-see sister…two sides: quilt on my not-so-fat butt because I get outside and do that hiking thang. They often conflict with each other, as the need to do one fights with the need to do the other, and the need to fit it all into a single day or weekend is some sort of Clash of Kathy Brain. It’s kind of a miracle I get as much done as I do…but it was all good, all worth it. So one of my 12 facets is NOT about housecleaning or yardwork. I’m OK with that. Now I’m going to go read a book (oops, another facet) until they call me with the next event.

That Crazed Look in My Eyes…

I’m currently walking my son through filing his taxes 3000 miles away. Actually, I wonder how many miles away he really is. Only 2680 miles. It would cost about $315 in gas to drive there. Girlchild, if she ends up in Boston (a distinct possibility at the moment), will be 3001 miles away. ANYWAY. Taxes suck. Even suck more when they are more complicated than they need to be. Presumably, the government would like to punish you for being smart enough to put money away for your kids’ college futures. Whatever. It’s done. Well…it’s not done, because he’s still texting me and the damn state, which is the only part that wants money from the kid for going to college, has questions. Or TurboTax has questions. Sigh. I have taxes (not mine), the FAFSA, and multiple financial aid forms and all their usernames and passwords glaring at me at the moment, hanging over my head, giving me ulcers.

It’s no wonder I hide in my office/studio, quilting like a maniac, eh? Seriously, everything else is hurting my head. Is it too early to hang out at a wine bar with my sketchbook (yes. it is.).

I quilted yesterday. Which is something I’m not really getting done today. Dear taxman. You suck. College financial aid departments too. You also suck. Go the fuck away.

I quilted for almost four hours yesterday, which is pretty good, considering I had to go buy thread and pick up cat meds, plus I hiked a mountain…

You know, just for fun. It wasn’t a big one. I’m still outlining. I honestly thought I would finish the outlining last night, and I would have, if I hadn’t hiked. The hiking made it impossible for me to get off the couch for about two hours. Seriously bad. Ugh. But eventually I did and came in here…

I’m over 7 hours in. I have just a bit of the head area left to quilt and then I can start on the background…

I’m never really sure which is more time-consuming, the outlining or the background quilting. I guess it depends on how much background is showing. There’s a big chunk of it on the right side. I should start over there. But I had hoped to be quilting all day today, and I think I have lost that…for a good reason, though. My Belgian exchange sister (AFS) from high school is visiting for part of this week with two of her kids, so that will take up some of my free time, which is why I’m pushing to get the tax and financial aid crap done this morning so I don’t have to think about it. I’m also trying not to think about yardwork, housework, or schoolwork. It’s not really working. I’m a giant ball of stress. Plus there’s an opening tonight, so I’m already nervous about that. Although I’m sure it will be fine. That whole standing in public with my art thang. I like to send in stand-ins. Like my kids. Neither of whom are available. Whoops!

I’m still spacing out a bit while I quilt…sewed the cord to the extra light on my machine right into the quilt…

I’m sure it will come in useful that way. Huh. No, I fixed it. Ugh.

That’s where I quit. I think I just have the left side of her hair and the big cloud over there to outline.

Not much. Then background stuff. It’s hard, because the hike was totally worth it, felt great to get out there and see that I could still climb a mountain and I didn’t feel too bad (breathing was an issue for a bit), but I kicked butt and I’m sore today, but not overly sore. So yeah. Can’t stop doing that stuff in between all the other stuff and maybe the yardwork isn’t really that important, even when my ex and my dad come over and cluck about how little I’ve gotten done. I remind myself that they do not have two jobs and I do. And obviously yardwork is not that important to me. The boychild is home in 5 weeks…maybe he will do some of that until he gets a real job. Maybe that will motivate him to get a real job. It sure would motivate me.

OK, I seriously need a lot more caffeine and to start quilting, even if it’s just for a few hours today. I’d like to quilt the whole afternoon until the opening. It would put me in the right frame of mind. I’m always a little spacey after quilting all day…but calm, incredibly calm. As long as I can stay in that quilting mental space, it will all be good.

The opening tonight, by the way, is at Grossmont College here in San Diego from 5-7 PM. Late notice…sorry. The exhibit is Women at War…

And my piece in the show is Absolutely Nothing…

I’ll be there tonight…come say hi. You should be able to tell how much quilting I got done by the crazed look in my eyes.

Finally Getting Out…San Elijo Lagoon

A million things have conspired against my getting back out on the trail the last two months, but I finally kicked all their asses to the curb (yes, pneumonia, I’m talking about you) and put my hiking boots on yesterday. Of course, it’s in the mid-90s inland, so we headed to the water. I hiked San Elijo Lagoon Ecological Reserve a little over a year ago. It’s not a long or hard hike, but there’s birds and a breeze, and what more could you ask for when you are totally out of shape and panting in the Southern California heat?

Yup.

You could ask for pretty flowers all over the place…

And a cooler breeze than was found in the inland valleys…

And sure, that’s probably a lot of pollen that is keeping my nostrils all stuffy today…

But there was almost no one else on the path…just a dog and a horse and a small number of people…

And birds…

And long vistas of green and watery bits…

And this egret with a couple of ducks…

It was definitely warmer on the side east of the freeway…

And it’s always a surprise to see pines down in these areas…but there were supposed to be mule deer too, and I’ve never seen them out there…

More pollen for noses. I also have two bug bites and a weird triangular-shaped bit of sunburn from where I didn’t slap sunscreen on my white winter body.

Shady tree-lined paths for part of it…but yes, also some sand to slog through.

Lots of lizards of all types…

And a few big monstrous trees…

Blue skies…and lots of ducks…

Back to the beachy breezes on the west side…

Even a few sandpipers…

5.75 miles from North Rios in Solana Beach to El Camino Real, traveling under Interstate 5…

Yes, the muscles are talking to me today, a day later, and I’m quite glad about that. I feel much better having been out there and used them. Now to keep it up…

Hiking Sloan Canyon

On Saturday, before it rained all day Sunday, I tortured my hiking companion with two miles straight down into a canyon and then two miles straight back up.

OK, not really. It just seemed that way. I obviously shouldn’t be allowed to lead hikes. Or pick them. Or ignore the part in the article here from the San Diego Reader that talks about two miles down.

This is part of the California Riding & Hiking Trail. We parked in a turnout at the bottom of a hill on Japatul Valley Road and hiked up past some houses, until we saw this sign on the left…

The views were far-reaching, which made it worth it. A warmer day, though, and it would have been an issue…

There’s not much shade and it’s not an easy trail.

A rainy day would be near impossible…it’s probably mostly mud right now.

But deep down there is the Sloan River Valley…

Above is to the east…below is a view of Mt. Sycuan.

This is to the west…

There are large slabs of granite throughout the hike…

But it isn’t until you get way down in the valley that you realize you will eventually have to come back up.

More granite…no water.

This rusted-out jalopy shows off a road off to some rural homes…

It’s been there a while, but someone planted daffodils amongst the rusty bits…

Nice old car…

It had character…

The hot dry trail, still heading down. At one point, an old jeep passed by and the old guy in the old jeep said that if Junior and Morton came by, they were good dogs; they wouldn’t hurt us.

We never saw the dogs, but you can see some winter tree foliage down in the valley…

And there it is. The river valley itself…

With no water to be seen.

There might be water today; it rained all day yesterday. But on Saturday, it still looked like this. At the bottom of the valley. Where we now had to climb back out.

This is 4 miles round trip, and though we thought Jerry Schad must have been running to do it in 2 hours, we also were able to complete it that quickly. The trip back up, while not easy, was not as bad as we thought it would be. So there’s that. Take water; go when it’s cool. There was no one else out there but the guy in the jeep (and the two invisible dogs), so that was a plus. Oh yeah, and a bunch of ravens playing games in the warm air shafts…

Hiking the Lagunas in Snow

This may not seem like a big deal to some of you, but I live in Southern California. Hiking in snow is just fucking crazy. So we did it anyway.

Sure, there wasn’t much snow at the beginning, but it was cold…it actually snowed Tuesday/Wednesday, and this was Saturday, so not too bad. No chains needed to drive there even.

It was bloody beautiful though…

Didn’t expect it to be as hard to hike as it was though. We did part of the Sunset and Big Laguna Trails, a big loop around the Laguna lakes and meadows.

Thing is, the easiest bit to hike was on the packed snow, but even that required balance…

And the icy bits were hard to hike, as were the muddy bits, and the icy muddy bits with big pools of water underneath. Yeah those were fun.

So I’m a little sore today…two days later.

Totally worth it though. I’ve done this hike in the fall and it’s gorgeous then too…

Not too much climbing, mostly flat…

But we took 4 hours to do 7.2 miles, so you know it was harder than normal.

I’d do it again though.

One of the lakes, seemingly frozen over. When we came back, a lone duck was sitting in the middle of it, like, where’s my lake?

There were snowmen scattered all over the trail…in fact, I’m not sure how we would have known where the trail was if someone hadn’t come through before us and stomped it all down.

Because a lot of it looked like this…

Yup. Ice.

We came back by this lake later and took the Laguna Meadow trail…

The sun was out and it got up to the high 40s, maybe low 50s at one point.

Definitely shedding layers, fleece off, down to long sleeves and an undershirt…

You can see what the trail looked like there…

Poles would have been smart. I do have them. I just didn’t think I’d need them. You’d think I’d learn. Ha!

Gorgeous day, beautiful trail…

Great views…

Two of ours making snow angels…like you do.

This part of the trail was a little less broken in…

But still doable.

I didn’t get snow in my socks until that part…

You can see the trail here is mud and ice…

And the meadow stretches for miles…

More mud and ice…

We ate lunch with this view…

These guys in the distance…

More beauty.

I guess living in a desert means this never gets old. OK, if I lived in Michigan, this might get old.

But I don’t. I live here, in a drought, in the sun. It’s 80 degrees today…

And this stuff is probably melting like crazy.

Even there, you can see the sun has cleared those pine needles…

It wasn’t an easy hike…I mean, I think it would have been easy without the trail conditions.

More trails and the other lake…

No wildlife, except that duck and some ravens…and all the humans out there…

Definitely a great hike…went for the pretty and that’s what I got…plus a monster workout. This hike is out of Afoot and Afield. You park on Sunrise Highway at the 19-mile marker. There are two porta-potties, but they were full to the rim when we got there. Fun stuff! Plenty of parking, nice trail. I’ll do this again, both in the snow and not.