Life of Wry

Today’s righteous action by weary citizens, in protest of yet another one of trump’s egregious, unethical, democracy-undermining presidential overreaches, took place at Davis’ main post office at the corner of 5th and Poleline.

MoveOn nationally, and IndivisibleYolo locally, sponsored this day of action at post offices nationwide. In spite of heat (low 80s, not too bad) and smoke from fires (in the unhealthy range for sensitive people), about 150 people showed up and hoisted signs and chanted.  As we do.

And of course we showed up, because, jeez.. that effing president*…

Realizing that millions of people will rely on mail-in ballots in order to cast safe votes in November’s election (there’s a pandemic, you know), trump has decided — in fact, stated openly on national tv — that the greater voter turnout that would surely result from mail-in voting, jeopardizes his re-election (in fact, he accuses democrats of forcing vote-by-mail as a partisan ploy to gain advantage). So, a few months ago, he began a campaign to discredit vote-by-mail. He has since further claimed that, since mail ballots are so obviously subject to fraud (says he, lyingly), that any election outcome that results in his loss (only his loss, by the way), shall be rejected. He has said he’ll only accept the results of an election if he considers it fair, and has said that any election that relies on mailed in ballots is inherently fraudulent and unfair. Words to that effect.

So, last spring, he abruptly removed the then postmaster general, replaced him with a crony donor, a guy named Louis DeJoy, and subsequently met with him to discuss strategy (Dejoy denies this).  trump needed to make sure his new guy understood his re-election strategies.. namely to disenfranchise as many voters as possible by throwing up as many roadblocks in the mail delivery system as they could quickly implement before November (of course targeting areas dense with low income, democratic leaning populations).  DeJoy immediately fired a whole bunch of high level USPS managerial staff and got to work.  He decommissioned numerous gargantuan mail sorters, he removed mailboxes from locations they’d been in for decades, he changed postal rates for ballots from bulk to first class (stressing state budgets at a time they are maxed due to the pandemic), he messed with worker overtime pay… and on and on.  He then let twenty (or thirty?) Secretaries of State all over the country know that he could not guarantee timely delivery of ballots from the SoS to voters, or, once completed, from the voters back to those SoS for counting.

Oh, and in addition to DeJoy being a trump supporter and donor, he also owns stock in mailing and delivery services that are in direct competition with the United States Postal Service. I don’t even know how this obvious conflict of interest doesn’t automatically disqualify him from the job. I’ve already used the words egregious and unethical.. I’m running out of ways to describe these people.. and trump..  who just does all of this in plain sight. Just one hail mary after another, so desperate is he to hang on…

If the Senate hearings of the last few days are any indication, DeJoy is also quite an asshole.   So there’s that, too.

And, at the same time trump and DeJoy are sowing as much chaos in the ballot delivery system as possible, and creating anxiety and uncertainty on the part of voters about the reliability now of voting by mail, corrupt republican voting officials in red districts everywhere are changing the rules about voting deadlines, signature matching requirements.. and so on. Again, all part of a concerted effort to discredit the election results (which everyone knows — especially the president* —  will not be in trump’s favor if the election is fairly held). And again, all in plain sight.

Cheating is the only way he has any hopes of hanging on for a second term. Most detested, deceitful, dishonorable president in history.

So.. neither heat, nor smoke, nor tired arms will keep folks in Davis from protesting this insulting excuse for a leader and his stupid, never-ending swindles.

A couple of favorite signs:

Mine, front and back:

And here I am! A guy named Larry (don’t know him personally) took this and posted it to Facebook and I saw it on the IndivisibleYolo site..

RETURN TO SENDER, STAMP OUT FASCISM, YARD SALE!

I’m sure everyone’s got an anxiety list — I mean, it’s 2020 — mine’s a doozy. Though, I expect I share a lot of the same anxieties with others. My list keeps me going…. in the sense that I imagine a time when this list will dwindle down to nothing. I have my eyes on the prize, a time in January when I am hoping that most of these will be resolved or mostly on their way to being resolved and I’ll be free and clear with a whole new horizon to look at. I’m thinking maybe by my 65th birthday.

Girl can dream.

No real order… but here are the things that occupy most of my head space right now.. some are time consuming, some are just plain anxiety provoking, some require just putting my head down and seeing them through, some are heart rending… some have elements of all of the above.

1. trump
2. pandemic
3. election
4. Peter getting settled in Ann Arbor… safe and happy
5. fire season
6. front and backyard landscaping
7. all this election-related volunteer work
8. Matt, Chris, Michael, Chad’s health

I feel like I might be forgetting an anxiety or two. But man… can you imagine what life will be like when we’re beyond all this? I can, and it keeps me going.

~~

It’s been hotter than blazes..

This was last Sunday (it’s Friday as I write this). We’d already had a day or two of temperatures well into the hundreds. That was noteworthy–and record breaking–enough (130 in Death Valley, 113 in Modesto). But then we had dramatic thunderstorms and thousands of lightening strikes that weekend, which sparked hundreds of fires which are still raging across the state. For most of this week, it’s looked and felt apocalyptic: yellow air, brown skies, a red sun.. all from the fires close enough to cover us in ash. Seriously.. it’s like someone dumped an ashtray over our world. For days I didn’t even go out.. not once.

Here are some pics…  sun at midday. You can stare right at it; it’s behind so much smoke.

My car..

Ash collects in the grooves in our driveway..

The fires closest to us:

Oh.. and this is neat: Recall that Jim gave me a PurpleAir sensor for Christmas last year (why, yes he did!). He installed it yesterday, which means we have one of eight such outdoor sensors in Davis and serve as a data point in the local assessment of Air Quality.. here’s a map:

We’re the 93! Today it got up to 256 (at least that was the highest I saw it go, but I didn’t watch it all day). At this very moment, it’s (hang on, let me check): 14! I kid you not. Jim just opened the windows and the temp is dropping (11:30pm and it’s now 72) .. and we might get into the 50s later this week. Glorious after nighttime lows in the 70s all week (couldn’t open our windows anyway because of the smoke).

Anyway.

Crazy stuff… these pandemics, heat waves, fires, ash storms. All layered on top of trump and what will be a brutal, soul-sucking final two months of a truly wearying campaign season.

I was going to write about the fires, air quality, yellow air, red sun and brown sky, the heat… but never mind.

I’m feeling a different fire, so want to say a couple things about that.

I’ll leave it to pundits and wonky wonks to distill the last four days of the Democratic National Convention, which I watched start to finish, all 8 hours plus the pre and post game shows. Definitely some rough points, misses, awkward transitions and such. But 90% worked for me. They pulled together a great narrative, covered a lot of bases, told Joe’s story well. Seems like they picked their main themes and then pounded them and did so strategically and effectively.

I have a full on reason to vote FOR him. Not against Trmp. In my heart of hearts but also deep into the most discerning part of my brain, I feel like he strikes the right tone and balance for government work, and especially for these times. I WANT a government guy. I LIKE the idea of government. I like how it’s SUPPOSED to work. I WANT someone who knows how to put together a team and then listens to them and makes reasoned decisions. I like the structure and accountability of a functioning bureaucracy.

I am desperate for a head of government that honors the process, works it, knows how to count votes and compromise and I can live with the chip chip chip of progress.

Most important to me, though, is having a president who is a president for everyone. Which means he can’t be just the president of me. Much as I personally want our country to take a hard left turn, I’m willing to get to better places in a way that doesn’t further the divide. I believe it’s in everybody’s interest to have an Elizabeth Warren government, but I’m willing to live under a Joe Biden middle spot in the interest of having everybody feel like government listens to and serves them.  I just want it to be just. I want the fights to be fair.  I want a leader who is decent and truthful, smart, engaged and one who understands and respects government.  I want someone I trust.

I don’t think anybody could have met this moment any better. I wish Joe were about 10 years younger, but other than that, he’s the perfect anti-Trump. Kamala checks a lot of boxes — in the strategic ways of presidential campaigns — and if she remains honorable and applies her considerable intellectual chops to the task, I think they’re formidable. I think most of their tendrils extend leftward and they will be open minded and open hearted and I think we can get there. I think conversations that need to happen will happen. And there are a lot of those conversations. I trust.

With a flipped Senate and Nancy in the house (if she stays in the job), we can make some progress.

I am so hopeful.

And…. I can’t wait to read this in a year.

I could write a book about that convention and a dozen of its most brilliant touches. Even as I know it was a lot of preaching to a desperate, starved choir..  it still inspired and affirmed. And I leave feeling certain about my support for Biden.. which I wasn’t before.

So.. how ’bout a young Beau and Joe baseball photo…

U.S. Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) accepts the Democratic vice presidential nomination.

Night #3 of the Democratic National Convention. We’ve had women on the ticket a couple of times. We’ve elected a black president. Now we have a black woman on the ticket.. that’s historic.

That part feels really good. For all my doubts during her campaign for president, and my preferences for other women as Joe’s VP pick, I have come around completely to Kamala (the whole country’s on first name bases with these guys). I like her energy, intelligence, resume, smile, humor. She is much more than a running mate, much more than  additive; she’s a powerhouse. I can live with this moderate ticket. I think his choice is damn near perfect.

As notable tonight: Obama went all in on the threat of the current president* — the threat he poses to our country, our institutions, our democracy, our future. In no uncertain terms. It’s a 5-alarm fire. He was sober and dead serious. He’s not messing around. It may be his most historic speech ever, in a career full of historic speeches. It’s damn scary.

High level government and military professionals on all three nights have sounded similar themes. They’ve had lots of republicans in these programs, from all walks of life, willing to stand up and say they’d support a democrat for president over trump (I still have a laughably hard time even typing his name, I despise him that much). This is crazy.

But both of the Obamas… they left that one particular norm in the dust, the one where a former president (and his wife) does not trash a current president. Let the new president run things like he sees them; he was elected (presumably), let him govern. But now, after nearly 4 years, he’s shown he’s dangerously incompetent and not up to the task. But more, as Obama said, he’s willing to shred our democracy in order to win. Both Barack and Michelle implored people to vote. Only the voters get to decide who the next president will be. Non voters have no say.

As if to prove everyone’s point about his pettiness, he lied and lied and lied, in all caps over Twitter. Of course he did. Desperate man (not a man).

Anyway… Kamala. This is a very good development.

Today’s hiking plan was something Jim concocted (he’s usually the strategist):  a little old, a little new and a good dose of cross country.

We’ve really hit our stride with regards to the rhythms of camping. After a couple days, our systems are pretty smooth… what needs to be done, by whom, in what order, by when… so rising and shining, getting breakfast going, making lunches, cleaning up, packing our day packs… we are like a little ant colony of three.

Gorgeous, crystal blue sky, warmish… damn… spectacular.

We’re on the road by our usual 10:00, give or take, into the park (the rangers have figured out how to identify the cars with passes and we are relieved of having to wait in the 30 minute line to get into the park). We hit the Tuolumne Meadows ranger station to fill our jugs and water bottles, then up the road to the trailhead. We parked somewhere between the visitors center and the trailhead for Cathedral Lakes.. at the crosswalk that marks the short trail to Soda Springs (this detail is for my future ref). On the south side of the highway, one find a trail, to a trail and eventually to the Elisabeth Lake trail, which we took.

For us, because of where we started, it was about 3 miles to the lake and up the usual grunt out of the meadow, just shy of 1000′ elevation gain. Once up and out of the forest, it’s really, really pretty.

I already knew I was not likely to join Peter and Jim on their adventure.. I was going to decide when we got to the lake, and brought a book just in case.

Here’s Elizabeth Lake. What they are going to do is leave the trail and head toward that nub, Unicorn Peak’s northern notch. They are planning to go through those trees on the right, and once out on that granite, contour around somewhere below the notch and hope to run into Budd Lake on the other side. It’s all open and granite-y. Then, they’re going to explore the Budd Lake area before heading back down on the Budd Lake fisherman’s trail, a trail we’ve taken 4-5 times.. it’s a long, sometimes steep, decent back down to the meadow, following the drainage from Budd Lake (with some great waterfalls and narrow gorges). It’s a great trail, not hugely used.

So they took off, and I hung out at the lake and ambled around the creek area for a while. I love that kind of time alone in an area where I can’t get lost.. I sing a lot and talk to myself. And somehow, it’s always bigger and more vast when you’re alone. I saw a couple we’d all passed on the trail going up, then didn’t see anyone until I was near the bottom again. With the campgrounds and all park services closed, it was pretty void of people.

Once down to the car again, I grabbed a Crazy Creek chair and found a spot off the Soda Springs trail with a view of the meadow, and read Little Fires Everywhere. It was actually chilly and windy, so I bundled up. It was extremely cozy and I was ecstatic to have that time to just read in such a treasured spot. My view:

And me (I somehow managed to break my sunglasses!) It’s not like there were people around, but the mask kept my face warm.

The real story of the day, however, was not my glasses, my view or the novel I was reading. Jim and Peter were having more of an adventure than they bargained for.

Here’s what it looked like as they began their ascent out of the Elizabeth Lake area. And you can also see that what appeared, from the lake, to be great slabs of granite, wasn’t at all.. the terrain was more like giant boulder fields and talus.

They got some great views. This is looking back on Elizabeth Lake:

This is looking north toward where we started in Tuolumne Meadows. That prominent white mass in the middle of those trees is Lembert Dome.

I like this one of Peter, making himself comfortable on a rock:

Unbeknownst to them — and you never really know what you’ll encounter when you’re off trail, unless you’re plotting your course carefully with a detailed topo map — they’d picked a route around Unicorn that was not easily passable. They’d gone high, hoping to gain and hold elevation early, but got cliffed out a number of times and had to backtrack and re-route.

Even though it wasn’t that far as the crow flies, it took them hours and hours to get to Budd Lake, but they finally did.

But not before they had to negotiate a few dicey descents:

Jim would tell this story better than I will here, but I do know that some portions of the adventure were easier for Peter than they were for Jim.. the 45-year age difference being what it is. Peter did some scouting and route-testing and then offered some much appreciated coaching–Peter, from far below, guiding Jim through a series of moves involving optimal hand and footholds. Which, from what I hear, worked out great!

And, once back down on terra firma, well around Unicorn Peak to the other side, they came across a set of no-name lakelettes. (Man.. this looks so pretty, I wish I had been with them.)

And here, finally, is Budd Lake:

I like this shot, too, with Peter in the photo for scale:

And that big hunka burning love in the distance is, of course, the iconic Cathedral Peak, the face of which Peter climbed last year — a 5-6-pitch climb. It’s not the hardest climb in the park, but it’s exposed and easily the most famous climb in the entire Tuolumne Meadows area. Definitely one for the memory books.

Such a great area! I don’t think they saw anybody up there for most of the day. If anybody at all.

Because of the route challenges, they got back down to the car at least two or three hours after I expected to see them. So by 6:00 or 7:00, I was pretty worried. I was working out where I was going to go (the Ranger Station) and when to do it, given the light remaining in the day (I figured they’d need good light for helicopter rescues). But none of that was needed, as they finally showed up. Yay.

But not without injury! Check this out:

It didn’t happen on one of their dicey descents, they weren’t attacked by mountain lions. This happened while walking on a solid trail on their way down. In fact, one of Tuolumne Meadows’ most traveled and well tamped trails.. the Cathedral Lake trail, which they decided to take because, given the hour, they could power down quickly.  Apparently, Jim was looking down and ran into a tree branch. It was a hefty enough branch that it gouged his head, even through his hat! And it bled a lot. The above photo was taken back at our campsite, after a few rounds of water and rags.

(I know, sorry.)

Here’s more of the clean up job:

And the bandaging job (first aid is not my forte):

But I’ll take credit for this: a solution for holding the bandage in place and a fashion statement:

Our last dinner was another round of rice and beans.. which, given how tired they were (at least Jim!), was just fine:

And we got a lovely evening, too.

We survived our second night in the tent. With some pillow (“pillow”) and sleeping pad adjustments, night two was a lot more comfortable than night one.

See how refreshed Jim looks?

This may be my all-time favorite picture of Jim. Something about that look.

It was a startlingly clear and gorgeous morning.. these don’t come close to conveying the sharpness of the light… but here are a couple shots anyway:

The breakfast scene:

And how happy am I that Peter’s doing the dishes? (Super happy.)

He gets to come next year, too.

For a new hike, Jim found an area we’d heard about for decades but had never been to… this seemed like a good year for it: Ten Lakes Basin. You drive west, all the way out of Tuolumne Meadows, past Olmsted, past May Lake turnoff, past Porcupine Flat, past a whole bunch of other turns in the road and finally get to Yosemite Creek. If you get to White Wolf, you’ve gone too far. There’s a small trailhead there for Ten Lakes Basin.

For family stories documentation’s sake, I will briefly describe .. an incident: About half a mile in, we couldn’t remember if we’d locked the car.. nobody could remember hearing the beep. Peter volunteered to go back and check. He left his backpack with us and began jogging back down the trail. Jim and I decide we’ll press on; Peter can catch us up trail a bit, we thought.  I swung his backpack over mine and off we went. An hour goes by and no Peter. We decide to stop and wait. There is nobody on this trail.. except finally we see an old guy (one we’d seen in the parking lot at the trailhead) slowly lumbering up the hill. He tells us he’d seen Peter. Peter asked if the old man had seen us, he hadn’t. This worried Peter, so he went back to the car, thinking we’d gone off trail to pee maybe, then headed back to find him. Or something. Peter, not finding us at the car, and somewhat panicked about our safety, headed back up the trail. At this point, Jim had decided to head back to the car (we were now probably two miles up the trail when he turned around). They met one another somewhere in between. Peter was pissed and worried, then pissed and relieved, Jim was contrite, I was oblivious. I had been worried, but when I saw him, that turned to elation, then a bit of surprise, followed by some defensiveness, then contrition. There was lots of second guessing on everyone’s part. Each of us had a different logic behind our respective choices and conclusions. We talked a lot about all the shoulda’s and about the importance of communication and we agreed that Peter was more right about this one than we were. We redistributed backpacks and started out again, not talking for about a mile. Then things got back to normal.

(Postscript: the reason the car didn’t beep was that my keys were still inside, tucked inside my purse, buried out of sight. Jim had his keys in his backpack. In fact, you can’t lock the car when the key is inside, any of the car’s keys, even if someone outside, with his own key, wishes to lock the car. Take note.)

The first couple miles of this trail offered some great open granite vistas with Yosemite creek cutting through the canyon. The next bunch of miles were largely forested. A neato tree…

With fuzzy bark:

This meadow, about 5 miles in, maybe, was glorious:

It’s 6-ish miles to the pass, maybe 1500 feet of gain.. not bad, except most of that is at the end on the pull up to the pass (700-800′ in about .8 of a mile). It’s a grind. I pulled up the rear. I am getting used to this, but don’t like it. Vowing to lose some weight and work on more leg strength.

Our plan was to go to Grant Lake, another mile off the pass (and down about 400 feet). We’d heard (from Bob, I believe his name was.. the older guy, from Albany, as it turns out) that once at the pass, before you drop into the Ten Lakes Basin (a different direction from Grant Lake), there is an outcropping where you can go for a spectacular view. We decided to do this.

Here’s the view:

That is looking east, down on the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne.

Our lunch spot:

And this is the view south; you can see one of the lakes in Ten Lakes Basin (I hear there aren’t ten lakes.. but that seems odd).

A cute one of Peter.. eating lunch..

Another view with lakes:

A view back up to the pass. You can see J&P ambling back toward the trail:

They decided they wanted to see Grant Lake. I brought a book, so decided I’d sit at the pass and read (see above comment about next year!). I hung out with this grouse…

and this marmot:

The old guy (and really, he wasn’t that old.. just 70), Bob, made it to the pass by this point (we’d passed him again on the trail once we started up again). He was planning on staying out for a few days in the basin. He sat for quite awhile and chatted (at great distance, by the way, due to Covid concerns). That’s where I got a bit of his story. Very nice guy. Besides Bob, we saw only one other threesome of hikers. In a full day of hiking in Yosemite…

This is Jim’s photo of Peter at Grant Lake. Bummed to miss it (see comment above about next year!) …

After Jim and Peter climbed out of the Grant Lake area and got back to me at the pass, we headed down. Power hiked. This is my strength.. and I had all kinds of juice left. That, at least, felt good!

Passed through that sweet meadow in the late afternoon (no mosquitoes this trip.. a few, but nothing bad):

Some bear scat along the way…

Stopped for Jim to deal with a hot spot.. and hung out on this cool log…

Got back in time for a lovely, sunset. No rain this afternoon, but a cold evening!  Beautiful sunset:

And a late dinner in the dark…  pasta with yellow peppers:

Rise and shine! We have hiking to do!

I’m forgetting now (since I’m writing this a month later and backfilling all my missed blogs over the last month) how cold the nights got.. but somewhere in the 40s. The tent was warm, especially inside down bags (not to mention there were three of us in a small space exhaling hot air. But, wow, as the sun started rising and warming everything up, it was shirt sleeves by about 8am.

Here’s Jim by the river that ran besides our camp spot…

Coffee and oatmeal and granola and apples…

Staying outside the park meant driving in through the Tioga gate daily, which was a bit of an ordeal — which is to say it was slow-going as the whole park entry procedure was adapted for covid purposes — and usually took us 15-30 minutes.

But, we also got to enter the park through the Tioga gate.. and that’s pretty sweet because you get this outstanding start to your day..

(Though… are you noticing those clouds building already?)

On our first hiking day, we had to pay homage to our beloved Tuolumne Meadows tent cabins.  I admit to begin apprehensive about seeing them in their down state.

For good reason:

That’s the lodge! Yikes..

And here’s Peter actually climbing up to the roof of the kitchen.. this shot taken from inside the lodge looking up through the ceiling..

We figured we’d get our annual cabin shot. Here are Jim and Peter on sitting on the stoop of our favorite cabin #5…

It’s both pathetic and brilliantly traditional. Look for it on a Christmas card…

Here are a pair of lovely shots of Pothole Dome one down the meadow, the other close up. Hardly any cars on the road. The popular trailheads had lots of folks, but only hikers were around .. not the drive through folks

We decided to climb up to Cathedral Lakes from the lower Cathedral lake drainage, starting at Tenaya Lake. It was strange because there was hardly anybody at the lake — usually that’s one of the larger gathering places for summer visitors to the Tuolumne Meadows part of the park. So.. a quiet, empty lake:

Peter starting out on the trail..

A great shot of Pywiak Dome..which Peter climbed with Toren, Meredith and Toren’s dad last summer.

And then, off trail, in the drainage, heading up the slabs:

Looking back toward Tenaya Lake, and you can see a bit of Pywiak on the right..

The clouds were ominous, we started hearing thunder, seeing lightning…

We kept going and go fairly close to the lake..but then the drops started.. hiked most of the way back in a light rain… light enough to eat lunch by the lake.  It was a 6-mile day.. good enough for a first day’s acclimation, though we’d have liked to spend a lot more time exploring areas up by the lakes. Also… we saw a couple families around Tenaya, but not a soul after that.

By the time we set up for dinner, the rain had stopped.

Peter and I had our nightly gin rummy and appetizers.. and Turkovich’s The Boss.

This was a beans (baked) and rice (Lundberg’s parmesan) night. Lots of reading and a good night’s sleep.

We did it! We made it out the door. Took Peter’s car to Hoffman’s, got coffee in West Sac and hit the road sometime before noon. I only wish I’d gotten a shot of the car: about as stuffed as a car can get! No views out the side or back windows and a bit of carved out airspace for Peter in the backseat. A brief stop in Copperopolis and gas in Crane Flat, then we got to the gate:

So the way it worked was, you could access the national park — drive through, stop and hike, even backpack — but there were no services, no open stores, no campgrounds, no tent cabins. There were rangers staffing the gates and the ranger stations. The PCT and JMT were open for through hikers. The trailheads were semi-crowded with cars, but the roads were sparse. Reservations were required for park access; we made ours for a week. This meant we could come and go every day, though we had to “check in” on the day our reservation began (or lose it altogether).

We were apprehensive: what would Yosemite look like without people? If we did encounter people, would it be safe? Would everyone honor the guidelines?

We were also apprehensive because we were taking our chances that we’d find a camp spot. We wanted one as close to the Tioga gate as possible, to give us good access to all the high country hikes we wanted to take. So we didn’t dawdle once we got in. I took this picture of Tuolumne Meadows through a rain-spattered window. It felt like home, and we were all feeling sentimental, but we kept going.

We made our way through to the eastern side and once out of the park again, started looking for places. Tioga Lake campground and Junction were full. The sign at Ellery Lake (within a couple miles of other other two and less than five minutes down the hill from the Tioga gate) said full, but Peter saw what he thought was a clearing, so we checked it out, and sure enough camp space #3 was open!

We got in, paid the camp host ($12 bucks!) and began to set our campsite up.

The rain was gone… This is a view to the east, from our campsite.

Peter took off to climb Lembert Dome.. his annual arrival ritual, while Jim and I set everything else up, stashed food in the bear box, and got things ready for dinner.

Peter got back, had some apps…

Then dinner: sauteed polenta, artichoke garlic chicken sausages, spinach, tomato sauce and wine, and chocolate cake for dessert.

Not too bad for our inaugural dinner. We started to relax….

… enjoyed a gorgeous sunset, then went to bed early!

In the interest of Covid-19, we were going to sleep in separate tents, but in the end, decided to roll the dice and hope that none of had the virus (which, as I write this blog three weeks later, I can confirm that we did not). We’d already begun to let our guards down in Davis.. and certainly on the 5-hour drive to Yosemite.. so in for a penny, in for a pound became our guide.

• Everything these days is “in the time of covid.”

Day #3 of Peter being home …

… and we are sca-rambling to pull it all together for a camping trip  (leave tomorrow, as early as we can push off).  Packing for our annual Yosemite trip involves the usual assembling of mountains of hiking and outdoor gear .. but since we’re camping this year instead of staying in tent cabins, preparing for this trip also included the excavating of long-stored camping bins (that have moved all over the place during the last year because of the house and garage remodel). We had to empty the bins and assess .. so that was yet another layer of organizing.

We are fine-tuning our strategies both for what we’ll take for an estimated five days (estimated because, I mean, what if we hate camping? Or can’t find a camp spot, or the mosquitoes are bad or the forests start burning…) and how in the world we’ll get it all into the car. This undertaking also includes meal planning .. which .. we’re finding ourselves sort of unprepared for.

[Jim and I are apparently in denial that we are actually camping, after two decades of tent cabins. Glamping, some call it — a bed, a wood burning stove, a bathroom with showers and electricity, all meals prepared (and cleaned up) by lodge chefs and helpful staff — is just very nice.. but not to be during a global pandemic.]

And… because Peter’s just come home, we were also dealing with great piles of unwashed clothing and even greater piles of belongings spilling out of Peter’s room and strewn throughout the hallway, his bathroom, the living room, kitchen and laundry room… stuff he’d accumulated over his four years at UCSD.

Shocked I don’t have a photo of all this.

So, anyway. In the middle of this house pandemonium and camping mobilizing, Peter says he’s got to send a photo off to UMich for his student ID card. Could we please take a nice photo? That was a lot more fun, I gotta say. Took many dozens, in different shirts, with different backgrounds and even different cameras.

I think he went with the upper right one.

It’s still so nice to have this guy around:

We took a nice walk today and ended up at Mishka’s for coffee and so much fun conversation. I treasure this.

Tonight, a tiny celebration.. a split of prosecco, some chocolate cake.. and, at long last opened a few cards from family and friends:

And a toast: graduation, a job well done!

Aww… my guys.