Sushi

after a long sushi ban for chloe, she was finally able to eat the delicious heavy metal laden miracle-food known as Hamachi

not for Zoe though.

Donner, Smart's Crossing

We got some parental babysitting time and jetted up to snowshed for a few routes. Unfortunately we got absolutely bouted on a 5.9 (?) on the right side of the gully which was no fun at all


but then climbed the beautiful arete (ariel?) with no problems at all. Actually, that route seems like a good warmup. I am now more resolved than ever to learn how to place gear; there really look like a lot of fun gear lines in the gully there.

After heading back to the cabin, Chloe's friends from the lab showed up and we all headed down to Smart's Crossing. Luckily, the tiresome solitude of the river was soon broken by a swarm of hood flaring teenagers. Chloe and Christine got swept up in the tide of testosterone and both jumped off the ledge

Happily, they both survived.

I summoned up the courage to swim in the freezing cold water for a bit and tried to climb out of the water... next time I'll bring some old rock shoes with me.

On the way out, little ZZN fell asleep in the Baby Bjorn

and we discovered that she has a prediliction for beer bottles

Lunch was potato and fruit salad that the lab-crew brought up, grilled corn and potatoes, and grilled grass fed beef burgers (RED MEAT WEEKEND!!).

After cleaning up, we decided that a second night in the tent with the baby was going to be too hard, so we drove back to Oaktown, stopping at Machados for an excellent apricot pie.

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.