Angel Lake is Aptly Named it Seems--Susanne Survives

By the time I reached the campsite I was parched and shaking from exaustion and reaction. I used restroom to pee, got a glass of ice water from out watercooler and chugged it, risking brainfreeze. God, it tasted good. Then I headed farther down to the Campground hosts trailer. On the way I ran into Annie, the lady we had talked to the night before. I told her that Susanne was stuck on the rock and I was looking for help to get her down.

“Where is she?” She asked. I pointed her out, and annie went to find binoculars. I kept going down the hill, promising to keep her informed. When I arrived at the camp host's trailer, both the husband and wife were sitting out front with citronella candles burning in the heat of the day to ward off mosquitoes.

“Y'all got a couple hundred feet a' climbing rope?” I asked. “Susanne is stuck on the rock,” I point, “right there.”

“Huh? What? Where?”

“Ok, my friend Susanne and I were hiking up the hill this morning, trying to get to the peak—there. When we got to the base of that big rock outcropping we decided it looked like a pretty safe climb, but that it would be chhallenging, so we decided to try it. We worked our way up there, then traversed over that way, then got stuck there. You can see her head if you look close. She's sitting down right now, just to the right of that shadow, near the small pine tree growing out of the face in the white section there, above the red stripe. I managed to get across that crack and come for help, and I almost fell, but somehow I made it down, and now I need help to go get her. If I had a rope, I could do it myself, but I don't.”

“Ok, slow down. Where is she again?” the wife said.

I stood next to her and pointed over her shoulder, “there, to the right of that Pac-Man looking shadow. The lower jaw points right at her. Just above the narrow point on the red stripe there. In between those two big channels.”

The husband came out with an enormous set of binoculars, They looked like some air-raid spotting glasses from WWII I have seen, meant to be mounted on a pintle, and set them on the picnic table. “Where?” he asked.

I went through it again. “OK, I got her.” he said, “Damn. How the hell did you get up there.?”

“Carefully. It seemed a lot easier doing it than it looks from here.”

The Campground Host lady spoke up, “I hiked up to the top of that thing a while back, but I wen't up the side. Damn, you guys are crazy.”

“Yeah, well, probably, but I still need to get her down.”

“Ok, we got a State Trooper camping with his family up the way. Let's go see if we can find him. Maybe he has some climbing gear with him...come on then.” She walked to her big blue truck, lighting a cigarette, and climbed in. I jumped in the passenger side, and rolled a smoke while she drove up the way to a camp above ours that was occupied by a nice trailer. She talked with the teenaged girls by the trailer, who told us their dad was fishing, so we went off around the lake to the day use parking area and looked along the shore for him. No luck.

“We'll keep looking, but I'm going to call the Sheriff's office and get them headed out to help.”

“Ok, I just want to get her down, however we have to do that. She is safe where she is, but it is hot up there and she doesn't have all that much water.”

“Oh. How much does she have?”

“Most of a quart and a Mountain Dew when I left.”

“Mountain Dew's not so good.”

“I know, It was in my pack, so I left it with her, better than nothing.”

“People dehydrate fast up here, particularly in the direct sun like that.”

“I know that too. We were stupid, ok. But, We weren't planning on getting stuck on the frigging rock when we left.”

She called the Elko County Sheriff's office and got patched through to a deputy who was down the Mountain at the Angel Creek Campground. He said he was on his way up, and that he would coordinate with the rescue guys.

We headed back over to the State Troopers campsite, and met up with him about the time the Deputy showed up. He was a K-9 officer, with a beautiful and irritable sheppard in the back seat of his Bronco.

The State troopers wife offered me a bottle of water, and I accepted it gratefully. More calling back and forth about what to do, and they determined that a climbing crew would be coming up either by car or helicopter, depending on whether or not they had the available people in Wells, or if they had to come from Elko.

After a bit of standing around and drinking water, listening, and feeling like a fifth wheel, I went back to our camp, re-filled water bottle with iced-water from the cooler, had a couple bites of meat and cheese, took a pee, then went back to the Troopers trailer and told them I was going back up to talk to Susanne.

“Don't go back on the rock.” said the Trooper.

“Don't worry, I'm done climbing for the day. I kinda shot out my arms and shoulders getting down, and we don't need me stuck up there too. I'm just going up to the base of the outcropping to holler at her and let her know what's going on. Then I'll come back down.” I replied.

“Ok then, tell her help is on the way.”

“That's the plan.”

So I trekked back up the path, then climbed up through the scrub at the base of the rock in the hot sun. I could feel my muscles trembling, and the heat boiling in my head, and the altitude getting to me for the first time, making me nauseous; I realized that I should have eaten breakfast as I swayed, dizzy for a minute. Reminding myself that Susanne was alone up there in the heat, I ignored it. Keep moving pussy. You can stop when she's down safe.

Getting to a position directly below her I shouted, “Susanne!”

No reply.

“Susanne!” Louder! “Susanne!” Damn, hearing aids. Hope they are on. “Sussaaannnneee!”

“James?” I hear her, “James? Are you there? Do you have a rope.”

“It's me Smiley. No one had a rope, so we had to call out for help. They are on the way.”

“How long, do you know?”

“Not sure. They might be driving up, or they might come in a helicopter. I just came back to make sure you are all right, and let you know what is going on.”

“I'm ok. I've been sketching and talking to God.”

“Cool.”

“It's hot, and I'm thirsty, I've been saving the water. If they are on way, I can drink it.”

“You might want to conserve some, I don't know how long they'll be. You'll be down today, but I don't know how soon.”

“Ahh...ok...damn.”

“Yeah. Sorry I couldn't find a rope.”

“It's ok. I found a place I can get my head in the shade if I stand up, but I can't stand there for too long at a time.”

“Be careful with the moving around up there beautiful. If you fall I'll follow you to hell just so I can drag you back and kill you again. I'm not done with you yet, and neither is the world.”

She laughed. “I bet you would.”

“Yeah, not likely you would end up in hell though, and they might not let me in upstairs, so be careful.”

“I will.”

“OK, I'm going to go back down now so I can keep track of what's going on, I'll come back up if they are going to be too long.”

“Hey, I'm all right here. There is plenty to do, I have my sketchbook and a beautiful view of the lake and the mountains. Go do something fun for you while you wait. Sit on the beach and read for a while. Go swimming or something.”

“Ha! Leave it to Susanne. Not likely, don't think I could concentrate on a book right now.”

“Really, take it easy, I'll be fine.”

“I'll see what I can do Smiley. See you soon.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.” and I trekked back down the hill. Back at camp I got more water, then went looking for information. I found a young blonde girl who was related to the State trooper, and who was a police explorer, who told me that they had moved down to the lower parking lot to wait for the helicopter bringing a rescue team in from Elko. The rescuers were apparently either on the way, or soon would be. The camp host and law enforcement on scene were clearing the lot so the chopper could land.

I checked the time, it was about three. We had left to go hiking just before ten. I had made it down to the camp host's spot at a little after twelve...time flys—having fun or not.

When I got down to the lower lot I met the Host lady again and realized I still didn't know her name. No time to ask, she started talking as I approached. “They are sending a helicopter in from Elko with a couple of Fire-Rescue guys to rappel her down. The 'copter just took off, so they should be here soon.”

“Cool. Susanne's doing good, but says she is hot and is running low on water. She can get some shade, but can't stand where the shade is for very long at a time. Crazy girl told me to sit on the beach and read for a while, enjoy the day. She's been drawing.”

“Well they'll be here soon, it is about a half hour from Elko by helicopter.”

“Ok, I'll go back up and tell her.”

I headed back up the hill and ran into a woman who asked if I knew about the girl stuck on the rock. “Yeah, I'm going to tell her the rescue guys are on the way.”

“Were you with her? How'd she get stuck.”

“Very carefully. We just went a little too far and she couldn't get down. I barely did, and Susanne is just not quite tall enough to reach the next place.”

“Wait,” I hear a yell from below and look back. “The pilot says not to go back up close to the rock. They'll be coming in in a few minutes.” The camp host lady is chugging up the road towards me.

“Ok. I don't want to be in the way, I'll just wait at the trailhead up here.” she catches up, and we walk up to the bathrooms and onto the trail. There is another woman there with a nice digital camera with a huge telephoto lens. She talks to the Camp host lady, then to me...I go through it again.

She says, “My husband noticed her up there and wondered if she was in trouble. So I put the lens on her and it just looked like she was sketching. I figured she was ok, just enjoying the day.”

I replied, “She is. She just can't get down, and she's getting thirsty. Susanne's a trooper.”

“Well, I'm getting a bunch of pictures, I'll be sure y'all get copies.”

“Thanks. I've been taking a few, but I don't have much zoom, and I've been kinda distracted.”

A few minutes later the helicopter arrived. First the distinctive thwap-thwap-thwap-thwap of the rotor noise echoing off the surrounding mountains, then a pale dot growing in the northern entrance to the bowl of the lake like some huge dragonfly, then we could see it clearly, a pale beige and yellow four doored bubble with a long tale and the blades blurring above it. He came in pretty high and circled the valley, near the walls, but far enough out for caution. After the first pass, he came around again and hovered over the rock outcropping she was trapped on. Then he settled down neatly on the top and three men carrying gear bags climbed out. The 'copter lifted off again, rotated in place, and moved on down to land in the lower lot.

We watched the rescuers move around on the top of the cliff, yelling down to Susanne, figuring routes, finding things to tie their ropes to.The pilot came hiking up the hill, a lean guy with a gret beard, sunglasses and tan boonie hat. The Camp host lady greeted him as Dale. After a few minutes the pilot headed up closer to the rock and I went with him.

The rescue guys communicated with Susanne by shouting back and forth, she had a hard time hearing because of distance, deafness, and the vagaries of hearing aids, so lots of stuff was repeated. They tied their ropes off well, belaying to three different chunks of granite to be extra safe, and then one of them headed down on a line payed out by the other two. He got to Susanne and harnessed her up, then had her lay down and ease herself over the edge while he held her to get her used to the harness. Fifteen minutes later, they were down at the bottom of the rock.

Turned out the guy who roped her down was named James too—there sure are a lot of us.She thanked him and gave him a hug. I thanked him, she gave him her name and date of birth for the record and we were free to go. We hugged each other and headed down the hill. Both of us a bit unsteady on the trail.

We got cold water, then went to the next site to talk to Annie and Kent (Kent was back from his hike) about the day's adventure. We didn't know it, but it wasn't over yet—not by a long shot.

Angel Lake is Aptly Named it Seems--Part 1

Stardate: 7.23.2010.

Well, we learned some lessons and cranked up the adventure level to new heights on Monday. Sunday the eighteenth, after leaving Mill Creek, we headed into Battle Mountain, got coffee then rolled on to Elko where we stopped at WalMart hoping to get two front tires, but their compressor was out of commission, so we were out of luck. We picked up ice and some greens instead, and headed on down the road looking for another camp. At Wells we saw a sign for Angel Lake, so we headed on up the Mountain and discovered a beautiful bowl valley at 8400 feet. Lush and green with stunted Aspens surrounding a lake fed by springs and snowmelt still running out of patches of ice high up on the surrounding mountains. We found a campsite and hiked around the lake to the falls, meeting an older couple (Kent and Annie) from Bishop, Ca, on the way. We continued on with them, chatting about nature and life, and listening to Kent wander off into tall tales, luxuriating in the cool evening and the flowering herbs growing along the path.

At the waterfall, I dissuaded Susanne from trying to climb up through the tumbling wet on the rocks knee deep in the falls. She is a water sprite, like the mermaid who traded in her tail and gills for feet—for love of a sailor—always trying to get back in the water. Everywhere I go with her, if there is water, she gets in it even if it is freezing. Smiley is a lot of fun to travel with, though she often talks me into getting into water that makes me want to levitate out of it it is so bloody cold.

The mountains around the bowl are over ten thousand feet, and Susanne and I decide we want to hike up to the rightmost peak in the morning. We trace a possible route that looks reasonably safe up the side of the mountain, how to switch-back to get above that big rock formation, then follow the talus slope around to the right to catch the ridge below the peak from where it will be a relatively simple scramble to the top.

Kent is a retired heavy equipment operator, and Annie a retired middle-school teacher, they were married in 1960, eight years before I was born. They have been married for fifty years. There is hope. I pull out my bag of tobacco to roll a cigarette.

Kent asks, “Are you smoking marijuana?”

“Ha, nope, just tobacco. Cigarettes have gotten too expensive for me to buy tailor-made.”

“Well, I wouldn't care. I figure a guy should be able to smoke what he wants. I've never tried it, but I hear it is not as bad for you as alcohol, and that's legal.”

“That's a fact. I'm not gonna say I never smoke marijuana, but I don't smoke it often anymore.”

We talk with Annie about teaching, and tell them we are moving to Colorado to look for work. They are also going to Colorado, enjoying the country, and planning to visit old friends. We talk about stupid politicians, beautiful country, and D-9 Caterpillars. They are nice folk, and I enjoy their company. So does Susanne, but then she loves everybody.

After a while, we all head back to our individual camps, saying goodnight and we'll see ya in the morning. We make dinner, talk, read, and go to sleep.

The next morning we get up around eight, Susanne eats some yogurt and fruit while I drink coffee and smoke. We wash our faces, clean up campsite, use bathrooms, and pack water, Mountain Dew, sketchbooks, pencils and pens, pastels and cameras into our daypacks, and set off around the side of the lake that we had missed the night before on the trail from which we had decided to start our climb.

The crushed granite path takes us up out of the aspen groves and into low scrub brush and grass dotted with wild flowers as the lake shimmers and ripples below and the mountain rears its broken granite crown above us. We come to the base of the huge rock outcropping we had discussed getting around the night before and notice a steeper but probably easier path up the near side along the base, and we note that the granite is fissured and stepped in a way that makes it look eminently climbable. There are shelves running most of the length of the face at intervals, and what look to be fairly short, and thus reasonably safe channels between them. I ask Susanne if she wants to go up the side or to try to climb. She says that she was planning to climb it by herself before I said I wanted to go. She had been planning on switchbacking up the face towards the lake, but agreed that this side (which we couldn't see clearly from the falls) looked easier.

I came up behind Susanne once she was secure, and we stopped to rest. This shelf was not as good as it appeared from below, but there was a good place to sit, and we had been on the rock for over an hour, so we sat and rested and drank. We were tired, but (we thought) getting close to the top. The problem was that the crack that went further up was not safe. Nope. The shelf we were on sloped more than it looked like from below and was slick with glacial polish. The crack that led up was overhung a bit, and the glacial polish continued above it. Furthermore, to continue forward required crossing a channel of polished granite too wide to reach across and nearly vertical with only a few slick bumps of stone for purchase, like a devils slide into the rocks at the base of the cliff. After a while, we began to be seriously scared that we were trapped. Going back would be very dangerous because the ledge at the bottom of that last short climb was quite narrow and covered with little bits of gravel. Not a good place to catch yourself if you slipped. Whoops.

It was hot. I was terrified, and so was Susanne. She had climbed up to look at the way forward, I said, “Come back, you can't cross that high.” She froze.

After a few seconds she said, “Hold on, I feel nauseas.” A minute later she slid back down.

I said, “Ok James, get a grip, fear is the death of reason.” and took control of my breathing.

Susanne said, “Please God be with us on this mountain.”

“Amen to that! Ok, breathe.” I drank another Mountain Dew Whiteout, thinking again how much better tasting they were than the regular. Crisper, lighter, not too sweet. “Ahhh...” relishing the irony of drinking Mountain Dew stuck on a frigging mountain, and thinking that I am some kind of fool. A few minutes after that I stood up and said, “Through fear and out the other side. I think I'm ok.”

She said “what?”

“Let me look at this again.” I glued myself to the edge of the rock and crept forward. Carefully studying the protrusions, the slop[e, noting where on the other side of the trough the rock changed from the polished white granite, to a rougher and more broken reddish version. Noting a good sized step about six feet down with handholds above it. Too far for me to reach, no handholds on this side close enough. Wait, there is a good one, and this slopes away from the trough...Hmmm...

I backed down. “Susanne, come over here.”

“Ok, what'd you find.”

“I think I can get across if you brace me from here. If you lay down and hug the rock and hold tight to this ridge here you should be able to reach out far enough that I can reach across if I get my right foot on that bump and swing my left out to that one.”

“Ok, you want me to hold on here and stick my legs over?”

“No, if we tried that and I slipped my weight would pull us both down. I want you to lay on your front, with your shoulder here and your left hand holding this tight, your legs down this slope for friction see...”

“Ok, are you sure.”

“I'm sure that if I fall you'll be able to hold on to the rock, and you'll probably be able to slow my fall enough that I can stop myself on that ledge which is where I'm going anyway. Then once I'm across, I might be able to bridge you over, and if not, I can get down over there somewhere and go for help.”

“All right, lets try it.”

It wasn't really that simple or that clean, but the dialogue is pretty close. We often find ourselves talking in old sayings during times of crisis. It steadies the nerves I think. It worked, and I got across. I couldn't reach very far back towards Susanne and there were no good handholds that would support both our weight against a fall down the shaft. Susanne said, “I can hear God telling me not to try it.”

I replied, “OK, I'll go for help.” I had her send over both walking sticks, and her's fell. I ended up sending mine after it, deciding that it would be more hindrance than help. I took the camera and phone out of my pack and tossed it back to her with the last Mountain Dew.

She said, “Be careful.”

I replied, “I will Smiley, I'll be back with help as soon as I can.” and off I went. I ended up running into another dead end in a channel at about forty feet up with a very slick dangerous section between handholds. No good spot to wait here, I would fall from exhaustion before anyone could come get me, so it was my turn to pray, “Please God, don't let me fall off this fucking rock.” and I went for it. Hand on either side each pushing into the rock, legs dangle towards that one inch lip down there, back to the rock, face towards oblivion for the second time in an hour. Except this time I didn't have Susanne's hand to hold onto. But I had to make it, to get her down. Dip, stretch pray some more, drop. Caught, twist, grab, safe. Panting, catch breath, then move down, slowly, but it's easy from there. Move down the hillside till I'm under her, “I'm down. I'm going for help.”

“Good, I was soo worried.”

“I'll be back soon as I can, but it might be a while, depending on if anyone has rope or if we have to call out for help.”

“Ok, I'll conserve the water. I think I'll just sketch.”

“Bye Smiley...”

I jogged on down the trail.

Colorado Bound

Stardate: 7.16.2010

On the Road Again.

Yesterday Susanne and I departed Modesto for points East. We've been planning this run for a while, since her friend Olivia told us she wanted us to come to Colorado back in early June when she visited. Unlike our Artwalk, we are driving this time. We finished packing in the morning and headed out around eleven thirty taking the US99 to the CA120 East and headed for the Mountains. At Sonora we switched to the 108 East and traded oak for pine and fir, following the asphalt path deep into the heart of God's country. In these mountains Earth and Spirit are close to the surface. The Forest creatures more at home than most humans among the trees, hummus and granite. I love it here. If I were not so tied to the hurly-burly of human interaction, to the networks and the nodes, I might just retreat up into these hills forever.

But I can't do that, at least not yet. I am the Rhetorical Boy, the Electric Gypsy, and there is no net access here—Not even cell service. So, the mountains call loudly from the plain, and I go, but then the net starts calling, and after a few days I am drawn back into it's wwweb of facebooking, YouTubian, Blogging, Googling, Yahooooooo madness. One of these days mobile satellite uplinks will fall into the realm of affordability for the impoverished vagabond, or I will fall into some serious money, the question will become moot, and I will be able to live in the high places full-time without giving up my electric umbilical. Until then, these brief adventures sooth and renew my soul.

When we came up here for Memorial day weekend we camped on the West side of the Sierra crest, so this time we decided to continue on over the Sonora pass and camp a night in the Eastern watershed. The real High Country (over seven thousand feet, where the Aspens start mixing in with gnarled old pines and the trees thin out) is breathtaking. I feel the spirit world so strongly here, as if the bones of the earth push the spirit ahead of them into the thinning air. The scent of coniferous trees, birdsong, the rush and gurgle of the water running merrily by as the car strains in low gear striving for the crest at twenty miles an hour with the jagged peaks rising around us, and pockets of snow and ice still melting into the river in the middle of July. We stopped for a while to admire the Middle fork of the Stanislaus river where it is bridged at nine-thousand feet. The river runs deep through a channel carved through the center of an immense granite mountain shoulder, clear and turbulent among the boulders and the trunks of great trees that try to slow it's headlong decent towards the valley now fifty miles below in the west.

The twin bridges are inspiring also, a marvel of human achievement, the old bridge of wood, huge beams growing at odd angles out of the rock below, is now closed to vehicle traffic which takes the reinforced concrete path just upstream, and it is hard to imagine how either was built in this place. I take short videos all day so I can share some of this majesty with my digital friends, but in this case, a picture may be worth a thousand words, but the awesome silence with which we greet the landscape cannot be communicated in either. I stood upon the stone, feet planted and arms raised high like a wizard with his staff (mine is a Eucalyptus branch, flash dried in the fire that burned my boyhood home, carved and sanded smooth—I gave Susanne one much like it), calling the lightening, and I prayed for God to show me what to do next, and to continue to provide me with sustenance. Susanne smiles like the sun at everything and radiates joy in the environment.

Though she is a bit tense driving on these narrow, steep, winding roads that we share with Harleys and White Semi-tractors towing huge red shipping containers. WTF are those things doing up here? I asked myself, this is NOT a shipping corridor. When we crested the pass and started down I may have got an answer to that. Looking out to the East from the crest of the past we find the way east much drier, the peaks form a dividing line between the fertile valley of California and Nevada's dessert.

Stardate: 7.18.2010.

Anyway, We camped that first night at Sonora Bridge campground ($17.00, I hate paying to camp out, but it was a nice place with beautiful views and a friendly campground host). We had Chicken tacos for dinner, played a partial game of chess that was interrupted by a thunderstorm, and retreated to our respective tents to read and sleep. Saturday morning, I slept in while Susanne went for a bike ride, then took her sketchbook out to a viewpoint and drew the mountains, and apparently stopped and drank coffee with some other campers who told her that they'd been coming to this campground for forty years and that this was the first time it had ever rained in the summer.

After I finally dragged my ass out of my bedroll, we went for a hike, broke camp, and drove on down the mountain. We passed the USMC Mountain Warfare School (where I suspect the big trucks came from) and then hit the 395 North to Carson City. Carson City seems a nice town, at least the people we ran into were friendly, So we hung at Starbucks for a while to plan our next leg, stocked up on ice, water, and food, filled the tank, and headed East on the US 50. That night we camped at a reservoir ($15.00), Where the wind near sundown was enough to make tent stakes mandatory. The wind died with the sun. Susanne went swimming and I waded, then we had a cold dinner. We both had a hard time sleeping and after two or three hours sleep, ended up on a blanket outside the tents looking up at the stars and talking through much of the night. We went back to sleep around dawn and slept for a couple hours.

We both swam in the morning and then continued on our way. We noticed that the right front tire is nearly bald and decided to get tires. We stopped at a Walmart, but the wait would have been too long for our itchy feet, so we continued on until we hit Austin. Nice little Mountain Town, advertises itself as the Turquoise capitol. There we got coffee and fries, and found out that the lady at WalMart really did not know what the hell she was talking about when she gave us directions. Furthermore, either I was mistaken about our route, or google maps has the Berlin-Itchyasaur State Park 100 miles north of where it actually is, so we would not be going there.

On the way we ran across the shoe tree, the damnedest thing. A huge tree, growing up out of the middle of an arroyo five miles from the nearest building, and upon this tree hangs a veritable plethora of shoes. Not just shoes: sandals, boots, a pair of ice skates, flip-flops, sneakers, a pair of crutches, ski-boots, and more. They hang in pairs, they hang in bunches like Daliesque grapes, they are stuck in the forks of branches, and the ones that missed (or have fallen) are mounded around the base of the tree. In a life full of movement, adventure and the abuse of controlled substances, this tree is one of the most surreal things I have ever seen.

So, from Austin, we headed North on the Nevada 305 towards Battle Mesa and the I-80. We quickly realized that we were not going to get tires at WalMart that day because it was nearly five, and that is when the tire shop closes on Saturday, so we began looking for a good place to camp. We found a BLM site at a place called Mill creek, about twenty miles south of Battle Mountain. I don't see how anyone ever ran a mill off of this creek, it's awful small, but there are trees and such. It was also totally deserted, and free. Yay! We had our pick of sites, and I started the fire for dinner, and began food prep while Susanne set up the tents and such. Pork tenderloin, charbroiled over a mesquite fire, potatoes fried with onions and garlic, and slaw with a lemon vinaigrette. Yummy, dinner was great, and the process of cooking it quite interesting under the circumstances. I'll never forget making that meal...

After dinner, we read until dark by the stream, then retreated once more to our respective tents. This morning, we got up about eight and went for a hike up the creek Lot of cow shit out there, the rangelands start about five-hundred feet upstream. Don't want to drink this water, but the little canyon is pretty enough, and we saw Jack rabbits, lizards, Robins, and various other critters.

Back at camp, Susanne made corn dumplings with sausage, cheddar and blueberries in them. Sounds odd, but they were damn good. Now it is time to pack up again and head on down the road.

I am getting that itchy feet feeling...

Getting ready to leave Modesto again, for a time anyway. Colorado, then where the wind blows. It will be interesting to go back to Colorado after all these years. I left Co in 1993 the last time, after living there for about five years. It will be a trip to see my old stomping grounds again after seventeen years. I have high hopes of teaching overseas in the near future, and Colorado will be a good first step, I have not left California, except for vacations in the Caribbean, since 1994. It is time to start travelling again, over longer distances, and see what the world has to offer and God plans to bring me to...I am getting kinda excited.