Category: California

Happy New Year! Happy 2020! Week 300 last week was an amazing coincidence of Loren’s and my bringing our Journey to an end on this blog, though we were still traveling at the beginning of this week. I will share more of our week below, but, first, here is a brief summary of the first couple of months of our nearly six years of travel:

We began our Journey Toward Wholeness in April, 2014. We spent a week in Las Vegas, then split up for me to attend Bikram Yoga Teacher Training for nine weeks in Los Angeles, while Loren spent two weeks backpacking in southern California, then split the next seven weeks between visiting his Mom in the east San Francisco bay area, and our friends in the south bay. The only time we saw each other in person was when we met up in New York for my father’s funeral in early May. Then Loren joined me in LA for my graduation in June.

Loren and I returned to the bay area for a couple of weeks, then started off again in our van, that Loren converted to house a bed. We stopped in Petaluma, on our way to Clear Lake, California. It turned out that I taught yoga for two months in Lower Lake, and, our friends there insisted that we must end our trip in Clear Lake…

Loren and I were still in Castro Valley finishing up petsitting for Loren’s sister at the beginning of this week. She returned home from Seattle and we had a nice dinner together before Loren and I left the next morning. But, before I say more about this week, I must mention a couple of major occurrences two weeks ago — these have confirmed for me that Loren and I made the right choice to return home at this time, even though our travel wish list is not complete:

The first incredible experience was when we had dinner with dear friends. I had told Loren that I would need to buy a car, as we had sold mine before we left home. Car shopping is not high on my list of fun activities, and I had no idea what make or model to pursue. Over drinks with these friends, we learned that she has bought an electric car. And we heard her saga about trying to sell her old car. Her partner connected our needs, and during the conversation he talked her through a most reasonable price. We were all delighted with the transaction. He even helped make sure all was in working order when I picked up my “new” car on December 26th. 

The other invaluable occurrence was when another dear couple offered to help us move into our home that had been rented out. We had given 60 days notice to our tenant who then responded with 30 days notice. That provided us earlier access to our home than originally planned. We accepted our friends’ generous offer, and we four spent most of the afternoon of December 27th moving the heaviest furniture and larger rugs into our house.

Alas, I wish I had taken more photos of these two events…

Loren and I left Loren’s sister’s home on December 29th and enjoyed a wonderful holiday brunch with cousins in Calistoga. It was a lovely catchup visit together. 

After Loren and I arrived at Clear Lake, where it was quite foggy, there was a Forty-Niners football game that evening that Loren had especially wanted to see. We found a local bar, where, after the Niners won, the manager offered everyone a complementary shot. We accepted!

Our AirBnB included the first day’s breakfast and we had a lovely conversation with our hosts. That evening we had dinner with our friends who had planted the seed for us to finish up our Journey at Clear Lake, and we toasted being “home.” Our AirBnB hosts had kayaks for us to borrow, and our second day at Clear Lake dawned a perfect one to enjoy them. We paddled around Soda Bay, and thereby learned the reason for its name. We also saw muskrats, herons, ducks, mud hens, anhingas… all delightful to see. That afternoon, our host’s daughter invited us to spend the New Year’s evening with her and her friends along with her parents, and we had a wonderful time ringing in 2020.

The next day was cooler but still good enough weather for a hike up Mt Konocti. And I mean up, straight up. I bailed out before we’d gone a half mile, but Loren continued on to summit Wright’s Peak at the top. 

Before we left Clear Lake, we had one last lunch date with our friends there. Then we returned home on January 3. Thanks to the help of our friends, we had had a good start on setting up our house. All we had left to do for that first evening was to put sheets on our bed. Even after a full week, we are nowhere near done unpacking, and Loren and I are happy to take our time to fix things up, even better than before!  

We have felt so welcomed home by our wonderful neighbors. There are about six houses in direct proximity to ours where the loveliest people live, and one of them gifted us with a beautiful tulip to commemorate our return home. Here you can see Loren is hard at work, pruning one of the trees in our front yard.

I have already signed up for a 60 day challenge at my home Bikram Yoga studio. Our timing to return home could not have been better. The studio was relocating within the same shopping complex, and I was able to take the last class in its older space. Loren joined me to celebrate it’s closing with a potluck that evening. This was all reminiscent of the other time that my studio moved within the complex before Loren and I had left home, so it felt absolutely right to be there. The next morning I took the first class in the new studio at 6am. It has been wonderful to reconnect with many friends and familiar faces in this compassionate and empowering environment.

We also attended our Unitarian Universalist congregation last Sunday where we felt welcomed home as well. We had memorable lunch dates this week with a couple of fellow members, both who are also world travelers. In a fitting coincidence, the placemats at one of them’s home had the image of a Moose, which is a recurrent image and an elusive icon of the search for meaning and wholeness of Loren’s and my Journey. 

In looking through this friend’s photo album from Africa, I came across this prayer. It seems fitting to share for this week’s post, in summation of our Journey.

This post is more than a little late, I apologize. Loren and I have been busy with the holidays, and more. We hope you’ve had a magical Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year’s Eve, and holiday season, so far. I hope to have our annual letter out tomorrow by email… First, though, I must acknowledge that this was the 300th Week since we left our home in San Jose to travel the world on April 5, 2014!

We have big news about that, please check back here next week to see what it is?

This week Loren and I pet-sat for Loren’s sister while she enjoyed her Christmas visiting a friend in Washington state. Sadly, I have been negligent about taking photos of friends we saw this week… and I regret that. One photo I did snap was of a picture from when Loren and I were dating that Loren’s sister had in an album. After ensuring Loren’s sister made it on time to the airport, we enjoyed a catchup dinner with special friends who we had met at the AirBnB where we stayed for the year when we helped care for Loren’s Mom. It was so nice to see them again. Then we learned by text that instead of leaving as scheduled, Loren’s sister’s flight was delayed for several hours. In the wee hours, we were grateful to hear from her that she had arrived safely in Seattle. 

Loren and I also enjoyed another delightful dinner with dear friends at their home. We had another fun lunch with other friends at their favorite Chinese restaurant. One other day Loren and I drove to San Jose and spent a full day doing much needed heavy yard work at our house. And, in between I taught several Bikram Yoga classes at the studio near Loren’s sister’s house.

On Christmas Eve, we had the pleasure to have Loren’s Godson over for lunch, and he shared his slideshows with us from his month-long trip to Madagascar in October. We were enthralled with all of his amazing photos of the gecko, chameleon and 14 of the island’s 120 species of lemur. 

That evening we attended the first part of an open house at other friends’ home. Later, we had another delicious meal with special friends, at Loren’s Godson’s parents’ home. 

 

On Christmas day Loren and I had a good FaceTime visit with my brother and his family who live in New York. Then, we had a wonderful afternoon and evening with dear neighbors. We caught up over hors d’oeuvres, enjoyed a fabulous dinner together,

 

and watched Polar Express over dessert. What most stood out for me this time from the movie is the meaningful quote: 

     There’s no greater gift than friendship.

Amen. I must say at this time of year it is all the dear friends and special family members who are the greatest gifts in Loren’s and my lives. Thank you for being part of our lives!

The day after Christmas, Loren and I enjoyed a memorable breakfast gathering with many of the parents, and, now, men, who we spent many fun times hiking and backpacking with over the years when they were mere teen-aged boy scouts.

The next evening, we had a wonderful walk after a dinner out in San Jose with dear friends, seeing the amazing lights display in our home neighborhood.

That evening we again walked by the several neighbors who string Rudolph and other reindeer all the way through to Santa’s sleigh across their lawns. But this year for the first time the sleigh yard added an aspect of how the sleigh is powered “electrically,” ha ha. 

Another first for us is that one of the houses has set out three chairs in front of their reindeer, which we determined were for taking a photo. So we did!

It is hard to believe that this is already the end of 2019. I noticed that the numbers in the year 2019 include the abbreviated numbers of both the centuries in which I have lived — 1900 and 2000 — in the opposite order, 20 and 19. Now Loren and I wish you a most happy, healthy and prosperous ’20!

At the beginning of this week Loren and I were still in Mi-Wuk, packing up from our six weeks stay at the delightful “tiny house” AirBnB. We took our hosts’ suggestion to go on a twilight walk, as usually we would return from a walk before darkness had set in. Except in our case this week, it was a moonlit walk as the  moon was still nearly full. Yet we saw more stars in the Sierras with a full moon up than we would normally see in more heavily populated areas due to light-pollution.

In the morning we kept a FaceTime date with friends, one who was visiting their cousin in the Bay area from Cornwall, since we could not meet up in person. You may notice we are making the connection from our car which we drove to a neighboring town, as there is no internet or cell service at the cabin. 

Following that we went to a Writer’s drop-in group in Sonora. I was tickled that the one poem I chose to read was so well received that they asked me to read another, which was similarly appreciated. Only two of us were poets, the rest were fiction or non-fiction writers. It was nice to have a comrade poet in attendance. Loren and I then drove to the local casino for a shuttle to the Me-Wuk Indians Acorn Festival on their reservation in Tuolumne Rancheria. We thoroughly enjoyed their Indian tacos. We also appreciated seeing intertribal dancing, chanting with rattling and drums, and the crafts booths with items for sale. I appreciated a sign with in native language in the community building…

We returned to the casino where we had noticed a bowling alley to play three games. It was late enough in the day that during our third game we bowled in the dark to flashing party lights, the first time we have ever seen such a phenomenon. I wouldn’t have thought I could bowl in such low lighting, and was surprised when I could.

Loren and I finished our last day in the Sierras with a hike along the Westside Railroad Trail of the Mi-Wok Ranger Station, along Buchanan Mine Road. We saw wild turkeys, a couple of deer, and had a view of the abandoned tracks and the Tuolumne River Canyon.

  

Early the next morning we bade goodbye to the cabin where I had collected some of the falling acorns in front to the house, then drove to Loren’s sister’s home, to learn about how to care for her pets over the next several days.

 

We three went out for a birthday brunch, then took BART to San Francisco. We had tickets for one of the last shows of the 40-year-run of Beach Blanket Babylon’s campy performances at Club Fugazi. Afterwards we accompanied Loren’s sister by BART to San Francisco Airport, where she caught a flight to spend the next few days that included her birthday with their other sister in Oregon. We discovered another advantage with Loren becoming a Senior Citizen, he can now qualify for discounted Clipper transit tickets.

Another couple of highlights this week were taking a hike with a friend at Lake Chabot, where for the first time I hiked up to the camp grounds, a portion of the trail where Loren and I had previously always turned around. We had thought that the mist that started when we first met would be a passing event, but it contained throughout our hike, disinclining me think to take any photos. That evening we had dinner with special friends who are still long-term renters at the AirBnB where we had spent the year to help care for Loren’s Mom nearby.

One day Loren and I had a long day of meetings. We first had a first visit with Loren’s new doctor under his Medicare plan for an annual checkup. We like and trust this new-to-us doctor already. Then we met with our financial planner and, as always, appreciated our time with him. We also picked up our mail, seeing a few dear neighbors, then finished the day with an appointment at our property manager’s office. Loren and I had then intended to drive to Ashland, Oregon where we will be staying for the next month; however we learned of the memorial of a friend from our Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Sunnyvale, so were able to delay our departure from California a day. It was meaningful to see so many of our friends there, though the occasion was a sad one.

Loren and I spent the night with a very dear friend, and were highly impressed with her latest artistic creations of working with broken ceramic pieces and glass, as she pursues a long time interest in her vision for a particular stained glass piece. I cannot wait to see where this calling takes her next!

 

Loren and I began this week picnicking with friends in Jackson, California, at Kennedy Gold Mine Amphitheater. With them and a friend of theirs, we watched the outdoor performance of a play called, Alone, Together.

Then we followed our friends’ to their home in Valley Springs, where we spent the night. In the dark, wee hours I heard a screeching voice shriek “We’re back!” It continued, and faded out to “We’re ba” “e’re ba” “re ba” until finally I realized it was the sounds of one or both our friends’ two roosters crowing, and I could fall back asleep. It was fun in the morning to see how well they’ve settled into their ranch home environment, and to see the improvements in the gardens and livestock from when we visited a couple years ago. 

Loren and I drove back to our cabin, where we were expecting a friend to arrive that evening. It turned out he had to work later than planned so he came early the next morning. We enjoyed serving him breakfast, then spending the day together at Pinecrest. We took the hike to Catfish Lake that Loren and I had missed taking last weekend, and, we enjoyed seeing a couple of osprey flying and diving for fish at Pinecrest Lake. Loren and our friend went for a swim, and, we enjoyed dinner at the Steam Donkey Restaurant — named for historic mining equipment. Our friend then had to return to the Bay Area.

The next evening our AirBnB hosts treated us out to dinner. They showed us around Twain Harte and we enjoyed a nice evening. That is a tree we are sitting next to, we were told it originally was inside the restaurant. Loren and I had intended to go on a backpack starting this day, but fortunately we pushed it back a day to enjoy this date. Our decision was unwittingly provident because it turned out the temperature dropped to 37 degrees! 

Loren and I considered going on our backpack the next day, but it was still chilly, so we enjoyed a day at the cabin. The next day we again opted to pass, instead going for a good long hike around the whole of Lyons Lake. It included removing our hiking boots to ford a wide creek. That evening we were treated to a beautiful moon rising.

 

The next day — essentially our last chance to go for more than a one overnight backpack, we  bailed out again, instead choosing to take a good hike to Camp Lake in the Emigrant Wilderness, where Loren and I had planned to backpack, and, have previously camped.

It has also been nice to spend more time at the cabin than we would have if we had gone backpacking. We have seen several varieties of wildlife in the backyard, including stellar jays, chipmunk, chickarees, a couple of deer, butterflies and more flora… just delightful.

 

Now, we are working on packing up… It has been an incredible 6 weeks here, almost over, except we have tomorrow with a full day planned. I’ll post about it next week…

This was an extra special week. Not only did we celebrate our anniversary in a memorable way, we also celebrated Loren’s *65th* birthday. He is now officially and irrevocably a Senior Citizen, and, he is a Medicare enrollee on reaching this milestone. First, though, we began the week attending a Spaghetti dinner fundraiser for the Mi-Wuk/Sugar Pine Fire Department. Another couple joined us at the table and we had a nice conversation. Then all four of us headed to nearby Twain Harte — named for Mark Twain and Bret Harte, American authors who wrote tall tales about life in this northern California county — to attend a summer Concert in the Pines event. Loren and I thoroughly enjoyed dancing to many of their familiar tunes from our youth. 

The next day was our wedding anniversary. We were married on 9/1/91, coincidentally this year the date fell on 9/1/19. We had intended to spend it at Pinecrest Lake, take a different day hike while there, swim, and splurge on dinner at the restaurant. But. It was Labor Day weekend and we were one car among too many arriving than the parking lots could handle. Fortunately, Loren had recently voiced his interest in visiting Kennedy Meadow sometime before we leave the Sierras, and I proposed that as Plan B. He agreed! It was an ideal way to spend our special day. The drive was gorgeous – except for the miles and miles that the 2013 Rim Fire had devastated. It was encouraging to notice the healthy ground cover that has arisen from ash. Interesting that a few of the volunteers at the Spaghetti Dinner had been wearing t-shirts that proclaimed “Rim Fire, Never Forget.”

We stopped briefly at Eureka Valley, a campground that Loren remembers from his childhood. He reminisced as he pointed out the sites he recalled his family stayed. And, once we arrived at Kennedy Meadows, we enjoyed picking out which cabin with its picnic table we had once stayed in when Loren’s Mom and sister had joined us there.

 

We made a dinner reservation at the lodge, then had our picnic lunch along the middle fork of the Stanislaus River. We toasted with a glass of Pink Moscato for the occasion. 

Then we had a hike partway into the hills, remembering how we have hiked up in this mountain grandeur for a few backpacks to Relief Reservoir in years past.

It was springlike here too. We didn’t see the same number of wildflowers as in Emigrant Wilderness, but we saw a lot of water running down from the mountains.

 

I took this photo to give a sense of the trail. Can you make out Loren way ahead of me?

Once back down, we took a refreshing step into the cold river before our dinner reservation.

We spent Loren’s birthday having a special breakfast at “home” in our AirBnB and that evening took a pie to share with friends. Then we topped off the night with a brief but good visit with a dear friend, who gifted a portion of her tomato harvest bounty to enjoy.

As the weather continues to turn, I will finish this week with Emily Dickinson’s, Autumn:

The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry’s cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I’ll put a trinket on.

 

Happy Labor Day Weekend! We are laying low at the AirBnB we have here in the Sierras. Its been fun to notice a lone sunflower pop up on our front deck and to hear and see a bevy of quail forage just outside our screen door.

Loren and I had two fun highlights this week. We rented kayaks from the New Malones Lake Marina — they just barely fit in the back of our van, to be able to join a ranger led kayak excursion on the other side of the lake. We arrived with the kayaks early enough to poke around the ranger station before going on the lake, and learned a bit more about the lore of the gold rush years, making this area’s nickname “Mother Lode” come to life.

The paddling itself was fun. We all had our picnic lunches to enjoy a respite along the edge of a canyon before fighting the stronger winds all the way back to our launch site.

Our second highlight was seeing friends who rented a cabin nearby in Strawberry. They invited us to come stay overnight. Their most exciting news is their youngest daughter is engaged. I loved hearing the story our friends shared of him popping the question, and now the couple’s dog is involved in the fun. Can you make out the heart around his neck? It says, “My humans are getting married!”

Loren and I and our one friend hiked both days. On one we went nearly all the way around Pinecrest Lake. Our friend took us to see a cabin he has been enamored of for years. This time the owner was present and we had a nice conversation. We learned his grandfather had carved the writing on the homemade bench, “Count not here the fleeting hours,” which also held special meaning for our friend. The hike culminated in crossing the river over a log bridge, with a rope that I wished had been a bit more taut… 

The next day we three hiked to Cleo’s Bath. Well, Loren and our friend went all the way, I only made it partway, past the crooked pine. It is a strenuous hike and I was feeling a bit under the weather… 

  

So, I rested at a most peaceful turn on the trail to await their return. 

While I sat I drafted my latest poem:

     Flies, A Limerick
     by Claire Adalyn Wright

     Ugly is the simple fly.
     Next ugly: the dragonfly.
     I tell you no lie —
     I see through one eye —
     beauty in the butterfly.

Aside from the hikes, we all thoroughly enjoyed the sounds and enchanting, changing views of the river flowing from Pinecrest Lake. We enjoyed delicious meals, had fun over a jigsaw puzzle one night, and, challenged ourselves with a round of Trivial Pursuit the next evening before Loren and I returned to our cabin in Miwuk. 

Now it’s the last day of August and we saw a sunset almost as spectacular as the one we witnessed in the Serengeti. Autumn is here. We are noticing days are shorter, mornings and evenings cooler, and last night, we saw the first leaves that have turned and begun falling off the dogwood trees. Already.

Loren and I have just two more weeks here at “our” cabin before we pack up and move on down the road again. It seems fitting to finish this week’s post with the great John Muir quote I found printed in a local newspaper:

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the
storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of autumn.
John Muir