1967 Ford Mustang. Please refer all questions to the E-Bay listing

on the Fly in Squaw

After 2 weeks of altitude induced hypoxic euphoria I guess it's time to share a little. Our annual trip up the hill started with much anticipation. It's seems amazing how in my 20's I could pack for a month long trip in 15 minutes.......if a change of clothes, fishing pole, a gun or two and truck bed full of beer constitute packing that is. I felt like I was "getting ready" for two weeks prior to launch.

After a winter of near epic snowfall in the Sierra Nevada's it was a different feeling driving to Squaw Valley and seeing snow "EVERYWHERE" during the second week of June. Squaw creek, while a small creek, was flowing like a river due to snow melt in Shirley Canyon. We settled in and enjoyed a "nothing on the schedule" Monday. Tuesday however held some early morning fun for me. Through Facebook I found a deal for half off a Fly Fishing course with Matt Heron. Matt offers the full Fly fishing experience with instruction classes for beginners to guided tours for those looking to land that trophy fish. I had a dabbled with a fly pole back in the early 70's when my parents took my family to Alaska....30 yrs later I forgot everything I had taught myself, which wasn't much. At best, if you were to categorize the levels of Fly Fisherman....I would be a hack! With Matt's instruction, I became a hack that could cast a line in the water where I wanted it to go repeatedly! 






















Shortly after this pic was taken, my son climbed down the embankment to join me and took a header. So I turned around and walked up to the truck with him and for the first time in my fishing career buried a hook in my finger past the barb and needed to dig out my trusty Leatherman to extricate the hook from my digit. FUCK that hurt ! But fish on we did. As noted earlier, the record snowfall had an sweet effect on the area watersheds around the Tahoe basin. Donner Lake has a nice little public dock where we can sit down and let the kids fish....and I get to hone my skills as a bait master, constantly re-baiting hooks to keep up there pace of "feeding" the fish as I call it. Donner was visibly higher this year, a local Real Estate agent said there was a recorded surface temperature of 39 degrees the week prior to our arrival and yet they were people enjoying all forms of watersports.

 This shot is looking towards the East end of Donner Lake.
 We have been heading up to Boca and Stampede reservoirs to fish for a few years now. This year we were pleasantly surprised to both reservoirs at or near capacity. In years past, Stampede was down about 20 feet or more. 

This is the sight had from our spot at Stampede. Something we have never incurred before was a rising lake level. The first time we were there we took a dirt road down to the spot above. Prior to us being there someone had a campfire ring where they had their fire, well 4 days later we came back and I noticed the ring had moved about 6 feet closer to the waters edge, 3 days after that the ring was under water and during last excursion the said ring was underwater and 4-5 feet from the shoreline!

We also managed to get off the paved road and hit some dirt. It did not take long to hit snow on the trails....I finally had to stop when there was 4 feet of the white stuff crossing the road. So we stopped and my sun dug his sand toys and snow boots out of the back of the truck and dug in













While off the public roads I decided it was time for more driver training for my oldest kid. Might as well get off road certified at 12yrs old right??? She first was thrown behind the wheel in Utah at my brothers house last year where she took all of 18 seconds to settle into a calm groove and look relaxed.  This time she had more than a 1/4 mile long driveway to deal with though and proved to be quite the driver. We had a lot of fun this year as we
always do. That is what vacations are all about right?
After lamenting about being a bad fisherman my
son caught his first fish, a nice 13" long brown trout. Happy as a clam, he nearly cried when we
told him we would bring the fish home to his Grandpa for dinner........so we let him go. The only fish we caught were at our "honey hole" pictured above at Stampede Res., but we had a blast fishing.






I guess no trip would be complete without getting wet. Below, at Boca Res. the kids ventured into the water to play after fishing and you may be able to tell the water temperature by the look on Alyssa's face, although Shaymus shows no indication of the water being cold!

Yosemite, part ......who cares

With much anticipation we rolled out of the Peninsula early Saturday afternoon for a much needed break from the hectic pace of the Bay Area. I honestly cannot to wait say that for the last time. Taking our time and enjoying the sights along the way I, well I really wondered why I driving so damn slow. If you have ever driven south on highway 99 sucks. Unless you get an erection from farm equipment and the smell of cow shit you know why both 5 and 99 are best traveled at high rates of speed. Now as a family we have done some traveling before. Last summer as you may have read in previous posts, we logged 3,000 miles on a trip to Yellowstone. I for one was worried about how my 4 yr old son would handle so much seat time only to be pleasantly surprised by his ability to travel well. Fast forward to this trip. Not that he could no longer handle hours of looking through the window, quite the contrary, he entered what I call his N.E.W. era. NEW as in "Never Enough Why's." I have always loved explaining everything "I" could explain to them, if I didn't know I would tell them "let's find out." This trip began an era of never being able to fully explain anything to him. With myself, my "Oh so patient" wife and my daughter all doing our best it always seemed to end with "WHY." It was around this time I seriously began to question WHY I quit drinking in 1988 because I was needing a drink.
We rolled through the town of Oakhurst and headed South to the enclave of Bass Lake which would be base camp for the next week. We unloaded our gear and settled in to unwind. Those were the shortest 4 minutes, my daughter promptly asked if they could start coloring Easter eggs. Vacation or not we have to maintain the constant flow of commercially pushed "holiday" sugar...and eggs. So we went about about coloring eggs, my son by wanting to dump every egg into every cup of colorant, my daughter being ever so articulate and artistic, me being fucking cranky with a company aptly named Dudley for putting a shit product out and my lovely wife doing damage control. Happy Easter!

Day 2 consisted of an Easter egg hunt for the kids, A sugar infused breakfast and lunch for them, then relaxing the rest of the day. Monday morning we made our pilgrimage to "The Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad." My son loves Thomas the Tank Engine, so putting him a on real steam engine was like Christmas all over again.
The hour long train ride was fun, the real joy was watching the look on my sons face. We followed an old section of track down into the valley where there was still upwards of 5 feet of snow AND about 30 degrees colder than up at the station.









After the train ride we headed into Yosemite. We have been in the park before on several occasions but never been to the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoia Trees. Was pleasantly surprised to find 5-6 feet of snow and some of the biggest trees I have ever seen. If you have yet to see them, GO!  Below you can find my little devil making snow angels just off the trail















  We spent a day fishing at Bass Lake with negative results....we caught no fish, which may be directly linked to my son running in the water and screaming how much fun he was having, throwing rocks in the water, rolling in the mud and sand and generally acting as the worlds best "non-pepper based" bear repellent. What can I say, he likes dirt, water rocks and trains.

We toured the valley floor the following day. Hit the waterfalls, had lunch and generally enjoyed the afternoon. It still being early in the season the population of 2-legged idiots was low. We enjoyed a day of free roaming and just took a lot of pictures.



The Cobalt skies of the Sierra Nevada make for good photojournalism, and can make a hack like me look like a good Photographer. If the pics are really good, well then those pics were taken by my lovely wife. We both love taking pictures, she gets the more contrasting shots with multiple layers where I tend towards the dramatic shots.


The following day we headed back to the lake for a little more fishing. With no luck on day two, it being colder and windier I took the opportunity for a family camp fire. We gathered up some tinder and small branches and I pulled a flint and steel and "WE" started a fire without a match. I really wanted my oldest child to know how if she ever found herself in a situation where she needed to start a fire. I have 3 of these firestarters, one each in our backpacks.

We quickly extinguished our fire as it was getting late and it was a long 22 minute drive back to our base camp.





Friday found us back in Yosemite valley. Ended up in the back end of the valley at a place called Happy Isles that we have not visited about 7 years and came across a tree where we took a picture of our daughter at previously.

The Happy Isles area of Yosemite was hit by a rockfall in 1996 that led to nearly 1000 trees being blown over by the ensuing airblast. Here are a few them that span the Merced River













It is truly amazing to see the devastation created by a rockfall from 2000 feet above and the associated wind blast.












For the first time we traveled into the Hetch Hetchy Valley. Fun little side trip on the way home.








All in all it was a great trip, got the hell away from the bay area for not long enough, saw lots of wildlife including a big bear, bald eagles and this grouse on the way into Hetch Hetchy reovoir, sitting on the side of the road. I stopped and backed up to have look and this thing starts chattering away and following us, running in front of the truck or along side as we rolled. It must be lonely being a Grouse in these parts.

This one was about the size of a big chicken!

Time for me to bail out and start thinking about what's next. Just gotta have adventure!