Notes from Portola Redwoods Campground

Thanks to P-C, i had a good night's sleep here in Portola Redwoods. My sleeping bag must be about 38 years old, and we used it camping in the Carolinas in the summer. P loaned us her pair of mummy bags, and i cinched myself up in the cocoon last night. Snug and warm! And i discovered that if my jeans are under my knees, my lower back does a little better, too.

We're now pondering whether we should get matching thickness sleeping mats. Christine's is thicker, so she rolls off of it. Mine is a thinner hiking weight pad, suiting my dreams that we will get beyond car camping some day. I should see if i can get a used one like hers: if i'm honest with myself, we're probably car camping for a few more years. Josie the Jeep has to get stronger before we can do dispersed camping in the Sierras, and that would be next.

The long daylight allowed us to dawdle getting out of MV without it affecting our evening. We were here at our site about 4ish. We set up camp, and then Christine napped for a while.

We'd bought a box of "green" firelogs (clean burning, recycled materials, safe to cook over), so we passed on buying the firewood for sale by the rangers. At our site we found remnants of several different collections of firewood, and i laid out a good fire with one of our logs and some of the fire wood.

I wrote some long overdue notes while Christine rested. The Stellar's Jays observed me intently.

We had a good hike, with much more length and climb than i'd intended, but it took us away from the campgrounds and the sounds of screaming kids. It also was up the eastern side of the canyon, so it was still in light. I was trying for shots of wildflowers, finding the manual focus on my little pocket camera a challenge. I saw the strangest stalk of orchid-like blossoms and i think i did get an in focus shot of that. I am delighted: while i'm sure i've not made a botanical discovery for the world, it is a botanical discovery for me.

We came back to camp and set our fire alight, and threw the foil wrapped mixed marinated veggies in the flames.

[Must eat breakfast.]


Observations

I'd made stove "fuel cells" with left over candle wax, cardboard, and cat food tins. My god, do they produce soot. Decided: i'll keep making them, but they're earthquake supplies. And Christine really likes the gas canister stove -- maybe we'll get another of those, eventually.

Tea bags remove soot


Things to remember for next time:

Trash bags
hankerchief
napkins
dirty linen bag

small spatula? metal -- like an icing spreader?

Things to make

Pouch for crowbar and mallet

(no subject)

DELIGHT: a photo of mine is used for today's entry in one of my favorite current blog projects:

The project commemorates the 150th anniversary of the California Geological Survey, and in particular William Brewer's travels as field leader of the survey. We are posting excerpts from Brewer's letters in real time (+150), accompanied by (mostly) present-day photos of the places he describes. You can see earlier entries here....

I should just take a bunch of analgesics today. The dress i bled all over last night is this one i tie-dyed. Christine did try, during quiet spells between my temper-tantrum rants last night, to point out how there was no clothing item better suited for blood spatters. Indeed, she is right. The obvious blood is cleaned up from the dress. Christine folded the laundry without my help last night, so i don't know if the laundry got as clean as i would have liked.

She did say she could see my smear on the glass wall.

I was thinking for applying for a job at AOL -- but it's gone now -- so that solves that. It was a truly bizarre job posting for a product manager, written the way some local Chipolte billboards were written, with a message in bold "hidden" in the full text. There were no qualifications listed. I figured it would be good practice. I'll hope it was pulled because it was an accidental posting, not because someone filled it.

I did get my documentation of "it's NOT our fault our line connection sucks" posted to our ISP last night. I'm thinking of moving to Sonic: i think the price point, as it includes the phone line, will be better, and it looks so much faster.

I hate icing bruises.