A Drive By Doughnutting

So I was out this morning for an early morning run with my friends Dianne and Cyndy. We were over in rural West Sacramento a place where we hardly ever see any traffic at that time of morning (06:00 am).

This morning, however, a car came by us and the back seat window rolls down and this young kid threw this doughnut at me. I took it full on the chest and was, I must admit, a little surprised. It's not every day someone throws food at you when you are running through the fields. I was so flabbergasted, I turned and angrily gesticulated, but as, I expect, with all expat Brits - I was confused as to whether I should give the two fingered British gesture or the single fingered American gesture and I ended up giving a half-hearted wave as the car sped away.

I am glad to say no harm was done - it was one of those maple sugar rolls with considerable heft to it, but a bit spongy so I wasn't harmed - thank goodness it wasn't a currant scone or a bagel - that could have been nasty.

Lyon's Lake with the best of intentions

Some weeks ago we planned what was going to be a fairly significant back-packing trip into the Desolation Wilderness up by Lake Tahoe. The initial plans were to camp two nights at Lyon's Lake and do some hiking to the nearby peaks. One of the purposes of the trip was to scatter the ashes of our friend Mike on top of Mt. Price, a mountain we had climbed with him just last summer.

We got the required permits and everything was looking good, but as we got closer to the time our resolve got weaker. We dropped back to a single overnight trip, and then our departure time from Sacramento slipped back through the day and we didn't get on the trail until 3:00 pm, a little late by any standards. We did however get to Lyon's Lake which is just a beautiful little mountain lake nestling below the granite peaks of Desolation Wilderness with just a hard enough climb up to it to deter many of the casual hikers.

We arrived in camp about 7:00 pm with just enough time to pitch the tents and cook a meal before it got dark. It was quite the tribute to Mike, since we all had inherited pieces of his camping gear - I had one of his tents, Paul had another tent, Brian had his backpack. Alas the one thing we didn't have was Mike - we had forgotten his ashes and they were back in Sacramento.



Still Lyon's Lake is really an idyllic camping spot so it was all well worthwhile. Unfortunately, however, while we went to sleep under a clear sky full of stars, at about 3:00 am smoke started drifting into the area and when the sun came up everything was hazy. Not the pristine clear wilderness experience we wanted and our throats and lungs knew that something wasn't quite right. So it didn't take much discussion for us to bail on our plans of hiking to Mt. Price and retreat back down the valley to the car and the road back to Sacramento.

The epic weekend of activity was a mere 6 miles hike in, a night's sleep (if that's what you can call it when you toss and turn every 30 mins wondering why you are doing this), and a 6 mile retreat in time for lunch in Placerville on the way home. I am sure we will do better next time.

How to tell when the air is really bad in Sacramento...

As you may or may not know, California has been suffering from glut of forest fires over the last few weeks. The end result for us here in Sacramento is that the air quality is quite bad and we are constantly being warned to stay indoors and avoid any form of exercise outside.

That's all well and good - it's good to take precautions, but this afternoon I noticed the following sign outside the local Episcopalean Church.

I suppose it's good that the Episcopaleans are flexible enough to modify their worship, but isn't it strange that they have to advertise it on a billboard outside the church - like that might swell the congregation on Sunday now their's no nasty incense around.

Checking on the bees

In the continuing saga of the bees - all is going well this year. As I previously mentioned, I now have three hives, way more than I need, and unlike the previous couple of years, they seem to be thriving.

So this week it was time to check on them and see about putting another box on top of the new hives. The way it works is that you need a couple of boxes for the hive to raise their brood in and to maintain adequate food supplies to last them through the winter and then you can add a third of fourth box (honey supers as they are called) which the bees fill with honey that is what you harves at the end of the nectar flow (around September in these parts).

So I suited up and opened up the hives to investigate. All was indeed well, and the boxes were almost full - so it was just the time to add the honey supers.

What is more, I now have a new toy - a Flip Mino - which is a small, cheap and ultra simple video recorder, so I was able to record my escapades for posterity (see below). I am quite impressed with the Flip Video camera - nothing of any high quality but very very simple indeed and ideal for internet posts. I thought it would be a good camera to run with and document some of our runs - we will see how that works.

A short absence...

Well I have been quiet for a while – half of May, all of June and now we are into July. Mainly I have been taking care of Mum during her 6 week visit and then since then I have been sick with some terrible thing I picked up on the return flight to the U.S.

Mum’s visit went well and we had a good time together. The only hitch was a small tumble she had just before her return (and at 89 years of age there are no small tumbles). She slipped and fell at the house and bruised, but thankfully did not break, her ribs. She was in a lot of pain, and she is still not quite better but she managed to handle the flight home ok and now she is back in her normal routine at home in Derbyshire.

There are some photos of mum’s visit here on my Smugmug page.