This June the lovely Ms. Fagan finally got out of school. Just in time for a road trip!

Joining the likes of her affectionately unemployed boyfriend she decided t0 taste a little of the hobo lifestyle and headed for the hills.  We spent two weeks in the great state of California with backpacking in mind. Get the dirt here…

Our first journey was only documented in memory as the card required for digital memory didn’t make it on to the trail.  Here’s the skinny. We parked at the former Frye Family vacation location Devil’s Postpile and hiked up the John Muir Trail towards an alpine lake called Lake Ediza. Every day we got rain and the last three days we got snow. For  a while we were following blind faith (and Eric’s trail tracking skills) however moving very slowly and at times what seemed to be three or four foot snow drifts.  Two of the four days we didn’t make it far and Lake Ediza remained only a goal.  Eventhough we didn’t make it to Lake Ediza we saw two gorgeous lakes along the way…Shadow Lake and Erin’s faviorite Rosalee Lake.  How much better could Ediza really have been?!   

We bailed and then spent a sunny afternoon in a lovely place called Bodie State Park

 

Bodie is an abandoned mining town that has been preserved as a state park near Bridgeport. The funny thing about it is when people left they didn’t take much with them.  The general store is still full of items and there were still beer bottles left on the bar.

While waiting out the weather we then decided to go to Lake Tahoe to harrass Uncle Bill and take a crack at riding a tandem bike.

We continued our hiking again  and this time we only encountered some snow on the trail.

Our first night at the High Sierra Camp along the John Muir trail 7 miles from Tuolomne Meadows, I heard a bear sniffing outside the tent.  I chose not to wake Erin. In the morning I embarrased the hell out of myself when I opened the door to the restroom and Erin was standing up with her pants down. To make it worse the Backcountry Ranger was standing right there.  Whoops. Lock the door Erin! Lets get out of here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 On to the best campsite of all time. We didn’t know when we left that morning that fate would guide us to the best camp of the trip and mybe the best one of my life.

Not a bad view. Plus there was already this handy fire pit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next day we hiked into the worst camp of the trip.  A campground in Yosemite Valley surrounded by RV’s with satellite tv and toasters.  Luckily we made it out of there in one piece and out to El Cap Meadow the following morning.  This was to be Erin’s first hitch hike and we’s pretty good at it because the fist truck that saw the sign pulled right over.  We caught one on the first cast!  Back to the car and off to Benton Hot Springs.  In Benton (where Jan Bopp was  a school teacher when she was reunited with Bill) there isn’t much going on, but there are wonderful hot springs and a bed and breakfast that offers campsites with private tubs.  A fine end to a fine summer trip.

The sunset was pretty good too with a new moon for five star gazing.

16 Miles East of Nowhere Arizona

So one of the reasons I have yet to post about my new place until now is because I don’t even know what to say. Another reason is since I have moved in I want to spend as much time as possible out there and that means no blogging and no anything that requires electricity. I have some amenities that most folks don’t have like a fridge that has to stay lit all the time (propane), typewriter (just not as common as they used to be) and a super deluxe bubble blowing platform that is at least 80 feet tall (bubble solution included!)

To the right is a view of the cabin from the bubble blowing platform. Said platform may have originally been built to assist detection of wildfires in the thirties, however currently there is no radio connected therefore reducing the functionality of the structure significantly.  The only equipment remaining consists of a fire finder (sweet tool that rotates around and helps people pinpoint locations of whatever is being observed), Bubble solution and bubble blower (normally used to decide wind direction, currently used for amusement by me), and a phone (normally used to call people and tell them how much fun I am having blowing bubbles out of a tower and into the Grand Canyon (assuming there is a wind from the south).  Other forms of amusement come from extended stares off into the Grandest Canyon in the state and the San Francisco Peaks or watching lightning storms.

Another great feature of this house is its location. Observe the trail at the bottom left of the photo above that looks to be going from the house to the bubble blowing platform. This trail intersects at the base of the platform with a trail called the Arizona Trail.  Should one motivated should attempt to navigate the rest of the trail south of the platform and succeed, they would find themselves in Mexico. No Joke.  It actually spans some 700+ miles from the Utah border of Arizona to the Mexican Border.  Ever spring there is a race that begins at the Mexican border and ends 300 mile to the north.  One day I would like to compete in the race and continue (after I crush the competition) all the way to the northern terminus, but these dreams will have to wait until next April.

This also happens to be the way I get to Flagstaff on my knobby tired pedal bike. It is likely some seventy miles to the south but much like Phylis when she is questioned about work on a day off, “I don’t want to think about that”

Should I follow this trail Northbound (West really) for 16 miles I find myself at work which is pretty convenient. I love mountain biking and I have to get to work.

Well at the moment work is where I am and the lunch hour has come to a close.  Should anyone like to contact me after dark I will be at this number: 928-638-2310.  The phone rings in the house and the tower and I should be in one or the other.  Lots of love from 16 miles east of nowhere Arizona.

Ometepe Part 1

So easily one of the coolest places I have ever been is the Island of Ometepe in the Lake of Cocibola Southwestern Nicaragua.  I think I already sent the six pack a email explaining the legend of the Island so I will spare you the story again and focus more on my experiences there.  There are two Volcanoes that make the Island and I was lucky enough to climb them both.  The first one was also the last day that I got to hang out with my compadre Ryan for as he had to return a week sooner.  We took the bus to a sweet farmhouse gone hostel that is at the foot of Volcan Maderas. Check out these priceless shots of Ryan on the bus

It was a long bus ride and hot! after one transfer and a lunch/beer break in between we finally made it to Finca Magdelena.

 

 

Finca Magdelena is a working coffee farm that offers places to stay in a 100 year old farm house.  If you are willing to walk for fifteen minutes you can find petroglyphs surrounding the site and tons of monkeys. Mango trees grow here and the fruits are known by locals as the plague (la plaga) because there are so many when they are fruiting that you wind up stepping on more than you could ever eat and I imagine that the monkeys and flies are thick.  I told one Nica man that people in the US pay up to $1 or $2 for a good sized mango and I thought he was about to die from laughter. I could go on for pages about this farm so I will add a link and move on.

http://www.fincamagdalena.com/hospedaje.en.html

On top of the volcano is a lake that I swam in, but it wasn’t very deep and had a lot of mud.  I was glad that I didn’t try and swim with shoes or they would still be up there under the sticky mud.  I guess swimming wasn’t the best idea, but it is cool to be able to say I have swam in a lake on top of a volcano in the middle of a lake in Central America.

The second Volcano Concepcion was much more strenuous. I knew I wanted to climb up there when I saw it from the porch of the farm.  It is just too beautiful not to check it out.

 My two new friends (Ryan and Erica) and I headed back to the foot of the hill where we had all been a few days before.

This Volcano rumbled and threatened to erupt in 1957 and despite the warnings from the Government the people of the Island calmly refused to leave professing that they would rather die on this marvelous island than live anywhere else on earth. Even today when you hike to the top you can smell the sulfurous gasses spewing from the crater.

Erica and I decided to hike.  Ryan (this would be Ryan from Bellingham WA not Arizona) decided he wanted to rent a motorcycle instead and make a lap around the Island. 

Tune in next time for more on this great hike and meet new and interesting characters.

Tales from the trails

Eric

finca de flor

So there hasn’t been any six-pack time since my return from Central America and I might as well share some experiences with cyber six-pack time right? 

One day that I thought really stuck out was a side trip to a place called la flor de paraiso in Cartago Costa Rica above Orosi Valley. The farm is primarily a  Spanish institute but students do more than just learn Spanish, they work.  We toured around the grounds and shared some Coffee with the instructors.

The farm work is focused mostly around principles of Organic self contained farming and nothing goes to waste. These sheep are looking down at me because they are in a large pen above the ground that allows their poop to fall to the ground and leave one lucky student enough space to crouch underneath the structure and scoop up the goods.

There was some slightly over sized agave on the grounds too.

In the vegetable gardens their rows were never the same type of plant their would be onions next to tomatoes next to beans, but it was by no means disorganized.  Crops were neatly arranged and what I found really interesting is rather than cages for vine plants to climb up on, they were hung by strings.  On either end of the row they had re-bar posts sticking up about four feet and a series of strings tied between them.  Hanging from the strings were more strings and however high the tomato would grow a new loop of string was tied around the vine but not so it would strangle it, just hold it up.  I apologize for not taking photos of this technique, but I guess you will just have to go and see it for yourself.

If you want to check out the web site at http://www.la-flor-de-paraiso.org  It is a pretty cool place.

If you want to see more of the photos I took, come and visit me!

                                                                                                                                                                     

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Er

The Longest Ride

 I believe every thing we do is training for something else.  It is a strange concept, but even if you watch TV all day you are training yourself to do it.  I rarely watch TV, it is difficult for me to do so for even an hour but people that watch TV all the time seem to have no problem doing it for many hours.  Am I a bad TV watcher? No. I just haven’t had enough training to be a good one. There is one thing I have been doing for a while now and that is riding a bike.  Most people can remember a time when they felt absolutely free of any responsibility (likely related to summer) and would spend countless hours riding bikes in the neighborhood with their friends.  Where were we going? Who knows. Why? F-U-N FUN! Sadly many people only think about bikes as memories or when they pass a bicyclist in their car (Out of my way you fool!)

For me the memories are clear. The last time I went on a bike ride with my friends was Tuesday. Accepting more grown-up like responsibilities that seem to routinely clog the riding schedule is the only reason today was not like Tuesday. What am I training for? I have no idea, but sometimes I wonder if it is a post apocalyptic car free world. Realistically I am probaly just training for the next ride.

Er