Yosemite Falls

My new article for the L.A. Times -- "Hiking to the top of Yosemite Falls" -- is now online at travel.latimes.com and will be in this Sunday's travel section. Below are some more photos from my hike there earlier this month.





Tomorrow Amber and I will celebrate our third wedding anniversary. The day after we got married we went to Yosemite and got drenched by another waterfall -- the appropriately named Bridalveil Fall.

Spring Strawberry

We just returned from four days of camping at the Strawberry Music Festival near Yosemite. As usual, all three of us had so much fun! It's tough not to have fun when you enter Strawberry -- a surreal world filled with tie dye and bubbles and hula hoops. Its very basis is fun. Where else can you drink cocktails and go hiking to a beautiful lookout point only to return to camp and listen to world-class music under the shining stars?

Some of our musical highlights included two sets by Michael Franti (one acoustic by the lake and the other a high-energy dance party) as well as a powerful performance at Sunday morning's revival by Mike Farris and the Roseland Rhythm Revue. Ediza especially enjoyed Canadian fiddler Natalie MacMaster.

The music ended last night and we made our way back home to the llama farm today. It always takes us some time to transition from Strawberry land back to the "real world." My transition was accelerated today by shoveling llama manure for more than three hours in the hot afternoon sun:)

Walking the line

The other day I hiked Yosemite Falls -- now in its full springtime glory from the snowmelt runoff. When I made it to the top I was lucky enough to watch this world-renowned slackliner (similar to a tightrope walker) make his way across a rope above the falls. It was really incredible to witness the stillness and balance on the rope as the waterfall raged below.

About a week or so ago I saw a preview for a documentary, "Man on Wire," about a young Frenchman who in 1974 walked a wire illegally rigged between New York World Trade Center's twin towers. I had been thinking a lot about this movie and when I saw the guy walk over the waterfall I knew I had to watch it. Last night we saw the film and I must say I was enthralled from beginning to end. It was really creative as the documentary used the tightrope walking as a metaphor for how you should live your life.

Completely unrelated, we hope all the mothers out there enjoyed their Mother's Day. We went down to the big city to buy some paint. I love the names they come up with for paint. We are painting our bedroom Indian Sky with Sanctuary trim and our bathroom will be Bali Turquoise with Bitter Orange and Terracotta Pot. Of course, Ediza left the store with paint swatches featuring every shade of pink you could imagine.