July 4th In Dutch Flat

We headed up to Dutch Flat and Alta for the Dutch Flat Parade today. The air was smoky from the American River Complex fire, but not TOO bad. We got to Dutch Flat just as the parade was starting and sat down on the grassy berm across from the Dutch Flat Hotel (It's still a little strange looking at the Hotel in its new found glory... I have a permanently burned in memory of a chain link fence surrounding the grounds)


In past years, water balloons and various other water weaponry have figured prominently in the parade, and this year was no exception



A few more images of the parade:






After a healthy 4th of july meal, we drove to the cabin where the parents had already been at work cleaning (YES!). I unlocked the bathtub and discovered a new friend living in the tub: Hopkin Green Frog



My parents had brought up a carpet, but there wasn't quite enough room to fit it into the middle of the vast cabin floor without completely nullifying the days of Feng Shui work that I had put in, so I suggested moving the wood hopper to the wall. We did this, and after cleaning up a bag full of dust and putting down the rug, the cabin is looking fantastic:

For dinner, I grilled up one of our grass fed skirt steaks and made a chimichurri sauce out of the cookbock that Christa and Tom bought me (thanks guys!).

Fires

I just found out that the storm that passed over our heads a few weekends ago started two major fires:

Yuba River Complex
Incident #: CA-TNF-1015
Incident Type: Wildland Fire
Start Date: 06/21/2008
# of Fires: 25
3,813 Acres Consumed, 80% Contained
Status: Active
Last Update at 07/03/2008 09:31:55 AM

and

American River Complex
Incident #: CA-TNF-1011
Incident Type: Wildland Fire
Start Date: 06/21/2008
5,092 Acres Consumed, 20% Contained
Status: Active
Last Update at 07/02/2008 08:54:51 AM

Heres the fire map

Hopefully it isn't too smoky up there!

Mom's Gallery Opening

Stinson

Dutch Flat Breakfast

We had breakfast at the Dutch Flat Hotel after a long hiatus



And then drove back down to Oaktown, getting passed by some beautiful old porsches along the way

The cabin

We drove up to Alta today, stopping at Awful Annie's on the way up.

This was a Zoe-cabin reacquainting mission, so I left the saw at home for once. I was totally worn out from the week (I've been spending a lot more time in the lab recently) and I dozed off while Chloe and Zoe headed up to the country store for ice cream. Somehow I forgot that my iphone was sitting on my lap, and it sailed off the loft when I woke up. Miraculously, there was a mattress at the base of the ladder, which the iphone landed on, and subsequently took a slight bounce before coming to a clattering halt on the wood floor. Those iphones are like cats, I tells ya!

Anyway, we walked down to the Bear river to see if little ZZN wouldn't mind the cold water of Smart's Crossing


However, she didn't much enjoy having her sensitive toes chilled by the water. I tried several times to build up enough courage to jump into the water, but just couldn't handle it; it really feels as cold as glacial runoff to me. It's possible I have gotten soft in my old age, but it seemed colder even than the river that runs through La Berarde, which is within sight of the glaciers. Next came the slog up the hill and back to the cabin, where we grilled dinner. At this point we were blissfully ignorant of the relatively sleepless night we were about to endure. Things learned during the night:
1)Zoe hates the pack and play portable crib.
2)Zoe hates the sound of the trains come up out of the sacto valley

As a result, none of really got much sleep.

Our new freezer arrived today (to accommodate the meat), and I got some good Father's Day loot (Some nice shirts "Because you have been looking a little ratty recently" (Chloe)) and we all went to Jong Ga for mung bean cakes (excellent), sea bass (very good, but not my favorite), spicy crab soup (also excellent) and kalbi. Afterwards, we burned off 20 of the 4000 calories by walking along Lake Merritt


Where Canadian Geese have totally overrun every bit of grass in the park. The Oakland parks should bring in some ferrets, I think. Either that or a crack team of Foie Gras professionals. Along the way I became unresponsive and glazed over when we came upon a Ferrari F430 Spider

She will be mine

Grand Lake Farmers Market

We stopped at the Grand Lake Farmers market. Highlights:

+Rotisserie Chicken + potatoes just like France!!! Wooohoooo!
+Gaufres, not like france but excellent, and run by a guy with a french accent
+Merguez from free range Merguez-animals, humanely slaughtered, ground up and stuffed into their own intestines! (run by a french guy)
+Egg only stand
+Corn only stand
+Strawberry only stand
+Chocolate stand

MEAT

Our partners in meat, Paul and Nikki volunteered to pick up our split quarter of grass fed beef (Ordered from Chileno Valley and Butchered at Bileto Meats), and we met them in San Rafael for what must have looked like a drug deal (except the drug packets were labeled with things like "SWISS STEAK", and Paul was handing me a check instead of rolls of $100s). Neither Paul nor I know all that much about the different cuts of meat, but we split things up as well as we could. I think I'm going to have to dig up my old mega food book which has all of the cuts of beef now. We put the pedal to the metal in the Prius, and managed to jam all of the meat into only half of my parents freezer -- not bad considering it filled up a good 2.4 shopping bags!

I thawed two of the ground beef packets and grilled grass fed burgers and fresh corn from the Grand Lake farmers market ... mmmmm

Gold Wall

we headed out for a half day of glorious basalt sport cragging at the Gold Wall today. After warming up on one of the 10b?s, we did the 10d, then one of the 11s to the right of it, then "Hidden Treasure" (onsight wooo!) and finally onto one of the 12s to the left of HT. The crux had a big block which seemed to be on the verge of popping off, so I don't think I'm going to be projecting that one!



I'm hoping to stop at most of the fruit/vegetable stands along 120 and review them here. We stopped at Costa produce on the way back, which SUCKS. By contrast, on earlier trips we stopped at the eastern most Strawberry shack, which is awesome.

oof

I've fallen off the blogging bandwagon, but I'll be filling in some gaps this week, hopefully.

Gold Wall

After our experience earlier in the week at "the other crag", we headed to the Gold Wall on Bryan's advice. This time we didn't have the baby, so there were fewer logistical things to deal with. We got to the crag around 10 or so, and there were two other sets of people climbing there (one of whom had beta for all the routes). We warmed up on one of the 10's to the right, then accidentally got on the 11c to the right of deliverance and got smacked down. I did stacked deck and check engine on sight (both super fun) and we hopped on deliverance+extension just as the sun started cooking the wall. The extension was crumbly, but fun. All in all it was another great day on Table Mountain, and we are both so excited for the fall. Since chloe gets every other friday off, our plan is to do a minimum of one friday a month here or at the other crag this fall and winter. I guess I had better start saving those vacation days!!

New seats for Zoe

After noticing that ZZN was looking cramped in her infant seat, we did a little research on convertible seats and went with the Britax Marathon in Cowmooflage. Zoe seems to like it, and the installation is very easy. I wish it had a sun shade though.

Table mountain

I've been hearing about a local sport crag named for the nearby Jail since I started climbing. It's on private land, so climbers have tried to be good "wardens" and not publish topos or directions online. A guy I know from the gym generously gave me directions there, so we headed out with Zoe and a another friend from the gym (Bryan) today.





We didn't get very many routes in, and in a Lynn Hill moment I didnt finish my knot (which was thankfully caught by someone else), but I gotta say that I love this place. Since we moved back from Grenoble, its been a little hard not having the abundance of nearby sport crags that we did in France. While not Ceuse by any means, this crag is really a blast. Lots of beta intensive moves, big blocky features, jugs everywhere, fixed draws and a cool vibe are hopefully going to make this a frequent destination for us this winter (It gets too hot in the summer). I feel like a piece of our lives has been given back to us!

Heres ZZN, at the end of the day and still happy


As for routes: We warmed up on the first four bolts of a route to the right of "Soap on a rope", did the two warm up 11ds (The eagles were no longer nesting) and then I did some of the moves on Soap, with a lot of beta from the locals. Its a fabulous route, but I need some serious improvements in my endurance before I try to link.