Escape to Lake Genevieve and Mount Baldwin

Escape! Sometimes you just need to get away, change your environment, do something new in order to move forward. What I'm finding out is that in California, a weekend trip can be like a mini vacation. Last Saturday morning Brandon, Eric, and I jumped in the car at 5am and drove up to the Inyo National Park, strapped our packs on and were hiking by 11am.

The route was a 6 mile hike into Lake Genevieve with 2000ft of elevation gain. This hike was hard. We started at 8000ft and ended up just around 10,000ft. I definitely felt the thinner air and with the extra weight on my back the last mile was tough. But the sights and sounds were gorgeous and peaceful. There was snow on the ground and the sun to warm you up. We got to Lake Genevieve as the sun was setting at about 530pm, set up camp and devoured a whole box of couscous with Indian Fares. I was exhausted, but managed to stay awake another hour while we set up our tent and cleaned up from dinner. The boys had the great idea of heating up water and filling our water bottles. My metal canteen was so nice and toasty in the 20 degree weather. For warmth the three of us crammed into a two person tent and I passed out pretty soon after.

Lake Genevieve

We all had an intermittently restful night sleeping shoulder to shoulder haha, but it wasn't the worst sleep I'd ever had in a tent. We rose with the sunrise and were out of camp by 715am, back out to lake Mildred by 830am and goofed around the lake. Brandon and Eric filled up our water bottles and then we stashed our backpacks by a camping spot so we could hike up Mount Baldwin.

The Sierras and Lake Mildred

I thought Saturday was long, but hiking Baldwin was worse. We probably got started around 10am, walked a quarter mile to the trail head and started our ~3000ft climb. This mountain was STEEP. I think we only covered 7-8 miles round trip, but it took us 5 hours to get to the top and 3 hours to come down because a lot of the trail was either covered in snow or covered in rocks. Eric and Brandon calmly bowled through everything, stamping down snow and scrambling up and down rocks to figure out where to go. We got lost a few times and had to back track, and at one point we were pretty much rock climbing.If I had been by myself I'd probably be dead, so I'm grateful they were there but it was a crazy experience for me. Part of me was like "oh ok, I'll follow" and another part of me was like "um...you're gonna die". I think I was too exhausted to really take in what I just did because that was pretty crazy. Brandon was pretty excited that we stomped all over that stupid mountain, but I think all I wanted to do was be in a place where I wouldn't have to hike anymore.

@ the top of Mt Baldwin

No dice. Once we made it back to our backpacks at 530pm, we had only eaten bars all day and had to hike the rest of the 5 miles out to Brandon's Suby. So yes, we hiked in the dark. Headlamps on, we got started just as the sun went down and the moon came out. Luckily it was all downhill, I slipped on a tree crossing the stream and then tripped on a rock, but we got to the car by 8pm. I think we were all exhausted and in pain by the time we got to the car. Eric and I ripped off the shoes and wanted to tear into the food, but Brandon rushed us into the car to try and catch dinner in Bishop before the restaurants all closed at 9pm. I think we crossed the town about 5 times before we found a place that was open, the Holy Smoke Texas Style BBQ. It was like home away from home. The staff and owner were so friendly I was reminded of what it's like to be in the south. The food was pretty good too, but no Rudy's BBQ. The next day I chilled while the boys bouldered around Bishop, then we had a delicious dinner at Whiskey Creek and drove home. All in all a hard but great weekend.

Love Stories

The easiest way to get people talking is to figure out what they care about. If they are married or have a family, then you hit the jackpot because parents or spouses who are really happy will not shut up about their loves. Hearing a couple's love story is always fun, inspiring, and makes me happy. Genuine love will always baffle and surprise me.

Lately I've been thinking about a conversation I had with my boss at UCLA. We were the only two people on a phone conference waiting for everyone else to join and he was working from home. His son made a babbling nosie and our conversation went kinda like this:

Me, "What's your sons name?"
"Ethan. Don't mind him, he's trying to eat the phone."
"And you're going to let him?!"
"Hahaha, no!"
(It was a Saturday. Yes. We had to work on Saturday)
"Is your wife home with you guys?"
"No, she's out. It's just us boys."
"How did you meet your wife?" I asked because meeting stories are just as good as falling in love stories.
"We met in high school. We've known each other for over 10 years."
"Oh! Wow thats a long time to be together."
"Actually we didn't get together until about three years ago."
      Whoa! These situtations are always so interesting to me because how do you suddenly change your mind and decide that you want to marry someone you've friend zoned for so long?
I asked, "So how did you know you should get married? Sorry if I'm prying."
He said, "Oh no you're not. I'm actually a pretty open person."
Then he paused a minute and told me,

"We accepted each other for who we were."

Joshua Trees

A Joshua Tree is like a cross between a palm tree and a cactus. Apparently they only grow in and around the national park and can't be found anywhere else in the world. I went camping in the Joshua Tree National Forest this past weekend with friends: Jason, Leng, Bo, Mihai, Albert, and Brandon. On the drive up I sampled my music for Albert and discovered that all my music is emo...not sure how I feel about this...kind of sad and mopey. haha. jk. I'm not that emo.

First stop was Integratron! Apparently this place has a high magnetic field so they built this dome thing in the middle of it and hold sound baths. They take large quarts bowls and play each of them to create this loud enveloping sound. You feel super relaxed and probably fall asleep. I didn't sleep, my body felt super relaxed and I was trying to relax my brain but if you know me my brain never stops. Anyway it was pretty cool. An hour and a half went by in what seemed like minutes. I would definitely go again. It was a great calming way to start a weekend.

After the sound bath, we went to set up camp. I hung up my hammock and we split wood. Aparently Californians don't know how to use a hammer, but I taught them how. Thanks dad for all those years of putting us to work when we were kids. We tried to fit in a quick hike to catch the sunset, but missed it by about 30 mins or so. We also missed the trail, but thats ok. We ended up hiking in the dark for about 2 miles which was pretty cool in my opinion, but I think others were less enthused by the not being able to see stuff. That night we had tacos and popcorn and hung out by the fire until well past midnight just talking. I slept in my hammock under the stars. I love the stars.

Sunday morn we had bacon and egg tacos cooked by Jason and Leng, then we drove into the park to scramble around on rocks and stuff. We goofed around, went to hike around Barker Dam, scrambled some more and then went to find some lunch. Brandon took us to a cafe called Crossroads where we pigged out and started to food coma. After that we bought some gear, went back to another part of the park and scrambled some more until we finally found some good rocks to hang out on while we waited for the sunset. The sun fell back behind the mountains really quickly, but it was nice. After that we headed back to camp to make dinner and eat some more. haha. We finished burning all the wood, cooked steaks, pineapple, spinach, brussel sprouts and baked some bananas with chocolate, marshmellow and grahamcrackers. Albert, Mihai, Brandon and I left that night so that we could avoid traffic the next day since we had to work half days at least.

It felt like a nice long weekend with lots of laughs and adventure. I can't wait until we go again.