The Grapes Of Wrath

Some of my readers may know that UC Davis is a center for the study of viticulture. Apparently, it’s more complicated than just squashing a bunch of grapes in tub like Lucille Ball.

If you explore the outskirts of campus, you’ll run across experimental vineyards researching who knows what. It’s a profitable industry, so as the sign behind me implies, don’t mess with it.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone.

Down By The Riverside

Dad and I usually observe Superb Owl (an anagram of the Super Bowl) this time of year by checking out the birds at the Cosumnes River Preserve. However, we couldn’t get there due to an old bridge that was washed out by recent heavy rains. The Cosumnes actually floods a lot during the winter because, unlike most California rivers, there are no big dams upstream. It’s one of the reasons why it is such a special place.

As an alternative, we took a nice stroll by the Sacramento River near the iconic Tower Bridge. A beautiful day. February t-shirt weather.

Alas, the 49ers didn’t win, but it was still a great day.

January Morning

Happy New Year, everybody! As we often do, Dad and I spent New Year’s Day hiking at Pt. Reyes National Seashore. It was a beautiful day with one little bummer attached. You can't see it in the photo, but my sunglasses were resting on top of my hat. Well, at our first rest stop they weren’t there anymore. Unfortunately, retracing our steps turned up nothing. Oh, well…

Time for a trip to REI.

Reach The Beach

Last weekend Dad, Pam and I went to Point Reyes on a beautiful sunny Sunday, hiking down Abbots Lagoon. What can I say? This park is one of my favorite places of all time.

Owed T’ Alex

Labor Day weekend was fun. Dad and I went camping up in the Sierra Nevada near Lake Tahoe. The first night it rained pretty hard on us (luckily we were snug in our tent). It was the same storm that washed out all those folks at the Burning Man Festival.

The next day was still wet, so we drove down to Carson City, Nevada to visit Dad’s friends Jim (pictured) and Janet. It was fun hanging out with them and drying out.

Monday was beautiful so we hiked to the top of Mt. Judah near Donner Pass. All in all, a nice trip close to home.

Eastsiders

California’s Sierra Nevada is considered by many people (including me) to be possibly the greatest recreational mountain area in the world. The southern section of the range is unique because of its several hundred miles of unbroken wilderness (south of Tioga Pass). Unbelievable in a state as developed and populous as ours.

Dad and I are fond of approaching from the east side in Owens Valley because the mountain escarpment rises so dramatically. In July we camped along Bishop Creek (outside of its namesake city) and did some hiking in the high country. There is still a lot of snow up there due to the “atmospheric rivers” of last winter.

The behemoth in the foreground in the photo just outside of Bishop is Mount Tom (13,658 ft.). We didn’t climb to the top this time, but perhaps in the future.

Romeo And Juliet

By our tradition, it is de rigueur to stop by the Greenleaf Restaurant in Ashland, Oregon for marionberry pancakes. (Heavens, they’re tasty!)

We also like to check out the summer offerings from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. This year’s program features Romeo And Juliet. I’ve heard that this play is about love. I know that there are different kinds of love. There’s family love, which I have in spades. There is love of this world and the precious planet we live on. (We need to see more of that.) There’s also romantic love, which I don’t know very much about but it seems like it can make people both happy and sad. One thing for sure- I would not want to have anything to do with a love where you have to kill yourself at the end of the play.