Blogs from Lone Pine, California, United States, North America - page 2

There are not many better places to write in this world. I’m sitting on a log with trees around me, a deep blue sky, a lake in the background, no noise except our voices. One thing I haven’t written about is that hiking with a pack in a high altitude setting is hard work. I’m slow, slower than slow, slower than the slowest. It gets discouraging at times. It gets discouraging to be the slowest of the slow. The packs are heavier than heavy. The back hurts, feet and toes hurt. Lungs are gasping for air, sucking the pine needles off the trees like Cam said so perfectly. Throat is dry from sucking the air, so dry that to swallow makes you sick. Meanwhile after hiking for what seems so long one finds that they are ... read more

So we are back and it is hard to think about the real world now. Fortunately I wrote while gone otherwise it would be too difficult to go back and piece together this trip. So here it goes: Day 1: Tues July 24th Unfortunately, starting late in the morning for a trip means a late arrival. So our 1st days plan had to be changed. We did make it in 3 hours to the ranger station/Visitor Center only to find that we had not confirmed our reservations to hike within the given time frame so that our reservations were canceled at 11a.m., a common occurrence as per the ranger. There were, however, enough open spaces so that we could still hike as planned. We had to rent bear cans to hold our food when in camp ... read more

GkidG Grandkids trips take a huge amount of planning, at least in order to save as much money as possible. We plan meals and most activities before hand and go to the store with huge lists in hand. This trip is a little different in that we are meeting our other kids, and grandkids at the campground. One son will bring lots of food but the other will likely just bring almond products and possibly some farmer’s market produce. We always take the kids on our food shopping trip and they pick out snacks. Since this is a grandkids trip we do spoil them at this time; lots of chips, crackers, dried fruit and otherwise junk food, fortunately they are not big candy eaters. We have what we call the snack drawer but today when I ... read more

4/4/2012 - Cool & Windy in low 70's Late start today, Boulder Creek RV Park offers coffee and muffins each morning. Stopped off by the US Post Office to mail Brandon and Tiffany birthday gifts. Left around 11:15am for a visit at the Eastern California Museum. It had many artifacts from the area. Aleta's favorite was the beauty shop with the old "hook up" perm machine. Shelby's was the old gun collection. Barbara was fascinated with the photos of a family with generations all the way back to great-great grandchildren. Jack was interested in the Manzanar History. Manzanar was a Japanese internment camp during WWII. Went for lunch at McDonalds. Later drove out to Mt. Whitney Portal, but the road was closed, so Aleta and I rode around Movie Road again. Looked at some old homesites, ... read more

Today we just chilled a little in the morning, waiting for the wind to die down a bit and Jack to feel a little better. Jack is fine, just had a touch of something. Headed out late to Tehachapi Loop. This loop is really unique as the tracks enter the loop through a tunnel and circles around until they pass over the tunnel. This makes for the pics attached of a train entering the tunnel and a few minutes later crossing over its self as it climbs to a higher level. After the loop we went to Stater Bros. in Mojave and bought some groceries as Lone Pine will be a smaller town. Had pork chops, rice & gravy, rolls, lima beans for dinner. Later we played "Marbles", thanks to Ed making the board and furnishing ... read more