A week of sightseeing & ice cream

My parents flew back home to Maryland today after a busy week of watching fireworks at Ironstone Vineyards in Murphys, riding a historic train in Jamestown, gambling at Black Oak Casino in Tuolumne, taking Amber to llama shearing jobs, walking around Yosemite Valley, dancing in the streets of Columbia and eating out at what feels like a million restaurants and ice cream shops.

Despite all the activity, we did manage some downtime. The photos above were taken in Yosemite, while the ones below were at home. (The one at the bottom was Amber and I holding Maggie after sharing a couple bottles of wine).

Fair photos

I've always wanted to enter photos in our local Mother Lode Fair but never seemed to have the time. This year I made it a priority and entered pics from our around-the-world journey. The fair was held this past weekend and I earned two ribbons, including one for this photo of Ediza on the beach in Greece. For this photo, I won an impressive $7 -- exactly what it costs to buy one soft pretzel and a bottled water at the fair:)


More importantly, entering photos in the fair forced me to tackle a much larger project: sorting through and developing prints of some of the 5,000 photos we took during our trip. Not an easy task!

Camp Tuolumne Trails

It's been a while since I've posted anything. We've been staying busy working around the farm, fixing up our home, etc. On Father's Day, we took Ediza and Maggie on a hike all the way around Pinecrest Lake (a week or two before that we went up to Pinecrest to watch an outdoor movie under the stars -- very cool).

Today we took two llamas -- Golden and Pele -- to Camp Tuolumne Trails, just outside of Groveland. The camp is geared towards children and adults with special medical needs. The campers we met really enjoyed visiting with the llamas and were naturally very inquisitive. My favorite question one of them asked me went something like, "When a llama goes to a new place does he take time to observe his surroundings?" Good question.


Pucker up, Golden.


Pele wants some love, too.


Yes, that's Ediza -- a llama trainer in training.

I've visited the camp a few times while it was being built, but today was my first time since it opened last summer. The camp was created by a couple who want to help kids with special needs experience the "simple pleasures of childhood." It was really great to see their dream (not to mention all the time, money and everything else they've invested into the camp) finally become a reality. We'll be returning next week to introduce the llamas to a whole new set of campers!

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.

'Around the World in 80 Days'

Other than a couples yoga class, Amber and I haven't been on a proper date in 2 1/2 years. That changed this past weekend when Amber's sister watched Ediza and Amber and I went out to dinner (Indian food) and a play ('Around the World in 80 Days'). We had a lot of fun. Amber wore a dress she got in Paris and I even wore cologne (also for the first time in years). Of course, we talked plenty about Ediza. Before the play we reminisced about our own around-the-world adventure, although ours took much longer than 80 days (more like double that).


While it's no far off distant land, the town of Mariposa (Amber's hometown) is the subject of my latest article for the L.A. Times travel section. Check out "Mariposa Butterfly Festival will take flight May 1 to 3" at travel.latimes.com. We'll be headed there this weekend.